BookDragon

We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, illustrated by Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki [in Booklist]

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Three months after the Pearl Harbor bombings, rumors of racist mass eviction became reality when President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, unlawfully condemning 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps across the western U.S. Following political leaders spouting conspiracy...

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

14 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling Korean author Bora Chung is a genre-defying polyglot. She’s a Yale MA-ed, Indiana University PhD-ed translator of Russian and Polish modern literature into Korean who writes an amalgam of speculative, ghostly, literary horror fiction. Her glorious anglophone debut, enabled by award-winning Anton Hur,...

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi [in Booklist]

11 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

Nothing is quite what it seems – of course – in prodigious Helen Oyeyemi’s latest. The “starry-eyed young couple,” Otto and Xavier Shin, have committed to sharing the same last name without marrying. They’re embarking on a “non-honeymoon honeymoon” on a train trip gifted by...

Hard Like Water by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Booklist]

10 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

In China, notes Yan Lianke’s Anglophone enabler-of-choice Carlos Rojas, there exists “a literary subgenre known as ‘revolution plus love,’ which was popular ...

Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eunyoung, trans. by Sung Ryu [in Shelf Awareness]

08 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Women alone populate the extraordinary seven stories in Shoko's Smile by bestselling Korean author Choi Eunyoung, who makes her English-language debut, smoothly translated by Sung Ryu. From daughters to grandmothers, Choi's narrators remain in motion, not only physically but chronologically, each assessing significant past events...

Arsenic and Adobo [Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery 1] by Mia P. Manansala [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

When Lila Macapagal moves back to her small hometown, she has no idea she’ll have to solve a murder mystery in order to save her aunt’s restaurant. "Cozy mysteries," already a niche subgenre of crime fiction, contain yet another level of specialty: culinary cozy mysteries. For...

The Prodigal Daughter [A Linda Wallheim Mystery, Book 5] by Mette Ivie Harrison [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Mettie Ivie Harrison is no stranger to highlighting the complicated intricacies of the Utah Mormon communities in which she lives. Her bestselling Linda Wallheim mystery series unmasked domestic abuse in The Bishop's Wife; anti-LGBTQIA doctrines in His Right Hand; polygamous patriarchy in For Time and All Eternities; immigration...

Author Interview: BonHyung Jeong [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

BonHyung Jeong: Different Countries, Different Cultures, All Human Beings BonHyung Jeong makes her graphic novel debut with Kyle's Little Sister, from JY/Yen Press (June 22, 2021). Jeong's energetic title is a delightful middle-grade story that highlights the universal challenges of growing up, navigating friendships and overcoming a bit...

Kyle’s Little Sister by BonHyung Jeong [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

BonHyung Jeong, a Korea-born, internationally raised and U.S.-educated artist, astutely channels the universal experience of growing up – and sometimes growing away – in her delightfully boisterous middle-grade graphic novel debut, Kyle's Little Sister. For her entire life, Grace Bailey has "not once...

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd [in Shelf Awareness]

01 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW "Brutal" doesn't convey enough of the utter horror of Mieko Kawakami's sophomore import, Heaven. Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd, who enabled the stupendous success of Kawakami's English debut novel, Breasts and Eggs, Heaven further confirms Kawakami's superb literary ability to expose and...

You People by Nikita Lalwani [in Shelf Awareness]

31 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction, Repost

Nikita Lalwani's alternating narrators in her remarkable third novel, You People, seemingly have little in common beyond a shared place of employment: a London pizzeria with predominantly undocumented staff. Nia, a 19-year-old Welsh transplant escaping an abusive home life, was asked to leave Oxford University, where...

Little Victories: Autism Through a Father’s Eyes by Yvon Roy [in Shelf Awareness]

28 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Yvon Roy's autobiographical Little Victories opens with what must be one of the most charming visual depictions of conception. Mark (Roy's alter-ego) and Chloe's union proves "magnificent": their relationship is joyous, their newborn son the wished-for "mini-me." But 18 months later, Oliver "still hasn't said a...

Not Little by Maya Myers, illustrated by Hyewon Yum [in Shelf Awareness]

27 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Small and little do not mean the same thing. Ask the spunky protagonist of debut author Maya Myers's Not Little. Sure, she'll admit, "I am the smallest person in my family." And add, "Even my name is small: Dot." But whether at rest or play,...

On the Origin of Species and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort and Sora Kim-Russell [in Shelf Awareness]

26 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Seven stimulating short stories, plus a pithy "reflection" on breasts, comprise Kim Bo-Young's collection On the Origin of Species and Other Stories, translated from the Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort and Sora Kim-Russell. Lauded as one of Korea's most prominent science fiction writers, Kim insists her...

Among the Hedges by Sara Mesa, translated by Megan McDowell [in Shelf Awareness]

25 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Repost, Spanish, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Beyond familial bonds, is a relationship between an almost-14-year-old girl and a 54-year-old man possible? Intriguing Spanish writer Sara Mesa – who presented all manner of inappropriate relationships in Four by Four – continues to explore highly charged power dynamics in Among the Hedges, translated by...

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai [in Booklist]

24 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Athena-like, Lee Lai bursts onto the graphic scene fully formed and utterly realized with this jaw-dropping debut. Her stunning artistry and complex narrative skills prove inextricably stupendous in a story about all kinds of love – between lovers, of course, but also between complicated...

Lovesickness by Junji Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen [in Booklist]

21 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

In the almost-quarter-century since his manga debut, Junji Ito has undoubtedly ascended to world-renown for his prolific tales of horror. Translated into English by Jocelyne Allen, who also translated his Eisner-winning Frankenstein, Ito’s latest imported collection opens with the five-part titular “Lovesickness.” In relentlessly foggy Nazumi,...

Author Interview: Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Shelf Awareness]

20 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Canadian, Fiction, Latin American, Mexican, Repost

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: On Publishing, Racism, and a "Real Horror Story" Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a literary chameleon, successfully writing across genres, including speculative short fiction (This Strange Way of Dying), historical fantasy (The Beautiful Ones), magical realism (Gods of Jade and Snow) and horror (Mexican Gothic). She's also edited several anthologies, is the publisher of micro-indie...

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Shelf Awareness]

19 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Latin American, Mexican, Repost

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican Gothic) opens Velvet Was the Night with an epigraph quoting a June 1971 U.S. Department of State telegram about the Hawks, a murderous Mexican government-trained "shock group" supported by the CIA. She ends with this final sentence in her afterword: "My novel is noir,...

Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung [in Booklist]

18 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Perhaps what is most noticeable upon opening Pik-Shuen Fung’s elegiac debut is all the white space. Paragraphs, phrases, words, even detached letters float across the pages, undoubtedly an ethereal reflection of lost chances, missing time, stolen opportunities, and spaces impossible to fill. For most of...

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