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...
The versatile Jane Yolen – apparently she hates the word "prolific" according to a recent interview – debuts her 300th title bearing her good name over the half century she's been writing! No, that's not a typo. Yes, truly 300 books! No wonder she's been called...
Audrey Niffenegger's second novel begins with "The End" – the title of the book's opening chapter – and the words "Elspeth died ...
Words of warning ...
In spite of the "A Work of Fiction" disclaimer on one of the front pages of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam War classic, you'll probably close the book believing every word contained between the covers to be true. That O'Brien the author names his narrator Tim O'Brien...
This has been one tragic week: the deadly Oaxaca, Mexico mudslide, the two Rutgers freshmen whose abusively invasive actions led to the suicide of a third first-year student, the deaths of iconic actor Tony Curtis and director Arthur Penn ...
What timing ...
As I discovered manga in so-called mid-life, I'm especially illiterate in the shōjo genre – manga marketed specifically to young girls ages 10 to 18-ish with pages that seem to show a plethora of starry eyes, fluffy costumes, talking animals and such. The Japanese characters for 'shō-jo'...
True stories about kids with tragic endings are undoubtedly effective in fueling parents' worst nightmares. This one proves especially haunting. Six years ago today, "Yummy" Sandifer made the cover of Time magazine. Along with his mugshot were the words, "The Short, Violent Life of Robert 'Yummy'...
No men? No problem. Women can and will adjust to anything, including getting quickly used to power! This entertaining gender-bender series – an alternate history of ancient Japan – continues with the ascension of women to all leadership positions, including inheriting the Shogunate. What begins as "merely...
On this eve of 9/11, I'm in a frustrated funk. Regardless of political, religious, cultural, or ethnic affiliations, I think most Americans are shaking their heads at the state of the world, and definitely not shaking enough hands; not enough of us have been able...
Lola Rein Kaufman's "'memory button'" got turned on on September 17, 1939, when Russian tanks, trucks, and soldiers entered her small hometown of Czortków in what was then Poland. She was not yet 5 years old. Before she reached her 10th birthday, she lost her...
How ironically fitting that Shawna Yang Ryan’s debut novel – about, yes, ghosts! – has already had multiple lives. First published in 2007 as Locke 1928 by a tiny non-profit California press, El León Literary Arts, it returned to bookshelves two years later in a new incarnation with...
Federal employee Fujimoto delivers ikigami – death notices from the National Welfare Program, which insists that its arbitrary system of randomly killing one in every 1,000 citizens will teach people to value life. Fujimoto has been in doubtful turmoil about the death-system, although he knows...
I really should have taken a picture: my too-fast growing tween son, cuddled in bed reading to his little cousin (my not-quite-5-year-old nephew with the most amazing eyes you’ll ever gaze into), hearing the very familiar words of Grace Lin’s delicious Dim Sum for Everyone. “Do...
Holy moly! This manga is older than I am! No snickering, please! First published in Japan in 1956 by a then very young Yoshihiro Tatsumi (who memorialized his own artist-as-a-young-man development in his autobiographical graphic memoir A Drifting Life – in which you can also read more...
As the new boy in town, living in a motel with his near-silent father, young Rob Horton literally hasn't unpacked. He keeps a virtual suitcase tightly locked with his deepest feelings and thoughts, most notably memories about his mother who passed away six months ago...
Award-winning Fumi Yoshinaga's dramatically entertaining gender-bender series, which offers an alternate history of premodern Japan, concludes the story began in volume 2 of how the first female shogun inherited her post and rose to power as recorded in the Chronicle of a Dying Day. Having grown...
The town of Musashigawa has a graffiti problem ...
If you’re reading this review, $4 lattes or $15 lunches are probably not shock-inducing numbers. Now think about this: “Two dollars feeds a child for a week...
