Booklist Archives - Page 33 of 39

Insurrecto by Gina Apostol [in Booklist]

18 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Adjectives like humorous, playful, and ingenious seem almost disrespectful when describing a book anchored by “the worst massacre of [U.S.] Army soldiers in the decades after Custer’s defeat.” The little-known 1901 Balangiga massacre in Samar, Philippines, during the Philippine-American War resulted in the deaths...

City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

17 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

The first collaboration between Hye-Young Pyun and translator Sora Kim-Russell, The Hole (2017), introduced one of Korea’s most lauded writers to Anglophone readers. Kim-Russell’s ability to replicate Pyun’s stifling terror repeats here as he presents a nameless anti-hero, known only as “the man.” Leaving behind envious...

Printed in Beirut by Jabbour Douaihy, translated by Paula Haydar [in Booklist]

15 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Repost, Translation

Farid Abu Shaar, a young man earnestly convinced of his own (unproven) literary genius, seeks a publisher for his red-notebook manuscript, The Book to Come. His publication attempts with Beirut’s publishing houses prove futile: “No one reads,” one publisher insists. Although his Karam Brothers Press...

Che: A Revolutionary Life | A Graphic Biography by Jon Lee Anderson, illustrated by José Hernández [in Booklist]

12 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Repost, South American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Jon Lee Anderson’s Che: A Revolutionary Life (1997) is superbly realized in graphic form by Mexican artist José Hernández, who distills Anderson’s lauded, 812-page original into just more than 400 pages of spectacularly illustrated narrative. Since his 1967 death at 39, Che “has become the most...

Not of This Fold [A Linda Wallheim Mystery, Book 4] by Mette Ivie Harrison [in Booklist]

11 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

The fourth of Mette Ivie Harrison’s 11 planned books for her Linda Wallheim mystery series takes the outspoken Mormon-bishop’s wife from her comfortable Draper, Utah, home into the Spanish community, a few miles in distance but a world away culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically. Linda accompanies her...

Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology edited by Frederick Luis Aldama [in Booklist]

30 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

The latest title in Mad Creek’s impressive Latinographix series showcases 80-plus contributions from the flourishing Latinx graphic community. Creators were prompted “to reflect upon the most significant moments of their lives,” rendering seven sections that explore language, coming-of-age, mythology, identity, heritage, self-image, and pop culture. The...

Undocumented: A Worker’s Fight by Duncan Tonatiuh [in Booklist]

19 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Surviving a life-threatening journey from Mexico to a “strange city” in the U.S., Juan joins his uncle and three cousins. He owes his low-wage, 12-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week restaurant job to a boss who insists he’s “doing [Juan] a favor because [he] had no papers.” Although he’s...

Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories by Peter Kuper [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Eisner-winning Peter Kuper’s career of “translating Kafka into comics” began in 1995, when his initial collection of nine shorts hit shelves, with Give It Up! He adds another five here, scrambles the previous order, and includes his “Kuperesque” foreword, emphasizing how, since Kafka’s death at...

Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens [in Booklist]

17 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, North Korean, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “Everyone, it seems, is telling our story but us,” observes Lisa Pearl, the Korean-born, Bethesda, Maryland-raised transracial adoptee protagonist in Alice Stephens’ debut novel. The author, who describes herself as being “among the first generation of transnational, interracial adoptees,” takes charge with a tale...

Our Woman in Havana: Reporting Castro’s Cuba by Sarah Rainsford [in Booklist]

14 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Cuban, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Two timely books titled Our Woman in Havana hit shelves this year: a memoir by U.S. diplomat Vicki Huddleston and this account by former BBC Cuba correspondent (2011-2014) Rainsford, who was “guided by the writing of another English visitor seduced by Havana,” novelist Graham Greene. A...

Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah [in Booklist]

11 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Adjei-Brenyah’s dozen stories are disturbingly spectacular, made even more so for what he does with magnifying and exposing the truth. At first read, the collection might register as speculative fiction, but current headlines unmasking racism, injustice, consumerism, and senseless violence prove to be clear...

Time Traveling Audiobooks for Youth [in The Booklist Reader]

03 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, European, Fiction, Jewish, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Pacific Islander, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Time travel, time paradoxes, time shells, time hollows – are they fantasy? Reality? The following titles are billed as fiction, but they're also a look into endless possibilities. Last week, we brought you audiobooks about time travel for adults, but it's time (sorry) younger readers got...

Five More to Go: Crystal Hana Kim’s If You Leave Me [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Translation

I got to get this started for The Booklist Reader ...

Time Traveling Audiobooks [in The Booklist Reader]

23 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Lists, Repost

Time manipulation – obsession with, desire for, and attempts at – is a timeless conundrum and, thus far, an elusive temptation. Our ever-waxing fascination is evident in classic stories and sci-fi favorites. Contemporary pop culture continues to feed the frenzy, from Harry Potter and the Prisoner...

The Caregiver by Samuel Park [in Booklist]

13 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Latin American, Repost

At 26, Mara is the titular caregiver for a lonely woman in her early 40s with stomach cancer, who insists she’ll bequeath Mara her exclusive Bel Air home upon her impending death. Mara is already too familiar with loss, having grown up in Rio de...

Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter by Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard, iIllustrated by Cécile Brun, translated by Marie S. Velde [in Booklist]

27 Jul, by SIBookDragon in European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

In fall 2014, Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard (fictional versions of the artists who comprise Atelier Sentō) traveled to Niigata Prefecture on Japan’s west coast. To escape the rain, they duck into a dimly lit shop, where they discover a camera that can allegedly “shoot...

Japanese Folktales: Classic Stories from Japan’s Enchanted Past by Yei Theodora Ozaki, foreword by Lucy Fraser [in Booklist]

19 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Nasty neighbors, otherworldly children, and malevolent monsters populate some of the 22 traditional Japanese folktales in Ozaki’s century-old collection, reissued with an introduction by Australian academic Lucy Fraser. In her 1903 preface, Ozaki – whose father was Japanese, mother, English – that her “stories are not...

A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]

18 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

In Perfume Bay, a luxurious oasis just outside Los Angeles, pregnant Chinese women are pampered through the U.S. birth of precious progeny who will provide their parents with “a foothold in America.” Among the guests is factory-manager Scarlett Chen, sent to the U.S. to bear...

Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home by Sisonke Msimang [in Booklist]

17 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South African

Before personal and political events finally allowed her to go “home” to South Africa, Sisonke Msimang spent her first 20-plus years in peripatetic exile. Born in Zambia, Msimang and her two younger sisters were “raised on a diet of communist propaganda and schooled in radical...

The Court Dancer by Kyung-sook Shin, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

16 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Man Asian Literary Prize-winning Kyung-sook Shin (The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, 2015) alchemizes a brief mention in a French diplomat’s book about his turn-of-the-century Korean tenure into a gorgeous epic that seamlessly combines history and fiction to create a hybrid masterpiece. In 1888, France’s first...

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