Booklist Archives - Page 6 of 39

Hummingbird Heart by Travis Dandro [in Booklist]

27 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Travis Dandro made his graphic title debut with award-winning King of King Court (2019), about his complicated 1980s youth. In this follow-up, he’s a Camaro-driving teenager in 1991 in his final year at home before art school. His heroin-addicted birth father has committed suicide and his...

The Trees by Percival Everett [in Booklist]

20 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Murder is rarely something to laugh about, and yet prolific Percival Everett’s (Telephone, 2020) latest will inspire at least a smirk, if not an out-loud snort (or many) as narrator Bill Andrew Quinn deftly evokes characters living and dead. Welcome to Money, Mississippi, where corpses...

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk [in Booklist]

19 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Actor Hannah Cabell’s stage training clearly gives her a stupendous boost in the recording studio; with a mere dozen credits, she’s already superb – and proves herself an ideal audio enabler for Toronto librarian Eva Jurczyk’s novel debut. Liesl Weiss’ boss, Christopher, is lying...

Cold by Mariko Tamaki [in Booklist]

18 May, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The recording begins with supposed-to-be-eerie tinkling notes. By the time they gratingly repeat 4.5 hours later, eyes might roll, ears could need clearing, and yet Mariko Tamaki’s dual-voiced thriller just might be immersive enough for listeners to overlook this uneven production. Katharine Chin opens as awkward...

The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Booklist]

17 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

Once upon a time, Hornclaw had a family...

Nuclear Family by Joseph Han [in Booklist]

16 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Grace, 21, and Jacob, 25, are Korean Hawaiian on their father’s side (three Cho generations are currently islanders); maternally, they are both South and North Korean, with their closest Jeong relatives in Seoul. College senior Grace lives at home and works at their parents’ Cho’s...

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Sam Bett [in Booklist]

13 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Brian Nishii’s fluency is evident within minutes, and continues throughout, as he reads Japanese names, places, and words as smoothly and accurately as English text. What’s not as initially clear is that the narrative is a multilayered reveal – something easily distinguishable in the print...

Free Love by Tessa Hadley [in Booklist]

12 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Meet Phyllis Fischer – she prefers Phyl – the latest protagonist of British auteur Tessa Hadley, who so brilliantly writes of familial relationships often facing significant change, possibly collapse. English actor Abigail Thaw, who voiced Hadley’s Late in the Day (2019), delivers another resounding performance;...

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades [in Booklist]

06 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

“We live in the dregs of Queens, New York,” debut Filipina American author Daphne Palasi Andreades introduces her polyphonic Brown Girls, with names like “Khadija, Akanksha, Maribeth, Ximena, Breonna, Cherelle, Thanh, Yoon, Ellen ...

Talking Stories for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month [in Booklist Reader]

05 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. So’s death in December 2020 at just...

Recitatif by Toni Morrison [in Booklist]

04 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW In addition to 11 novels, Novel Prize-winning Toni Morrison wrote this “one and only short story” in 1980, collected in 1983’s Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women, edited by Amiri and Amina Baraka. Posthumously published as a standalone volume, the story is paired...

Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii [in Booklist]

03 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Japanese manga powerhouse Gengoroh Tagame follows the phenomenal success of My Brother’s Husband with another poignant, empowering, gay-centered narrative, again translated by queer manga expert Anne Ishii. Sora and Nao have been neighbors and close friends since early childhood. Now that they’re older, their interactions are...

The Peanutbutter Sisters and Other American Stories by Rumi Hara [in Booklist]

29 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Repost, Short Stories

Rumi Hara’s sophomore title (after Nori, 2020) is another shorts collection, featuring seven stories predominantly in black-and-white, interrupted by interstitial scenes that when puzzled together form “The Builders,” a nearly wordless narrative drawn on a black background yet bursting with vivid blooms. These eponymous builders...

The Silent Parade [Detective Galileo 4] by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

As the third narrator of Keigo Higashino’s internationally bestselling Detective Galileo series (four volumes available Stateside thus far), David Shih is also the first (finally!) to be facile with Japanese names and places. Although the Taiwanese American actor speaks only English, his conscientiously researched, accurate...

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Edoardo Ballerini is that rare talent who instantly, effortlessly transports listeners into a story. His agile adaptability further enhances Ruta Sepetys’ (The Fountains of Silence, 2019) latest historical fiction as he expertly performs characters’ specific details, empathically channels emotions, and deftly reveals a narrative rife...

You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar by Pyae Moe Thet War [in Booklist]

18 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese), Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW She has two names, Moe Thet War and Pyae Pyae (pronounced “puh-yay, puh-yay”). Both were carefully chosen by her parents. As a Myanmar-born, U.S.- and British-educated, Myanmar-returned resident with a perfect American accent, Pyae Pyae unabashedly explores her “liminality ...

Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth [in Booklist]

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Jokha Alharthi’s third novel is her second to arrive in the U.S., again gorgeously rendered by Oxford professor Marilyn Booth. Their auspicious earlier pairing produced Celestial Bodies (2019), making Alharthi the first female Omani author to be translated into English; the novel became the first...

All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd [in Booklist]

11 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During a rare non-work outing, a colleague asks, “tell me something about you,” but the protagonist “couldn’t think of a single thing ...

Made in Korea (vol. 1) by Jeremy Holt, illustrated by George Schall [in Booklist]

06 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Bill and Suelynn Evans of Conroe, Texas, can’t have kids. Their experience at their wealthy friends’ son’s birthday party inspires a search for a proxy of their own. In this not-too-distant reality, “the smartest men on the planet” are consumed with “makin’ phony kids”...

Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser [in Booklist]

30 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The monsters here are, of course, people, made terrifying by what Michelle de Kretser labels “three scary monsters – racism, misogyny, and ageism.” Subtitled “A Novel in Two Parts,” the notable Sri Lankan-born Australian de Kretser’s (The Life to Come, 2018) latest is indeed...

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