BookDragon Archives - Page 30 of 230

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir, Repost

“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...

10 Things I Hate about Pinky by Sandhya Menon [in Booklist]

29 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Vikas Adam is three for three (because he’s that good) in voicing Sandhya Menon’s bestselling rom-com series. Rematched with Soneela Nankani after the success of There’s Something about Sweetie (2019), the pair presents Menon's latest frothy confection. The eponymous Pinky is another of Menon's feisty heroines...

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré [in Library Journal]

28 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

If reading various dialects on the page is at all challenging, allow Adjoa Andoh to immediately immerse you in the mellifluous Nigerian English patois Abi Daré infuses into her empowering debut novel. At 14, Adunni is denied the education she so longs for, and is...

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell [in Booklist]

27 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Here’s what we might know – or agree on from limited historic documents and scholarly guessing research – about the Bard’s wife: she’s commonly named “Anne Hathaway” but her father referred to her as “Agnes” in his will; she was older than her still-teenage husband;...

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi [in Booklist]

26 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Indian African, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW With only a few audiobook credits each, Yetide Badaki and Chukwudi Iwuji might be considered audiobook newbies. Their extensive acting experience however – especially Iwuji with his substantial work on British stages – ensures that Nigerian-born, award-winning literary darling Akweke Emezi’s sophomore adult title...

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker [in Library Journal]

25 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, the Galvin family seemed perfect. Father Don's work with the Air Force brought the family to (coincidentally, presciently named) Hidden Valley Road in Colorado. There, mother Mary oversaw the raising and nurturing of their dozen children – 10 boys and...

Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color by Julie Dachez, illustrated by Mademoiselle Caroline, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

In her enormously affecting comics debut, Invisible Differences, French activist Julie Dachez introduces her autobiographical stand-in, 27-year-old Marguerite. Marguerite's daily life is most comfortable when she abides by her familiar rituals: wear soft clothes, depart for work at 7:30 a.m., grab her daily spelt roll...

Beauty by Christina Chiu [in Library Journal]

22 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Judge Gish Jen anointed Beauty, Christina Chiu’s first fiction since her award-winning 2001 collection, Troublemaker and Other Stories, for the Santa Fe Writers Project’s James Alan McPherson Award, enabling publication from 2040 Books. A simple summary reveals Amy Wong's trajectory from an unmoored Manhattan 16-year-old...

Prefecture D: Four Novellas by Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Hideo Yokoyama (Seventeen) might not yet have a following in the U.S. like some of his compatriot mystery writers – Keigo Higashino and Natsuo Kirino, for example – but the acclaim he's earned in his native Japan will likely spread to English-language readers. With Jonathan...

Class Act by Jerry Craft [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Welcome back to a new year at Riverdale Academy Day (RAD) School in Jerry Craft's entertaining follow-up to his 2020 Newbery Medal-winning debut, New Kid. Wannabe artist Jordan reunites with his closest friends: Liam, who arrives from his family's Riverdale mansion via chauffeur, and Drew, who...

The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories by Caroline Kim [in Christian Science Monitor]

19 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Short Stories

Korean American experience resonates in The Prince of Mournful Thoughts The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. "There is so much I wish to make my daughter understand, but cannot,” an immigrant father muses...

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel [in Booklist]

18 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “Begin at the end,” Emily St. John Mandel’s (Station Eleven, 2014) highly anticipated latest opens. Relative-newbie narrator Dylan Moore, a Julliard-trained actor, instantly becomes Vincent as she is “plummeting down the side of the ship in the storm’s dark wildness.” She’s notably named by...

The Bear and the Moon by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, South American, Taiwanese American

A young bear wakes from a long nap to be greeted with a surprise: "It was red as a berry and round like the moon with a long silver string drifting brightly in the breeze." What Matthew Burgess' adorable ursine hero does with the unexpected...

A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South edited by Cinelle Barnes [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Edited by memoirist and essayist Cinelle Barnes, A Measure of Belonging gathers 21 "established and emerging" writers of color with Southern ties – by birth, immigration, relocation. The resulting collection examines, defines, and confronts the idea of belonging. A highlight is Carnegie Medal-winner Kiese Laymon's (Heavy)...

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In Hiroko Oyamada's intriguing parable-like The Hole, a young childless couple, Asa and Muneaki, trade urban for rural when Muneaki is transferred for work. They end up living rent-free next door to his parents in a conveniently vacated rental house his parents own. While...

Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino: Stories by Julián Herbert, translated by Christina MacSweeney [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

The genre-hopping, award-winning Mexican writer, poet, musician, and teacher Julián Herbert made his English-language debut with Tomb Song, an autobiographical novel focused on his relationship with his late mother, a prostitute dying of leukemia. His nonfiction The House of the Pain of Others is a hybrid...

White Ivy by Susie Yang [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Susie Yang's electrifying debut novel, White Ivy, has well earned its spot on the longlist for the Center for Fiction's 2020 First Novel Prize. Part immigrant story, part elitist takedown, part contemporary novel of wicked manners, White Ivy is an unpredictable spectacle. At 2, Ivy Lin...

The Winter of the Cartoonist by Paco Roca, translated by Andrea Rosenberg [in Booklist]

09 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Spanish, Translation

In a book about rebels, reading against the presented order is highly recommended. Eisner-nominated Paco Roca (The House, 2019) is part of the Spanish graphic novel elite, already awarded virtually all the Spanish honors, and this is the work he’s “always wanted to create”: both...

The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family by Bettye Kearse [in Library Journal]

08 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

Retired pediatrician Bettye Kearse, her family’s eighth griot (storyteller/historian/genealogist), traces her lineage over two centuries: “Always remember – you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president,” her predecessors instilled. The fourth U.S. president, James Madison, never had biological children with wife Dolley. He...

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre [in Booklist]

07 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

Argentine writer José Hernández’s 1872 epic poem, Martín Fierro, became both an historical and literary classic for preserving and celebrating the gaucho, equal parts horseman, rebel, and legend. In Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s latest, shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, she transforms a few lines from...

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