BookDragon Archives - Page 73 of 230

The Boy & the Bindi by Vivek Shraya, illustrated by Rajini Perara [in School Library Journal]

28 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

A young boy, curious about his “Ammi’s dot … a bright and pretty spot,” innocently asks, “Why do you wear that dot?/What’s so special about that spot?” His mother crouches to eye level so he can touch her forehead as she explains, “It’s not a...

The Mortifications by Derek Palacio [in Library Journal]

21 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A mother, Soledad, flees Cuba, abandoning her revolutionary husband Uxmal and absconding with their 12-year-old twins Ulises and Isabel. She bypasses Miami for Hartford, CT, finding work as a court stenographer, making her the transcriber of other people's words. Although Uxmal’s presence never seems to...

Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith [in Library Journal]

20 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

The dozen stories in Ali Smith's (How To Be Both) latest collection share a common characteristic: a contagious sense of wordplay, from obscure etymology ("buxom" originally meant "obedient, compliant, gracious") in "Last," to multiple meanings of "fraud" linking D.H. Lawrence to credit card theft in...

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee [in Booklist]

19 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A decade after her international best-selling debut, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), Min Jin Lee’s follow-up is an exquisite, haunting epic that crosses almost a century, four generations, and three countries while depicting an ethnic Korean family that cannot even claim a single shared...

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

When 19-year-old Jim Thorpe (1888-1955) joined Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian Industrial School's football team in 1907, it was the fastest team in the country, "the most creative, the most fun to watch." Already the school's track star, Thorpe was, self-admittedly, "a scarecrow dressed for football" when...

The Boy Who Escaped Paradise by J.M. Lee, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Library Journal]

13 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, North Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW "There's magic in this world. And miracles." In his second translated work to hit stateside (after The Investigation), bestselling Korean author J.M. Lee – again linguistically enabled by gifted translator Chi-Young Kim – will make you believe. Lee's silent protagonist sits in a New York...

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen [in Library Journal]

12 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

*STARRED REVIEW Although publishing 10 months after Viet Thanh Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer, this collection precedes his novel by decades (the earliest entry dates from 1997). In a pre-Pulitzer interview, Nguyen credits his 15-year experience "characterized by drudgery and despair, laced with...

Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, and Love of My Son Michael Brown by Lezley McSpadden with Lyah Beth LeFlore [in Library Journal]

09 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Repost

Michael Brown was shot to death by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, MO. Lezley McSpadden didn't see her 18-year-old son die, "but as his mother, I do know one thing better than anyone, and that's how to tell my son's...

A Separation by Katie Kitamura [in Library Journal]

08 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, European, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Although separated from philandering husband Christopher for six months, a London woman agrees to continue to postpone "the process…of telling people." Almost a month has passed since she last talked to Christopher, rendering her unable to answer his mother Isabella's unexpected request for his...

Author Interview: Shobha Rao [in Bloom]

07 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American

The Recovered & The Unrestored Let me begin with a reader’s confession: Without a doubt, Shobha Rao’s debut, An Unrestored Woman, is the best short fiction collection I’ve read this year. These dozen stories are savage and empathetic, brutal and lyrical, mournful and celebratory as well. At...

The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela [in Library Journal]

05 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In a dual narrative, Leila Aboulela (Minaret; Lyrics Alley), winner of the inaugural Caine Prize for African Writing, exposes the impossibility of definitively taking sides. In 2010 Scotland, the global war on terror pixilates the lives of history professor Natasha, her student Oz, and...

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See [in Booklist]

02 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

In a remote mountain village, the survival of an Akha tribe, one of China’s 55 ethnic minorities, depends on tea. Rigid traditions prohibit Li-yan from keeping her newborn. She saves her daughter by leaving her in a nearby town, wrapped in blankets with a tea...

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey [in Library Journal]

30 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Colin Dickey (Afterlives of the Saints) cites a statistic that 45 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, and 30 percent profess to have had firsthand encounters. Such undying fascination means there was no shortage of stories to choose from when Dickey spent several years traveling...

Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko by David Jacobson, illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri, translated by Sally Ito and Michiko Tsuboi

23 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry

Japan's latest tsunami warnings were just recently lifted, saving countless citizens from another Fukushima disaster-like tragedy which killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless in March 2011. Amidst the apocalyptic aftermath, human goodness prevailed. Five years ago, a single poem managed to reach millions...

How To Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

10 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hawaiian, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Mele, single mother of Ellie, joined the San Francisco Mother's Club (SFMC) to be matched with the perfect playgroup, something that never happened. Two years later, she's part of a rogue, "laughing, sh*t-talking, texting, even talking on the phone" fivesome that came together organically at...

The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Yan Lianke's latest translated-into-English title offers multiple rewarding options. As straightforward narrative, it follows the astounding transformation of Explosion, a rural mountain village, into a "megalopolis" through the entangled lives of the Kong family's four sons – a teacher, a politician, a soldier, and...

Remembering 1942 and Other Chinese Stories by Liu Zhenyun, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin [in Booklist]

03 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Mao Dun Award–winning novelist Liu Zhenyun (The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon, 2015) adroitly confronts Very Big Topics – family, education, work, bureaucracy, the military, history – in his first translated-into-English story collection. “Tofu” exposes the numbing tribulations of being a poor family...

Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky [in Booklist]

02 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Tokyo-born, Berlin-domiciled Yoko Tawada (Facing the Bridge, 2007) returns with another fantastical and entertaining novel that combines a broken family saga, socio-political-environmental enlightenment, a treatise on writing, and bitingly well-placed satire. Seamlessly translated from German by the award-winning Susan Bernofsky, Memoirs of a Polar Bear introduces...

The Art of Confidence by Wendy Lee [in Booklist]

01 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American

An ephemeral, atmospheric painting, Elegy, is at the core of Wendy Lee’s third and most ambitious novel (Happy Family, 2008; Across a Green Ocean, 2015). An unknown, 30-year-sojourning Chinese artist is paid a pittance to recreate a missing canvas. A desperate New York gallery owner...

Everything Belongs to Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz [in Booklist]

31 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

As explosive growth transforms 1970s South Korea into an international powerhouse, sociopolitical upheaval becomes unavoidable in daily life. Into the maelstrom of such spectacular change, first-novelist Grace Yoojin Wuertz – Seoul-born, U.S.-raised, Yale- and NYU-degreed – drops two women onto the elite campus of Seoul...

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