BookDragon

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw [in Booklist]

17 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Debut author Deesha Philyaw’s 2020 National Book Award finalist in fiction gets an almost (we can just ignore those minor, clumsy production glitches) flawless performance from prolific, expert Janina Edwards. Throughout the nine consistently superb stories, Edwards adapts effortlessly between mothers and daughters, friends...

In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Véronique Tadjo (Far from My Father) could not have known how prescient her novel, originally published in France in 2017, would be just a few years later when it was translated for English readers. In the Company of Men gives polyphonic voice to those affected by...

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto [in Booklist]

15 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Indonesian American, Repost, Singaporean American

Murder is never funny, except when it is. In Jesse Q. Sutanto’s rollicking debut, which she describes in a “Dear reader” foreword as “a love letter to my family – a ridiculously large bunch with a long history of immigration,” a fatal accident begets family...

Asadora! (vol. 1) by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Once upon a 1960s screentime, Japan’s NHK broadcast serial dramas in the mornings, a genre called “renzoku terebi shōsetsu,” literally “continuing TV novel,” shortened to “asadora,” meaning “morning drama.” Legendary Naoki Urasawa ingeniously riffs on the bygone genre, replacing “terebi” with “manga” to create Renzoku manga shōsetsu...

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han [in Booklist]

11 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Jack is the older brother to six-years-younger Annabel, but in many ways, he’s the newest among the Cheng family. Born in China, he was raised by his grandparents when his mother, Patty, left to pursue a physics PhD in the U.S. with his photographer father,...

Prayer for the Living by Ben Okri [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Nigerian, Repost, Short Stories

Best known for the 1991 Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road, Nigerian author Ben Okri has maintained a prolific output of lauded fiction, poetry, and essays. His provocative collection, Prayer for the Living, presents 24 stories and a single poem that include previously published pieces from...

Girls of a Certain Age: Stories by Maria Adelmann [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Teens and young adult women populate the majority of Girls of a Certain Age, an intriguing first collection by Maria Adelmann. At least eight of these 13 stories were previously published as early as 2014, many in prestigious literary journals. As with many debuts, Girls proves...

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro [in Booklist]

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Indian, Indian American, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

International headlines about the 2012 Delhi rape victim exposed the Indian megacity as “the rape capital of the world,” spurring award-winning journalist Sonia Faleiro (Beautiful Thing, 2012) to “find out, and to gather my findings in a book-length study of rape in India.” She finds...

Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-winning Canadian Japanese novelist/poet Hiromi Goto (Half World, 2010) makes her stupendous graphic debut, in splendid artistic synchronization with Ignatz-nominated Ann Xu. “It never felt right here,” Kumiko thinks as she sneaks out of an assisted-living facility her daughters thought would be the...

To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss [in Booklist]

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Repost, Short Stories

Nicole Krauss hasn’t audiobooked since joining an all-star cast for the aural adaptation of Etgar Keret’s collection, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (2012). She is clearly an ideal choice for narrating her own writing in this, her full aural debut, with her collection examining and...

Proceed with Caution by Patricia Ratto, translated by Andrea G. Labinger [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, South American, Translation

Proceed with Caution is the title of this collection as well as one of the stories in it. Readers might also take the phrase as warning: nothing is quite what it seems in Argentinian Patricia Ratto's fascinating English-language debut. Translated by retired Spanish professor and...

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé [in Booklist]

02 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Back in 1977, “Anacostia was still the New World, an isle of blood and desire.” In Washington, DC-native Morowa Yejidé’s (Time of the Locust, 2014) moody, bleak sophomore title, boundaries between the living and the dead are indiscernible. Once upon a time, Nephthys and Osiris...

A Sweet Mess by Jayci Lee [in Booklist]

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Before Jayci Lee’s latest even hit shelves, Lost/Hawaii Five-0 heartthrob Daniel Dae Kim optioned the rom-com as producer and star. Before Kim goes celluloid, narrator Natalie Naudus whets your appetite with this delectably sweet happily-ever-after affair. With his borrowed car broken down in tiny Weldon, California, celebrity food critic...

Trout, Belly Up by Rodrigo Fuentes, translated by Ellen Jones [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latin American, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Not until the last of this ingenious seven-story collection do readers get the most intimate glimpse of Don Henrik, and even then, only through the lens of his not-quite stepson. Henrik, however, is the single connecting character in Rodrigo Fuentes's U.S. debut, Trout, Belly...

The Parakeet by Espé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

28 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Penn State University Press, already a publisher of award-winning graphic titles, launches a new imprint, Graphic Mundi, showcasing comics intent on “drawing our worlds together.” Among its inaugural line-up is French comics artist Espé’s spectacular, autobiographically inspired homage to a childhood haunted by mental...

Fathoms: The World in the Whale By Rebecca Giggs [in Booklist]

27 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

For much of the 12 hours here, prolific Shiromi Arserio’s crisp-yet-soft, melodic-but-never-sing-songy voice seems just right for narrating Australian journalist Rebecca Giggs’ stupendous cetacean debut. The London native’s aural transfer to Down Under is mostly convincing, but when she moves beyond English, her fluency stumbles...

Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

That Danielle Geller survived to write Dog Flowers seems miraculous. Her raw debut might need a content warning: abandonment, alcoholism, attempted suicide, domestic violence, parental incarcerations, family deaths – much of which is intrinsically linked to her enigmatic, missing mother. In bearing elegiac witness to...

Parenthesis by Élodie Durand, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

22 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

At 24, “in 1994, or maybe 1995 already,” French artist Élodie Durand first began experiencing symptoms – what her family would later call her “spells” – that included abrupt memory loss and erratic behavior, such as baseless rage and violent outbursts. Her diagnosis of epilepsy...

Rabbit Island by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney [in Booklist]

20 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Spanish, Translation

Spare in pages, Elvira Navarro’s collection of 11 short stories proves dense with disconnection, dysfunction, and dismay as families fray, couples sunder, and animals are brutalized. Set between the seemingly familiar and elusively surreal, Navarro’s tales unsettle readers through oneiric landscapes. In “Rabbit Island,” a non-inventor...

The Adoption by Zidrou, illustrated by Arno Monin, translated by Jeremy Melloul [in Booklist]

19 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW “They wanted to start a family, and now they’ve destroyed one,” Gabriel laments. When that family – including his closest friends – all gathered for a surprise party for his 75th birthday, Gabriel was still a grandfather to beloved Qinaya, adopted by his son,...

BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader