Her name is Clara Lee .. "first and last. It just sounds better that way. Like peanut butter and jelly, like trick-or-treat, or fairy and princess, those words just go together. Just like me, Clara Lee." She's the newest – and first Korean American! – heroine from...
Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother did more than speak to me. It screamed, shouted and lectured me. It made me simultaneously laugh with empathy and cringe with embarrassment and exasperation. "This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs," the...
From China to Nepal, boutique press Satya House Publications offers the second title in their I See the Sun series in which a young girl shares her day...
A magazine reporter, referred to as "La Monita, Blondie" – because of her "mass of blond hair" thanks to her Belgian grandfather – is sent to cover an angel sighting in the Bogotá...
While today's country roads might seem to resemble life from centuries past, subtle contemporary reminders are unmistakable ...
Having grown up Catholic (I'm still in recovery), nothing works better than leftover Catholic guilt to get me to do something I'm whinge-ing about. The supreme irony about my former Catholicism is...
What perfect timing! Madhur Jaffrey's newest cookbook makes for a toothsome companion to one of last week's posts, Indivisible, the first anthology that brings together contemporary American poets...
The simplicity of Australian author/artist Jeannie Baker's latest title makes it simply stupendous. Open the book and you have two halves on either side, the left which begins in English, and right which...
The title – Indivisible – the editors explain, is "a word taken from the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance." Through the 49 diverse American voices represented here with roots in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and...
A young girl wakes with excitement, anticipating her early morning ferry ride that will take her from her village to visit her aunt in big-city Shanghai.
At Auntie Yen's apartment, she...
When the local San Francisco public school denied Mamie Tape admission solely based on her Chinese heritage, her parents sued the city's Board of Education in what became the landmark 1885 case, Tape vs. Hurley. Mamie was seven years old, the American-born child of middle-class Chinese...
Given the sheer number of books that arrive in the mailbox, I rarely pick up a title and start reading immediately. But something about Migritude (debuting from fabulous indie publisher Kaya Press: 'Smokin' Hot Books'!!) demanded 'read me NOW!' Once opened, I could hardly put...
Through 11 dovetailing stories that begin in the 1980s and move toward today, Angie Chau's absorbing debut collection, Quiet As They Come, follows three branches of an extended family that has miraculously escaped the Vietnam War. The 12 refugees attempt to adapt and survive the...
Censored in China, the latest novel in English translation from Yan Lianke (Serve the People!) is a brutal morality tale of a country undergoing transition; the citizens are mere “dogs, or chickens, or ants crushed underfoot” in a larger-than-life tragedy. China’s plan to fill its...
I'm not so sure about my tween son reading this sooner than later (it's part of his English curriculum this school year) ...
Words of warning ...
Pakistani Canadian writer Rukhsana Khan takes on sibling rivalry once again, but unlike her adorable 2005 title, Silly Chicken, this time, all her characters are all of the human variety ...
Oishinbo is apparently one of those cult manga series that only recently hit U.S. shelves in translation, but floating out there all over the world already are over 100 million copies. The title, by the way, translates to something like delicious (oishii: 美味しい, orおいしい) and 'a...
Unlike the rest of Andrew Lam’s relatives who only want to bombard him with questions about meeting Hiroyuki Sakai of Iron Chef fame (I don't watch TV and I hate to cook), what I want to know is, 'how's the love life?' Some might say...
What a festive day this is in most Asian and the Asian American communities throughout the world ...
