Booklist Archives - Page 34 of 39

My Beijing: Four Stories of Everyday Wonder by Nie Jun, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

12 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Chinese, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW When young Yu’er laments, “People think I’m different,” her grandfather’s immediate response, “Oh, who cares what they think!” sets her free to be just that and more. She’s different because she’s physically challenged, but Grampa ensures her mobility via push cart, wooden chair on...

Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano [in Booklist]

10 Jul, by SIBookDragon in African, British, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Ten-year-old Ebo has lost his parents, his Uncle Patrick is always drunk, and his older sister Sisi is missing. And then his older brother Kwame vanishes to search for Sisi and find a better life in Europe. With nothing left tying him to their tiny...

If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim [in Booklist]

09 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Hunger, both physical and emotional, haunts the lives of the extended Lee-Yun family during the tumultuous, violent decades that define modern South Korea in the latter-20th century. Haemi and Kyunghwan are childhood playmates in the final years of Japan’s brutal colonization, then become desperate,...

Core Collection: Refugee Stories [in Booklist]

06 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, British, Cuban, Cuban American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Iranian, Iraqi, Italian, Jewish, Lists, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

More than 65 million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have been forced to leave their homes. Whether they are made refugees in another country or displaced internally, 2017 UN data shows that “nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute as a...

The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea: A Graphic Memoir of Modern Slavery by Vannak Anan Prum, edited by Ben Pederick and Jocelyn Pederick [in Booklist]

05 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

According to 2016 International Labor Organization data, “at least 40 million people are held in servitude.” Among these modern-day slaves was Vannak Anan Prum, a Cambodian man whose determination to finance his pregnant wife’s impending hospital stay sent him away from their village to find...

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Booklist]

26 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

The opening sentence – “The smell of blood woke me” – gives way to a young man discovering his mother’s freshly murdered corpse. He’s gone off his epilepsy medications again, and has trouble remembering, but he’s determined to figure out what happened. Initially, the whodunit and...

Out in the Open by Javi Rey, based on the novel by Jesús Carrasco, translated by Lawrence Schimel [in Booklist]

20 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Somewhere, a once fertile town has lost its “green and fragrant waves,” the riverbed dried to dust. Deep in a hole in the earth, a small, huddled body hides from shouting voices determined to expose him. Darkness and silence finally allow him to escape “the...

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon [in Booklist]

18 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Looming death, missing parents, God, and reinvention turn an unlikely pair, Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall, into lovers at privileged Edwards University in upstate New York. In the fresh, transformative independence that is college life, Phoebe can forget her aching connection to the piano, hide her...

The Bishop’s Wife series by Mette Ivie Harrison + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

21 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Talking Mormon Murder Mysteries with Mette Ivie Harrison Trust me: Linda Wallheim is a sleuth like no other. She’s a devout Mormon, for starters, and the wife of a respected Utah ward bishop. And yet her sense of justice gets her into plenty of trouble, especially...

Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li [in Booklist]

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

When Chinese American immigrant Bobby Han died, entrusting his Beijing Duck House restaurant to the next generation, he couldn’t have fathomed how quickly his 30-year-old legacy would go up in flames. His younger son, Jimmy – dubbed “little boss” by the restaurant staff, many of whom...

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW In nursery school, Keiko pragmatically suggested that the dead bird in the park could become a grilled treat for her father. In primary school, she ended a forbidden brawl by hitting a boy on the head with a spade. She stopped a teacher’s hysterics...

The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi, translated by Luke Leafgren [in Booklist]

12 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iraqi, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The lives of two girls, the narrator and Nadia, born during the Iran-Iraq War are continuously delineated by conflict. As young children, they meet in a Baghdad air-raid shelter under siege in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm and become best friends. Their growing up is marked...

Graphic Gems: Novels, Biographies, and Memoirs for Younger Readers [in The Booklist Reader]

05 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Japanese American, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Russian, Russian American, Translation, Turkish, Turkish American, Young Adult Readers

Since I recently shared some utterly satisfying single-volume graphic titles for adults, I figured I should point out a few outstanding titles for middle-grade and YA readers, as well. That said, so-called grown-ups will surely find many of these titles just as satisfying. Equal literary...

Graphic Gems: Novels, Story Collections, and Memoirs for Adults [in The Booklist Reader]

04 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British Asian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

While I’m addicted to various manga series (click here and here for some of my favorites), I’ve also discovered the satisfaction of single-volume graphic titles offering that perfect balance of fascinating narrative and gorgeously complementary, enhancing art. From goofy to haunting, comforting to challenging, and...

A 21st-Century Filipino American Fiction Reader [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Originally published in 1943, Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart is a cornerstone of classic Asian American literature. Drawing on Bulosan’s Filipino boyhood, his immigration to the United States, and the challenges he faced as a first-generation Asian American, it remains a notable inspiration, most recently...

Familiar Things by Sok-yong Hwang, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

29 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Toughened by a nickname thrown at him by a policeman threatening punishment, Bugeye arrives on Flower Island – an ironic name for the vast city dump on the outskirts of Seoul – with his mother, who works as a garbage picker. His father is...

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Dunya Mikhail [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning poet Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi exile who fled her homeland in 1996 and eventually settled in Michigan, makes her nonfiction debut with a hybrid text that combines reportage and personal memoir with the intention of giving voice to northern Iraqi women victims of Daesh...

Let’s No One Get Hurt by Jon Pineda + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

22 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

A Poet’s Novel: Jon Pineda talks LET’S NO ONE GET HURT Even a poetry dullard like me recognizes poet/memoirist/novelist Jon Pineda’s ability to do something spectacular with language. His lean sentences are surprisingly dense, as if to defy their brevity. Surely publishing three award-winning books of...

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

07 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

“I can’t think of a happier story”: Shobha Rao talks GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER After 15 years of writing and 15 years being rejected, Shobha Rao made her fiction debut two years ago with An Unrestored Woman, a collection of a dozen impeccable stories – savage and...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

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