Repost Archives - Page 87 of 148

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, Kabuki Goddesses, Porn Queens, Poets, Housewives, Makeup Artists, Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines by William T. Vollmann [in Library Journal]

01 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Japanese, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Vollmann (Imperial; Europe Central), who has tackled an astonishing array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction, here explores female beauty – its creation and consumption– with a spotlight on highly stylized traditional Japanese Noh theater. Because male actors wearing strictly codified masks perform all Noh roles, men,...

Long for This World by Sonya Chung [in Library Journal]

16 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The title of Sonya Chung’s exquisite novel, Long for This World, seems to be missing a word: “not long for this world” would be the easy, expected phrase. But little is ‘easy’ or ‘expected’ in this multilayered story of two brothers – one Korean,...

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Which...

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker [in Christian Science Monitor]

30 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Sri Lankan

Three weeks after 9/11, University of Arizona professor Adele Barker arrived in Sri Lanka as a senior Fulbright Scholar to teach Russian literature, feminist literary theory, and American literature to select students at the University of Peradeniya. But her own education about the history and...

Publisher Profile: Madras Press [in Bookslut]

08 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

A Quartet of Unsalable Gems: Madras Press Debuts Series One A modern eco-fable about an almost-royal swan and just-a-common-bluebird couple whose lives intersect with a miner and a logger who turn away from their destructive careers… a contemporary fairy tale about a witch with one heck...

Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship by Denise Chong [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost

Denise Chong has built an award-winning career capturing ordinary people living extraordinary lives. The Concubine’s Children (1994) told of her own family’s fractured journey from China to Canada and The Girl in the Picture (2000) detailed the harrowing story of the young girl whose screaming,...

A Good Fall by Ha Jin [in Library Journal]

15 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

With an enviable literary reputation built on award-winning titles set in China, poet/novelist/short story writer Jin recently debuted his first U.S.-based novel, A Free Life, about the Americanization of a Chinese immigrant family. While the 12 stories in his latest release continue to explore familiar...

Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp by Xianhui Yang, translated by Wen Huang [in Library Journal]

21 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Since the 1980s, Chinese writers determined to bear witness to the atrocities of Mao’s Communist regime have bypassed censorship by writing “documentary literature,” blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Drawing on 100-plus interviews, Xianhui Yang’s 13 thinly disguised stories chronicle the brutality of the Jiabiangou...

Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie [in San Francisco Chronicle]

17 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

If you see a book cover with the name Dai Sijie on it, read the book. Dai's delightful 2001 debut, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, about two young boys who discover a love for literature while sequestered in a re-education camp during Mao's Cultural Revolution,...

Delhi Noir edited by Hirsh Sawhney [in San Francisco Chronicle]

11 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Indian, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian

Whenever my kids start singing "Crazy Kiya Re," still one of their favorite songs after multiple trips to India, I find myself having to leave the room. Since reading the 14-story anthology Delhi Noir, I can't disassociate the Bollywood hit from the police officer who...

I Loves Yous Are for White People: A Memoir by Lac Su [in San Francisco Chronicle]

02 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

Lac Su is a survivor of things so harrowing that just recounting some of those experiences, even from the distance of a keyboard tapping out a review of his memoir, I Love Yous Are for White People, makes the heart wince. As a 5-year-old immigrant to...

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

13 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

I've gotten so spoiled that I have to have Malcolm Gladwell read his books to me [in true groupie mode, we not only have the audible.com download, turns out we also own two copies of Tipping, including one that's actually been signed by Gladwell!]. As this is the...

Once the Shore: Stories by Paul Yoon [in San Francisco Chronicle]

27 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Short Stories

I have to say it: ‘Yoon’ rhymes with ‘swoon’ for a reason! ...

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle]

17 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, European, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

Geoff Dyer's latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here's the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, "Jeff in Venice," London journalist...

When the Moon Forgot by Jimmy Liao, English text adapted by Sarah L. Thomson [in Bloomsbury Review]

08 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

When the moon fails to rise one night – and continues to stay away – many moons are manufactured so everyone can have one of their own. But only one boy carefully nurtures his moon which beams with the boy’s unwavering love, until eventually, the...

Claire and the Bakery Thief and Claire and the Water Wish by Janice Poon [in Bloomsbury Review]

08 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

City-girl Claire reluctantly moves to the country, where her parents open an all-organic bakery. During her first summer in the country, she saves her kidnapped mother with the help of her new best friend Jet. When the school year begins, she helps expose toxic dumping...

Japanese American Resettlement through the Lens: Hikaru Carl Iwasaki and the WRA’s Photographic Section, 1943-1945 by Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, photographs by Hikaru Carl Iwasaki, foreword by Norman Y. Mineta [in Bloomsbury Review]

08 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Nonfiction, Repost

Amazingly, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), managed to generate some 17,000 photos of Americans of Japanese ancestry who spent the majority of the duration of World War II in prison camps for little more than looking like the enemy. Of these photos, Hirabayashi looks at the...

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun [in Bloomsbury Review]

07 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Nami Mun’s debut is the disturbing but ultimately hopeful story of runaway Joon, a Korean American teenager whose father abandons the family, whose mother loses her sanity, who must somehow navigate homelessness, drug addiction, and sexual abuse to survive the unprotected streets of 1980s New...

Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger [in Bloomsbury Review]

06 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Four days after 9/11, a man wearing a turban shows up on Samar’s doorstep – and turns out to be her uncle. After years of estrangement, he’s determined to reunite the fractured family – and in the process teach Sam about her Sikh American heritage....

Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma [in Bloomsbury Review]

06 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The SI boys gather some of the top names in Asian American pop culture to present a unique anthology of the Asian American experience – complete with masked crusaders, caped champions, and even everyday heroes. Together, they’re making our ever-morphing, multi-culti American future a safer,...

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