BookDragon

The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees by Don Brown [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Young Adult Readers

The Unwanted’s first two images couldn't be more jarring: on the title page, a hijab-wearing woman raises her hand to her face in overwhelming distress; a turn of the page reveals a girl holding flowers, smiling back over her shoulder as she walks across a...

A Tokyo Romance: A Romance by Ian Buruma [in Library Journal]

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“Japan shaped me when the plaster was still wet,” writes New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma. In his mid-20s in 1975, the Dutch-born Buruma, who is half English and half German Jew, arrived in Tokyo to study film at Nihon University College of...

The Caregiver by Samuel Park [in Booklist]

13 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Latin American, Repost

At 26, Mara is the titular caregiver for a lonely woman in her early 40s with stomach cancer, who insists she’ll bequeath Mara her exclusive Bel Air home upon her impending death. Mara is already too familiar with loss, having grown up in Rio de...

Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower by Roseann Lake [in Library Journal]

08 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

With a superb blend of historical, cultural, socioeconomic reportage, and plenty of engaging real-life stories, The Economist’s Cuba correspondent Roseann Lake alchemizes her five years in Beijing into a lively first book about the fate and future of China’s accomplished, independent, powerful – and unmarried – women. Over the last...

There There by Tommy Orange [in Library Journal]

06 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “[B]eing able to understand where we came from, what happened to our people, and how to honor them by living right, by telling our stories” could be goals for any community – but the words are especially resonant for debut novelist Tommy Orange’s sprawling Native American cast: “the world is...

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell [in Library Journal]

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Irish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Cats may have nine lives, but Maggie O’Farrell, who won the Costa Book Award for The Hand That First Held Mine, has had 17, as revealed in this stupendous collection of essays named for various body parts that have caused her near demise. Her...

The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam [in Library Journal]

01 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Nonfiction, Repost

Within the first few minutes, the chameleonic Adjoa Andoh quickly grabs listeners' attention with the high-pitched ululating trilling that will repeat throughout the almost 10 hours of narration here. Ethiopian Canadian journalist Edemariam couldn't have found a better narrator to embody her late nonagenarian grandmother,...

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea [in Library Journal]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Despite the title, the Angels here are more damaged than broken, with even a promise of salvation – more than less – by title's end. Narrated by Luis Alberto Urrea (The Water Museum), who has magnificently recorded most of his audio adaptations, this House...

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard, iIllustrated by Cécile Brun, translated by Marie S. Velde [in Booklist]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

In fall 2014, Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard (fictional versions of the artists who comprise Atelier Sentō) traveled to Niigata Prefecture on Japan’s west coast. To escape the rain, they duck into a dimly lit shop, where they discover a camera that can allegedly “shoot...

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah [in Library Journal]

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

Meet the Allbrights: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-afflicted Vietnam War returnee Ernt, his perennially in-denial wife Cora, and mature-beyond-her-years teenager Leni. Bequeathed a remote homestead in 1974 by a fallen army buddy, Ernt relocates his family to wild, remote Alaska, chasing dreams of self-sufficiency and simple...

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig [in Library Journal]

25 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Tom Hazard has a condition that's not in any official medical journal. Referred to in the 1890s as "anageria with a soft g," Tom – who was born in March 1581! – is still very much alive, currently working as a London schoolteacher, and appears...

Shadow Child by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto [in Library Journal]

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hawaiian, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

Dreading her twin sister Keiko's visit from Hawai'i, Hanako deliberately delays returning to her Manhattan apartment, but when she does, she finds Kei in the shower, unconscious from a mysterious attack. While Kei lies comatose in the hospital, Hana recalls their inseparable, even interchangeable childhoods...

Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar [in Library Journal]

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction, Vassar English professor/journalist Amitava Kumar’s (Husband of a Fanatic) second novel is a hybrid text that moves seamlessly between his partially autobiographically-inspired Indian immigrant graduate student Kailash and numerous real-life figures and events. Kailash arrived in New York as...

When the Cousins Came by Katie Yamasaki [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Repost

"The night before the cousins came, [Lila] couldn't sleep," anticipating the fun she'd have with fellow "big kids" Rosie and Takeo. As soon as they arrive, Lila notices differences: unlike her own "two flat braids," Rosie has "two puffy balls on top of her head"...

Japanese Folktales: Classic Stories from Japan’s Enchanted Past by Yei Theodora Ozaki, foreword by Lucy Fraser [in Booklist]

19 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Nasty neighbors, otherworldly children, and malevolent monsters populate some of the 22 traditional Japanese folktales in Ozaki’s century-old collection, reissued with an introduction by Australian academic Lucy Fraser. In her 1903 preface, Ozaki – whose father was Japanese, mother, English – that her “stories are not...

A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]

18 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

In Perfume Bay, a luxurious oasis just outside Los Angeles, pregnant Chinese women are pampered through the U.S. birth of precious progeny who will provide their parents with “a foothold in America.” Among the guests is factory-manager Scarlett Chen, sent to the U.S. to bear...

Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home by Sisonke Msimang [in Booklist]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Afghan, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South African

Before personal and political events finally allowed her to go “home” to South Africa, Sisonke Msimang spent her first 20-plus years in peripatetic exile. Born in Zambia, Msimang and her two younger sisters were “raised on a diet of communist propaganda and schooled in radical...

The Court Dancer by Kyung-sook Shin, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

16 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Man Asian Literary Prize-winning Kyung-sook Shin (The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, 2015) alchemizes a brief mention in a French diplomat’s book about his turn-of-the-century Korean tenure into a gorgeous epic that seamlessly combines history and fiction to create a hybrid masterpiece. In 1888, France’s first...

What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

'What We Were Promised' depicts post-Mao China in a deft debut novel set in Shanghai Beyond divisions of class, culture, and background, a single African ivory bracelet connects a Chinese American ex-pat family, their staff who enable their (over)privileged lives, and their left-behind Chinese families in...

My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder by Nie Jun, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

12 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW When young Yu’er laments, “People think I’m different,” her grandfather’s immediate response, “Oh, who cares what they think!” sets her free to be just that and more. She’s different because she’s physically challenged, but Grampa ensures her mobility via push cart, wooden chair on...

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