BookDragon Betrayal Tag

Revenge by Taslima Nasrin, translated by Honor Moore, with Taslima Nasrin

27 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Bangladeshi, Bangladeshi American, Fiction, Translation

Author/physician/women's rights activist Taslima Nasrin's literary career is perhaps more famous for her detractors' reactions – bannings, book burnings, effigy burnings, fatwas, protests, personal assaults, exile from her home country of Bangladesh – than for the actual words on the page. One always wonders in all...

Water Ghosts: A Novel by Shawna Yang Ryan

20 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction

How ironically fitting that Shawna Yang Ryan’s debut novel – about, yes, ghosts! – has already had multiple lives. First published in 2007 as Locke 1928 by a tiny non-profit California press, El León Literary Arts, it returned to bookshelves two years later in a new incarnation with...

A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb by Amitava Kumar [in Christian Science Monitor]

17 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Indian, Indian American, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

If Rip Van Winkle were to read A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb upon waking, he would most likely shake his head and dismiss it as farce. Alas, you’ll only find this title in the “non-fiction” section of bookstores and...

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 6) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

14 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Federal employee Fujimoto delivers ikigami – death notices from the National Welfare Program, which insists that its arbitrary system of randomly killing one in every 1,000 citizens will teach people to value life. Fujimoto has been in doubtful turmoil about the death-system, although he knows...

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (vol. 5) by Motoro Mase, translated by John Werry, English adaptation by Kristina Blachere

23 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The town of Musashigawa has a graffiti problem ...

Me and Rolly Maloo by Janet S. Wong, illustrated by Elizabeth Buttler

21 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Fiction, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Janet Wong has gone literally hybrid. Her latest title, debuting next month, is part graphic novel, part regular prose. Thanks to her flexible illustrator Elizabeth Buttler, the result is an entertaining new way for young readers to enjoy a story on different levels. Popular. pretty Rolly Maloo is...

20th Century Boys (vol. 09) by Naoki Urasawa, with the cooperation of Takashi Nagasaki, English adaptation by Akemi Wegmüller

13 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Stuck in a virtual version of 1971, Koizumi Kyoko knows that unmasking the Friend will have irrevocable consequences. Past and present, both the 1971 and 2014 versions of the Chief try desperately to save her ...

The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee

10 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Korean American

Certain writers – Chang-rae Lee and Khaled Hosseini immediately come to mind – paralyze my reading capability. I say that with the utmost respect. I become so attached to an author's previous book (in the rare case, books), that I find myself unable to even...

Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

31 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Pacific Islander, Young Adult Readers

"Once upon a time this was a true story ...

In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai with Marie-Thérèse Cuny, translated by Linda Coverdale, foreword by Nicholas D. Kristof

26 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani, South Asian

Mukhtar Mai's story is heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, even nauseating ...

Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa [in San Francisco Chronicle]

13 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

If you're looking for the quirky, original Yoko Ogawa, her latest, Hotel Iris, is probably not for you. Go back to your bookstore or library and check out the delightfully inimitable The Housekeeper and the Professor (2009), about a genius math professor with only an 80-minute...

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran, translated by Nicky Harman

11 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British Asian, Chinese, Nonfiction

Okay, so I'm not quite sure of the U.S. publication date for Xinran's latest ...

The Tale of Despereaux: being the story of a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Sometimes it takes me years to read certain books. Oftentimes, fear is involved. Sometimes when I like a book so very much, I'm afraid the next book by that author just might disappoint. So I do the denial thing and move said title deeper down...

Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery by Naomi Hirahara

06 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American

Every time I close a Mas Arai mystery (this is my third – I know, I need to catch up), and in spite of the sometimes gruesome body count, I have to admit I miss the crotchety old man with his Japanese phrases mixed in...

Colibrí by Ann Cameron

01 May, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latin American, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

Even though "Uncle" calls her Rosa Garcia, Tzunun Chumil knows her real Mayan name, and that in Spanish, Tzunun is 'colibrí,' which means "hummingbird." She knows somewhere that she has a mother and father that once loved her very much, that she lived a happy...

Arab in America by Toufic El Rassi

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Arab American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

If the observations, memories, and pop culture references here weren't so obviously recognizable in our post-9/11 western world, you might have read this graphic memoir as a hack comedy. The black-and-white panels initially seem almost unfinished, as if still in rough-draft mode. The contents might...

The Fast Runner: Filming the Legend of Atanarjuat by Michael Robert Evans [in Library Journal]

01 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

What ironic timing to discover Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the 2001 Cannes Film Festival Caméra d'Or Award winner about two Inuit brothers – one murdered, the other who escapes by running naked over vast ice – during the 2010 Snowpocalypse. One of Canada’s top 10...

City of Spies by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan, artwork by Pascal Dizin

29 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Young Evelyn gets dumped at her surprised aunt’s posh NYC penthouse so her neglectful father can take yet another honeymoon with the latest young wife. Evelyn’s managed to escape her lonely life by creating her very own manga series, “The Amazing Adventures of Zirconium Man...

Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka 008 by Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka, co-authored by Takashi Nagasaki, with the cooperation of Tezuka Productions

24 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Oh, tell me it ain't so ...

Half Life by Roopa Farooki

18 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Pakistani, South Asian

I don't know why the galley's back cover touts "shades of Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake" because this book has no overlaps with either of those titles, much less their authors, or even locations! Really, not all brown people look alike – authors or their characters! Slumdog...