BookDragon BookDragon Tag

Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher

22 May, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Arab, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Israeli, Memoir, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Guy Delisle is a graphic genius who draws what he sees – simply and unadornedly – with droll, minimal commentary, and creates some of the most poignant, effective, resonating memoirs ever. French Canadian Delisle has undoubtedly found international fame as a traveling artist: he recreated his temporary assignments...

Gods without Men by Hari Kunzru

21 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British Asian, Fiction, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

Most of the time, I love stories that require fitting together seemingly disjointed pieces; my brain feels delightfully tickled with the challenge. And, of Hari Kunzru's novels – Gods being his fourth and latest – I much appreciated both The Impressionist and Transmission [no, I've not yet read My...

One Day I Went Rambling by Kelly Bennett, illustrated by Terri Murphy

19 May, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Ready for some Saturday fun? Turn off all those screens and power up with your ever-more powerful imagination instead! Come join Zane as he turns things ordinary into magical adventures! What Zane sees as a flying saucer's crest, Lamar mistakenly calls a hubcap. No, Zane's...

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Erdağ M. Göknar

18 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Translation, Turkish

Mixed in with the many death-and-destruction titles I've been reading the last few months, my most recent choices inadvertently seem to have an added layer of death-and-destruction-in-the-name-of-God. Too many books, regardless of genre or target audience, seem to offer irrefutable proof that the rules and...

The Wooden Sword: A Jewish Tale from Afghanistan by Ann Redisch Stampler, illustrated by Carol Liddiment

16 May, by SIBookDragon in Afghan, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Jewish

"One starry night in old Kabul ...

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

14 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Pakistani American, South Asian American

In a sentence, American Dervish is about a young boy's indoctrination into Islam – the religion he was born into, but from the practice of which his parents have lapsed (by choice) – and his eventual withdrawal from his fervent childhood devotion. By extension, the novel...

The Devotion of Suspect X [Detective Galileo 1] by Keigo Higashino, translated by Alexander O. Smith with Elye J. Alexander

11 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

I had quite the challenging training day on Tuesday – five hours of driving to the mountains and back, with 5.5 hours running up and down two summits in the rain, rain, rain – but the miles couldn't have gone faster thanks to Suspect X stuck in my...

Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic by Ginnie Lo, illustrated by Beth Lo

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction

"The last part of the trip to Auntie Yang's always took forever," recalls older sister Jinyi as her family drives from small-town Indiana to the outskirts of Chicago. But they made the journey often because Jinyi's mother and Auntie Yang were the only two siblings...

Simple Asian Meals: Irresistibly Satisfying and Healthy Dishes for the Busy Cook by Nina Simonds

09 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian

At 19, Nina Simonds more or less became Asian. The New Englander dropped out of college in the 1970s and headed far east to Taiwan "to study food, language, and culture." She was taken in by a surrogate Chinese family, in which the mother happened...

One Red Bastard by Ed Lin + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

07 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Ed Lin is not Robert Chow, his fictional alter ego who has starred in three of Lin's four books. If nothing else, Lin is just too young, too happy, and too funny to resemble the Vietnam War veteran-turned Chinatown, New York City cop. The other...

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

06 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Who knows how it happened, but Carl Hiaasen has become my latest reliable antidote to combat the seemingly neverending succession of death and destruction horror titles I've been relentlessly reading either by assignment or by choice. Admittedly, many of them have been utterly amazing, but sometimes...

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones [in Christian Science Monitor]

04 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Nonethnic-specific, North Korean, Repost

Just as North Korea’s presence in news headlines has proliferated of late – thanks to the installation of the third-generation round-faced despot; nuclear tests; failed missiles; blatant threats – book shelves, too, have seen an increase in North Korea-themed titles, predominantly written by non-Korean authors. In...

Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas by Pauline Chen

03 May, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Taiwanese American

Don't let the seasonal title fool you ...

Monstress: Stories by Lysley Tenorio

01 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Short Stories

Sometimes I need three major reminders to get me to open a book I've been anxiously waiting to read. Who knows why, but I admit to being lost and misdirected often! So first the inimitable Mz. Jessica Hagedorn had to tell me (almost a year...

Birdie Flies Away | Pararillo se va volando by Kat Aragon, illustrated by Andrea Yomtob

30 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x

Billed as "the nation's only bilingual children's book publisher dedicated to Parent Involvement," Lectura Books is actively working to change some startling statistics: One in four children under age 5 is Hispanic/Latino, but according to the Department of Education, whose who identify as Hispanic or Latino have...

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

29 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

I probably shouldn't have been so surprised when a wonderful literary friend (who is also a children's literature expert, professor, and recent judge for one of those major book awards) remarked that in Markus Zusak's native Australia, this and his unforgettable The Book Thief were initially not...

Scat and Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

28 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Mega-bestselling author Carl Hiaasen might write formulaic young adult titles, but he's just so goofball funny, it's hard to put his books down – not to mention the covers are so irresistible, too. Following the massive success of his YA debut Hoot (which also got...

A Bride’s Story (vols. 2-3) by Kaoru Mori, translated by William Flanagan

27 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Central Asian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

What began as a visual marvel in volume 1, surely does not disappoint in the continuing two volumes. 'Exquisite' still hardly does the panels justice, but just know that every page will make you want to linger to discover and enjoy the glorious details – the...

A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez [in Christian Science Monitor]

26 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Haitian, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Neither Julia Alvarez nor her husband Bill can remember exactly when she fell in love with a Haitian boy named Piti. But both distinctly recall the first meeting, which happened in 2001 on one of their many trips to Alvarez’s native Dominican Republic. “[S]hort and...

Children of Manzanar edited by Heather C. Lindquist

24 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

The PR materials that arrived with this remarkable title contains one of the most effective descriptions of the Japanese American imprisonment during World War II I've ever read: " ...