Booklist Archives - Page 38 of 39

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

03 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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 Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center 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...

Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South by Adrienne Berard [in Booklist]

01 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Thirty years before Brown v. Board of Education struck down segregation in public schools, a Chinese American family in the Mississippi Delta fought to continue their daughter’s education. On September 15, 1924, Rosedale School’s principal banned nine-and-a-half-year-old, straight-A student Martha Lum and her older sister...

The Problem with Me: And Other Essays About Making Trouble in China Today by Han Han, translated and edited by Alice Xin Liu and Joel Martinsen [in Booklist]

11 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Although he was a 1999 national writing-competition winner at 17 and runaway bestselling novelist a year later, Shanghai-based Han couldn’t finish high school. His subsequent rants against the education system, standardized testing, and corrupt bureaucracy earned him widespread acclaim. At 34, he has added rally-car racing...

Deceit and Other Possibilities by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]

08 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

Journalist Vanessa Hua’s debut in fiction is an intriguing collection of 10 stories with personal resonance from being the child of Chinese immigrants and a two-decade, continent-hopping career. Each of her protagonists is never quite grounded, caught between multiple cultures and countries. Each hides beneath layers...

The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies [in Booklist]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hong Kongese, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW British-born of Welsh and Chinese parentage, Peter Ho Davies (The Welsh Girl, 2007) has lived stateside since 1992, but this is his first U.S.-set title. In it he explores the history of his adopted home in four sections. In “Gold,” he links the completion of...

After Disasters by Viet Dinh [in Booklist]

10 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian, Vietnamese American

*STARRED REVIEW O. Henry Prize winner (2009) and first-time novelist Dinh drops four fictional characters into the tragic aftermath of the real-life January 2001 cataclysmic earthquake in Gujarat, India, as they travel from New York, London, and Delhi to attempt to save lives, including their own. The...

Where Do We Go When All We Were Is Gone by Sequoia Nagamatsu [in Booklist]

08 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost, Short Stories

Wacky and weird, writing and literature professor Sequoia Nagamatsu’s fiction debut is a 12-piece collection that defies easy categorization as an amalgam of sci-fi/fantasy, horror, and black comedy overlaid with ancient-to-contemporary Japanese myth and culture. Nagamatsu’s atypical characters include the “Margaret Mead of the Kaiju [strange...

Good Night, Baddies by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Juli Kangas [in Booklist]

24 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

They might be “baddies” by day, but by evening, all the familiar villains (witches, wolves, giants, dragons, trolls, and so on) who make fairy tales so exciting shed their evil ways: “All day long they must be vile; / now, at night, they chat and...

An After Bedtime Story by Shoham Smith, illustrated by Einat Tsarfati [in Booklist]

11 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Israeli, Repost

When the usual bedtime fare doesn’t induce slumber, why not try an after-bedtime tale? Every parent will instantly recognize the angelic-toddler-turned-truculent-terror for whom sleep is just not a priority. Tonight, adorable, tiara-wearing Nina can’t sleep, not when there’s a party going on in her own house....

John F. Kennedy’s Presidency [Presidential Powerhouses series] by Rebecca Rowell [in Booklist]

03 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Irish American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost

Although JFK’s tenure was only 1,036 days, his legacy hasn’t tarnished much. In this volume of the Presidential Powerhouses series, Rowell diverges from too many children’s titles that lionize the youngest-ever POTUS to offer a finely balanced biographical overview. While JFK’s achievements are many – the...

Can I Tell You a Secret? by Anna Kang, illustrated by Christopher Weyant [in Booklist]

31 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

The wife-and-husband team of Anna Kang and Christopher Weyant make a splash with their third gleeful collaboration. Meet Monty, a frog who has a secret to share with the reader: he is afraid of the water. Though he has managed to stay dry since his...

Hello, Hippo! Goodbye, Bird! by Kristyn Crow, illustrated by Poli Bernatene [in Booklist]

19 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Hippo doesn’t know it yet, but Bird is exactly the friend he needs. Despite Hippo’s insistent rejections (grunts, sighs, definitive cries of “Go away!”), Bird doesn’t give up. Just look! He can be a stylish hat, provide umbrella-like shelter, even stand in for a “hippopota-mustache”! Yet...

Rattlestiltskin by Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Erin Camarca [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Grimm’s familiar tale gets a Southwestern rendering in Caldecott Honor-winner Eric A. Kimmel’s retelling, with “the best tortillas” as the golden standard. Señora Gonzalez boasts that her daughter Rosalia’s tortillas “are so light, they float like clouds.” The town’s richest man, Don Ignacio, summons Rosalia...

Dear Bunny … by Katie Cotton, illustrated by Bianca Gómez [in Booklist]

28 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British, Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Repost

A little girl answers her bunny’s question of “What’s your favourite thing in the world?” in a sweetly revealing letter. She chronicles their day together, listing everything she likes to do with her furry buddy, from choosing socks to appreciating how her bunny cools her...

Everyone by Christopher Silas Neal [in Booklist]

27 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

As diverse and unique as each of us are, some traits are shared by everyone. Christopher Silas Neal (Over and Under the Snow, 2011) makes his solo debut here, channeling a boy who is learning to accept and appreciate his own emotions, and, in the...

Samira and the Skeletons by Camilla Kuhn, translated by Don Bartlett [in Booklist]

15 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW For Samira, learning about skeletons proves to be downright mortifying. Samira insists that neither she nor her best friend, Frida, could possibly have anything so terrible inside of them. But after their teacher confirms the awful truth, suddenly Samira can’t help but visualize being...

Otters Love to Play by Jonathan London, illustrated by Meilo So [in Booklist]

02 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British, British Asian, Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Last year’s beaver den is this year’s cozy lair for a mother otter and three newborn pups. When they are finally allowed out, they lose no time leaping and tumbling, pouncing and wrestling, because, well, otters love to play. With their waterproof fur coats, the pups...

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