BookDragon

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat [in Booklist]

*STARRED REVIEW Following The Art of Death (2017), a reflection on her mother’s passing and writing, Edwidge Danticat focuses this haunting eight-story collection on, well, death. Looming death becomes a bargaining chip in “Dosas,” when an ex-husband begs his ex-wife to help save her kidnapped replacement, and in “In the Old...

A Song for China by Ange Zhang [in Booklist]

18 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Fifteen years ago, Toronto-based artist Ange Zhang debuted Red Land Yellow River (2004), a gorgeous, hauntingly rendered autobiography about coming-of-age during China’s Cultural Revolution, marked by incomprehensible, chaotic, threatening change. The beloved father he introduced then becomes the subject in this book, its title a...

At Dusk by Sok-yong Hwang, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

17 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In just over a year, three Sok-yong Hwang titles – Familiar Things (2018), Princess Bari (2019), and this novel – have arrived Stateside, each indelibly, adroitly anglophoned by Seoul-based Sora Kim-Russell. Lauded by Nobelist Kenzaburō Ōe as “undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the...

Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Just about everything is new for Zenobia: she's moved to a new state (from Arizona to Maine) and is starting at a new middle school. She recently lost her widowed father, and is getting used to her new guardians, Aunt Lucy and her wife, Aunt...

Immigrant Heritage Month by the Book(s)! [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Moroccan American, Nonfiction, Repost, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

June is #ImmigrantHeritageMonth, which began in 2014 and has been recognized and celebrated by the (Obama) White House as “a time to celebrate diversity and immigrants’ shared American heritage” since 2015. “Immigration,” the White House declares, “is part of the DNA of this great nation.” Perhaps now more than ever...

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Without names, these people, this island, could be anyone, anywhere. As fantastical as the premise of her latest Anglophoned novel seems, Yoko Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor, 2009) intends exactly that universality. Initially, small things disappeared – “Ribbon, bell, emerald, stamp.” What didn’t just...

Penguin Classics Adds Four Books by Asian Americans to the Canon [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

With four books by Asian American authors, Penguin Classics finally recognizes a long-overlooked genre of American literary and cultural tradition. During the first week that the film adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club hit screens across the United States in 1993, I sat in...

The Parrot and the Merchant by Marjan Vafaeian, translated by Azita Rassi [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Persian, Repost, Translation

An avid collector, Persian merchant Mah Jahan's most precious possessions are her birds. Despite her devotion, "she kept them in cages or chains so that they couldn't fly away and leave her." Most beloved is "a beautiful bright parrot," favored because "the parrot had learned...

Electrifying Reads from the Other Side of the World: Seven Korean Thrillers in Translation [in The Booklist Reader]

30 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Lists, Repost, Translation

Despite my Korean heritage, I don’t read the language well enough to enjoy Korea’s latest, greatest titles. Thankfully, notable Korean-to-English translators, especially Sora Kim-Russell, Deborah Smith, and Chi-Young Kim, enable all Anglophone audiences to discover – and for many of us, become ardent fans of...

The Structure Is Rotten, Comrade by Viken Berberian, illustrated by Yann Kebbi [in Booklist]

23 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Professor Frunz isn’t much of a teacher – nor are his students particularly engaged. While he rushes through an architectural tour of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, one student repeatedly asks which details will be on the midterm while another plots how she’ll become the next, Pritzker...

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim + Author Interview [in Bloom]

21 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

“I’m still getting used to the idea of being a writer”: Q&A with Angie Kim True confession: A few years ago, our mutual friend, the writer Marie Myung-Ok Lee (not a Bloomer – Marie had a first-ever YA fiction multi-book deal with a major publisher in...

Travelers by Helon Habila [in Booklist]

20 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, European, Fiction, Repost

Reminiscent of Arthur Schnitzler’s late-19th-century play La Ronde (and the dozens of multi-genre adaptations since), Helon Habila’s (Oil on Water, 2011) fourth novel is a round-the-world journey that links disparate, desperate strangers. An unnamed African history scholar (his PhD pending) and his American wife, Gina, relocate from Arlington,...

14 #OwnVoices Mysteries for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month [in The Booklist Reader]

17 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Pan-Asian Pacific American, South Asian American, Taiwanese American, Vietnamese American

Ready for some double duty? As you may know, May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (woo-hoo! happy me!). Additionally, May is also #MysteryMonth at Booklist. To celebrate, here’s a list that hasn’t been done before on The Booklist Reader: mysteries and thrillers by #OwnVoices APA writers. I know, such...

Internment by Samira Ahmed [in Booklist]

15 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Much like the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent imprisoned during WWII by FDR’s Executive Order 9066, Muslim Americans are rounded up and incarcerated in an alternate, albeit all-too-familiar U.S. following the 2016 presidential election. Seventeen-year-old Layla and her parents are forcibly removed from their Los...

Song of Arirang by Kim San and Nym Wales, edited by George O. Totten and Dongyoun Hwang [in Booklist]

09 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Korean, Nonfiction, Repost

He’s had almost two dozen names, yet his story was forgotten for 40 years. More recently, despite their violent 20th-century histories, four countries – China, Japan, and his native Korea, now cleaved into North and South – all claim him as a local hero. Perhaps best...

Audio Picks for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month [in School Library Journal]

08 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Indian American, Iranian, Iranian American, Korean American, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

May is Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. Why May? The first Japanese people immigrated to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad – built mostly with immigrant Chinese labor – was completed on May 10, 1869. In 1977, Congressional legislation...

Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution. by Rob Sanders, illustrated by Jamey Christoph [in Shelf Awareness]

06 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Two side-by-side 1840s stable houses in New York City's Greenwich Village initially boarded "the horses of the affluent." In the century-plus since, the neighborhood welcomed immigrants from around the world, and matured into "the creative center of New York City." In 1930, the double buildings...

Newcomer [Detective Kaga series] by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray [in Booklist]

03 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

P.J. Ochlan returns to voice the internationally bestselling Japanese author’s latest to arrive Stateside. Previously the voice of Detective Galileo in another series by Keigo Higashino, Ochlan assumes the second of the Detective Kyoichiro Kaga series following Malice in 2014. With Higashino’s signature vast casts, Ochlan’s...

The Last Word: Audios of Posthumously Published Books [in Booklist]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, British, European, Fiction, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

The one thing in life that’s guaranteed is, well, death. But books are certainly a lasting legacy. And sometimes, when we get the books after their creator has passed on, an audiobook can breathe life into the text, animating from beyond. Here, we have a handful...

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

The eerie chill factor proves unrelenting throughout Sophie Mackintosh’s 2018 debut, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and is further intensified by three formidable narrators who take turns revealing the dissolution of an isolated, splintered family. Grace, Lia, and Sky are three daughters – their...

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