BookDragon

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins, foreword by Elizabeth Alexander [in Library Journal]

21 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Filmmaker/playwright/writer/activist Kathleen Collins was a multi-faceted, multi-talented pioneer who died at just 46. In 2014, indie distributor Milestone Films reintroduced her groundbreaking 1982 film, Losing Ground, one of the first movies directed by an African American woman. Beyond the celluloid, this posthumously published 16-story...

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran [in Library Journal]

20 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Repost, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Soli is still a teenager when she becomes pregnant during her journey from her native Mexican village to northern California. Partly joyous because she's love-struck, mostly nightmarish for what she must endure to survive, Soli enters the United States illegally and eventually finds a...

You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris, translated by Sam Taylor [in Library Journal]

19 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, French, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW With elegant control, narrator Gildart Jackson embodies the words of French journalist Antoine Leiris, who bears witness to the murder of his wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, one of the victims of the November 13, 2015, terrorist attack at Paris's Bataclan Theatre. Three days later, Leiris...

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal [in Booklist]

18 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction, Repost

Nikki’s begrudging agreement to help her sister, Mindi, “find a husband the traditional way” takes her to Southall, a predominately South Asian immigrant neighborhood in west London, to post a discreet marriage advert at the gurdwara (Sikh temple). Unlike Mindi, Nikki considers herself modern and...

A Small Revolution by Jimin Han [in Booklist]

17 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

In a Pennsylvania college dorm, five teens are trapped in a life-and-death situation. The quintet’s point of connection, allegedly dead, is a Korean American student, Jaesung, who was reported to have perished in a recent car fire in Seoul. Yoona, in whose room the terror plays...

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian [in Library Journal]

14 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Armenian American, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Annalee Ahlberg is missing, but given her history of sleepwalking, her loved ones hold fast to the possibility of her return. While the investigation remains ongoing, the family adheres to some semblance of normalcy: husband Warren retreats to his work as a professor, 21-year-old daughter...

The Refugee Experience for Middle Grade and YA Readers [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Afghan, African, Arab, Biography, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Caribbean, Cuban, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Iranian, Iranian American, Iraqi, Italian, Lists, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Myanmarese (Burmese), Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

This is the second in a two-part series of recommended books for youth about the refugee experience. For a list of picture books, click here. Canada, with her groovin' President, functional healthcare system, and more welcoming borders, is currently in the throes of "Month 13," the first month following...

Help Young Readers Understand the Refugee Experience with Picture Books [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in African, Arab, Arab American, Australian, Bilingual, Biography, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Iraqi, Korean American, Latin American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Syrian, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

This is the first in a two-part series of recommended books for youth about the refugee experience. For a list of middle grade and YA titles, click here. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), also known as the United Nations Refugee Agency,...

Stormy Seas: Stories of Young Boat Refugees by Mary Beth Leatherdale, illustrated and designed by Eleanor Shakespeare

12 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

The first line speaks volumes: "If you're reading this, you – like me – have probably won the lottery. Not the giant-check, instant-millionaire kind of lottery. The other lottery win ...

No Other World by Rahul Mehta [in Library Journal]

06 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

In this debut novel (following Quarantine), western New York in 1985 and western India in 1998 are introduced as prologue, with both time and place connected by the 12-going-on-13-year-old and 26-year-old versions of Kiran Shah, whose coming-of-age as a bicultural gay Indian American is...

City Gate, Open Up by Bei Dao, translated by Jeffrey Yang [in Booklist]

04 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Bei Dao is considered the most prominent of China’s “Misty Poets,” named for the abstract, opaque nature of their compositions written predominantly during the oppressive Cultural Revolution. In contrast, the language of Bei Dao’s memoir, seamlessly translated by fellow poet Yang, is elegantly simple and...

Recitation by Bae Suah, translated by Deborah Smith [in Library Journal]

03 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW For Kyung-hee, a self-described "theatre actor specializing in recitation," the "roving life" proves to be the only antidote to "everything [being] irresolvably vague and depressing." Traveling through Europe and Asia, she shares experiences and memories with new acquaintances and more intimate friends. Wandering without...

The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex by Gabrielle Williams [in Shelf Awareness]

31 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Australian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex opens with a real-life unsolved mystery: "On August 2, 1986, a group calling itself the Australian Cultural Terrorists stole one of the world's most iconic paintings – Picasso's Weeping Woman – off the walls of the...

Meeting with My Brother by Yi Mun-yol, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl and Yoosup Chang [in Booklist]

30 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, North Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW “The Korean War displaced and fragmented more than ten million families,” writes Heinz Insu Fenkl in his introduction to his new translation of Yi’s novella about the first meeting between two adult brothers. Yi, one of Korea’s most prominent literary figures, and his family were...

A Trans* and Gender Nonconforming Reading List for All Ages [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

News about the transgender community – including banned books, bathroom laws, hockey, wrestlers, models, parades, Jackie and Juliet Evancho, and, most tragically, a horrifying murder caught on cellphone video – have all made recent headlines. Books can be helpful, entertaining, illuminating portals into the trans*/gender nonconforming (GNC)...

Author Interview: Min Jin Lee [in Bloom]

21 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Repost

On History, Survival & Intimacy Becoming a bestselling author took Min Jin Lee 11 years – and so much more of her life. She quit lawyering, but without that income, tuition for an MFA proved impossible. So she found every bargain opportunity in New York City to...

Augustown by Kei Miller [in Booklist]

16 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW As both the introductory note and epithet doubly insist, August Town, divided into two words, is a real town in Jamaica, made (in)famous for being the founding home of Bedwardism, a short-lived, early twentieth-century religion. Fast-forward to 1982 when teary Kaia comes home to his...

Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan [in Christian Science Monitor]

14 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American

'Temporary People' depicts the lives of guest workers in the UAE The sense of displacement, of disconnect begins on the cover: The words “A Novel” written sideways, unobtrusively stamped along the left side under the title Temporary People, might be considered misleading. Made up of three...

Secret Coders: Paths & Portals (Volume 2) by Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes

10 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Seventh graders Hopper, Eni, and Josh have managed to "get with the program" since Volume 1, but they still haven't learned how not to get stuck in places they shouldn't be. Volume 2 opens with a test of their burgeoning skills, which – failed attempts notwithstanding...

Frontier by Can Xue, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping [in Booklist]

07 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

“It will be interesting what people make of this one,” novelist-essayist Porochista Khakpour (The Last Illusion, 2014) reveals in her introduction, something she admiringly says about every Can Xue (The Last Lover, 2014) title. “Can Xue,” Khakpour explains, is both pseudonymous disguise and “synonymous with...

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