BookDragon

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Dunya Mikhail [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning poet Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi exile who fled her homeland in 1996 and eventually settled in Michigan, makes her nonfiction debut with a hybrid text that combines reportage and personal memoir with the intention of giving voice to northern Iraqi women victims of Daesh...

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Leigh and best friend Axel "figure out what the other person's feeling" by asking "'What color?’": "carbazole violet" for silence, "burnt orange" for anger, "Prussian blue" for hurt. Their unexpected first kiss sets off a "whole goddamn spectrum" of feelings Leigh doesn't have time...

What a Wonderful Word by Nicola Edwards, illustrated by Luisa Uribe

26 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Earlier this year, the National Book Foundation announced the addition of a fifth National Book Award: the National Book Award for Translated Literature. The news made me positively giddy: such specific recognition feels long overdue because I'm convinced translators do some of the hardest literary...

Let’s No One Get Hurt by Jon Pineda + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

22 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

A Poet’s Novel: Jon Pineda talks LET’S NO ONE GET HURT Even a poetry dullard like me recognizes poet/memoirist/novelist Jon Pineda’s ability to do something spectacular with language. His lean sentences are surprisingly dense, as if to defy their brevity. Surely publishing three award-winning books of...

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Twelve-year-old Jerome was always "the good kid": "I've got troubles but I don't get in trouble." He's the son of a motel receptionist mother and sanitation officer father. His grandmother keeps house, so that he and his younger sister aren't home alone. At school, Jerome...

The Better Tree Fort by Jessica Scott Kerrin, illustrated by Qin Leng [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In Russell's new backyard stands a giant maple tree with "great big limbs and a trunk so wide, even Russell's dad could not wrap his arms around it." When Russell deems it ideal for a new fort, his dad initially hesitates: "'I don't know...

Trampoline Boy by Nan Forler, illustrated by Marion Arbona [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

"Twirly-whirly,/ loop-dee-loop" takes Trampoline Boy up "into the blue, blue sky." Each "BOING" enables him to see something new, from his own backyard to far beyond the clouds. In the morning, after school, and "until the sky turn[s] pink," Trampoline Boy finds contentment in the...

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss [in Library Journal]

16 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Repost

In Nicole Krauss's (The Great House) first novel in seven years, two untethered American Jews experience parallel epic quests in Israel. One will die, the other will be transformed. The story is told in alternating chapters, and the pair never meet. Jules Epstein, a Manhattan lawyer...

Fresh Complaint: Stories by Jeffrey Eugenides [in Library Journal]

15 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Although Fresh is Pulitzer Prize-winning Jeffrey Eugenides's (Middlesex) first-ever collection, the contents might seem familiar as only two of the 10 stories are actually "fresh" – the opening "Complainers" and closing "Fresh Complaint." The rest appeared in various publications between 1989 and 2013. What's truly new...

Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner [in Library Journal]

14 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

At just two hours, Matthew Weiner's debut novel is more of a novella, perhaps its length (or lack thereof) a reflection of his television expertise. Screen aficionados will certainly recognize Weiner's name: he's creator/producer/director of the wildly successful Mad Men and writer/producer of the groundbreaking...

Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi by John Scalzi [in Library Journal]

13 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

John Scalzi (Redshirts) explains in his snappy introduction, which he reads, that he has "two natural [writing] speeds": novel-long and "really short." This 18-piece collection showcases his "fast, punchy, and to the point"-shortest. For such a "miniature" book, it's got quite a full cast: Allyson...

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting [in Library Journal]

12 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After 10 years of surveillance-heavy luxury living as wife to Byron, the founder of the ubiquitous Gogol Industries, Hazel flees to her widowed father's trailer to find her septuagenarian parent unpacking a sex doll. Despite the changing locations, Byron still looms, via a brain-implanted chip...

Cuba: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez, illustrated by Dean Haspiel, colored by José Villarrubia

09 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Young Adult Readers

As the world welcomes 1959, 17-year-old Sonya is a hopeful young woman, despite the violent chaos that threatens her home city of Havana. Her boyfriend has already fled Cuba for Miami with his family, but Sonya is determined to contribute to the coming revolution by...

Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee [in Library Journal]

08 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American

Mira T. Lee’s impressive debut – both a celebration and mourning of the bond between two sisters, the younger afflicted with mental illness, the elder desperate to save her – deserves better aural interpretation. The full cast (in rare recognition, a who-was-who is added at...

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

07 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

“I can’t think of a happier story”: Shobha Rao talks GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER After 15 years of writing and 15 years being rejected, Shobha Rao made her fiction debut two years ago with An Unrestored Woman, a collection of a dozen impeccable stories – savage and...

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward [in Library Journal]

06 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

In her second National Book Award-winning title, Jesmyn Ward returns to Bois Sauvage, MS, where her first NBA winner, Salvage the Bones, played out; Bones’ Skeetah and Eschelle appear momentarily here. Jojo, 13, and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their African American grandparents. Their drug-addicted mother...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

02 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human...

Death Comes in through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage [in Booklist]

01 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Matt Sullivan, a San Diego–based, bilingual tabloid features writer, arrives in 2003 Havana with ring and wedding dress in hand for his Cuban fianceé, Yarmi, only to find her lifeless body in the bathtub. Considered charming, chatty, and caring by all who knew her, Yarmi,...

The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins [in Library Journal]

28 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Although the "Son of Sam" law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or creating other crime-based entertainment, the Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 citing First Amendment violations. Decades later, Dawkins, a convicted murderer serving life without parole, received...

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