The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
14 Jul, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race
So here I sit facing a familiar conundrum ...
BookDragon Drugs/Alcohol/Addiction Tag
Bingo’s Run by James A. Levine
19 Jun, by in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
If, like me, you have trouble with accents, dialects, or unfamiliar vernacular, choose audible here. Narrator Peter Macon couldn't be smoother and clearer: I couldn't figure out "meejit" on the page, but in Macon's voice, no problem (turns out I'm just the "eejit" who can't understand 'midget,'...
Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang
07 May, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Taiwanese American
Sometimes my timing is so serendipitous, I wonder if I have a book angel whispering to me in my sleep. Somehow, I hit 'play' on this irreverent, potty-mouthed, guffaw-inducing, jaw-dropping memoir last week, only to see it pop up this week in my virtual world...
With or Without You by Domenica Ruta
20 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Ah, well ...
The Little Hut of Leaping Fishes by Chiew-Siah Tei
06 Feb, by in Adult Readers, Audio, British, British Asian, Chinese, Fiction, Malaysian, Southeast Asian
For all the power and wealth of the Chai clan, discontent and tragedy haunts its three generations. With the challenges facing China at the turn of the 20th century as the last imperial dynasty crumbles and western colonialism looms, patriarch Master Chai's once ironclad rule...
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
12 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
According to a recent article, "The Book(s) of the Year" in PublishersLunch, "the clear consensus for the 2013 'book of the year' has ended in ...
Barbara by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Ben Applegate, foreword by Frederik L. Schodt
20 Dec, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation
For readers familiar with Astro Boy, Buddha, or Black Jack – a few of 'godfather of manga' Osamu Tezuka's signature titles – Barbara might present quite the surprise. This is definitely not your kiddie fare: the front cover warns "explicit content"; the back cover is marked with...
Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman
01 Dec, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
My older teenager tells me the series of the same name is what 'everyone' is watching: "It's the new favorite show," she insists. So when I found the book ("there's a book?" the daughter asks with surprise; there's almost always a book first!) available to...
Looks Like Daylight: Voices of Indigenous Kids by Deborah Ellis, foreword by Loriene Roy
28 Nov, by in Canadian, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
Deborah Ellis has a doubly powerful schtick: first, her nonfiction titles give underrepresented children a highly visible podium for their very own words (Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, Off to War: Voices of Soldiers’ Children, Children of War: Voices of Iraqi Refugees, Kids of Kabul: Living Bravely through...
Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry [in Library Journal]
03 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost
The latest biography of "the world's most brilliant stand-up comedian" is the culmination of a project that took more than a decade (originally intended as a three-act screenplay) by screenwriter David Henry and his brother, musician Joe Henry. Born in 1940 in Peoria, IL, Richard...
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
30 Jul, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, South Asian
Without intending any disrespect to narrator Robertson Dean (in fact, his deep, rich voice makes for a memorable listen), this is a book you must see on the page. If you only go audible, you'll miss you too much from the very first sentence onward:...
Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende, translated by Anne McLean
10 Jul, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American, Translation
I've never seen, but have read about (no surprise) the international popularity of telenovelas, but I imagine that if this, Isabel Allende's latest novel, was transferred to the little screen, it would fit quite well in what seems to be a rather histrionic genre with...
Shelter and Seconds Away [Mickey Bolitar series] by Harlan Coben
30 Jun, by in Fiction, Jewish, Young Adult Readers
If you're needing a Myron Bolitar fix – Harlan Coben, the first author to win an Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony (three of the top awards for mystery writers), seems to be taking a break from his most persistent protagonist after 10 volumes – then this new series...
The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor]
30 May, by in Adult Readers, Afghan, British, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost
When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen, the one repeating line you’ll encounter is this: “Anna Badkhen writes about people in extremis.” To do so, she’s “spent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.” Badkhen...
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani
28 May, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Here's another tiny-world overlap that convinces me that some higher power is directing my reading choices: first-time author Christa Parravani is married to Gulf War veteran author Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) – 'Tony' in Her – who appeared in the 2008 Oscar-nominated documentary, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was directed by...
Carry the One by Carol Anshaw
16 Feb, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
A couple of months ago, one of my trusty literary friends with whom I often share must-read titles told me about seeing 'everyone' carrying this novel around last fall. So she decided to see for herself what the hubbub was about. Once she started, she...
Flesh by Khanh Ha [in Library Journal]
15 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American
Flesh, a turn-of-the-20th-century debut novel set mostly in Hanoi, begins and ends with gruesome beheadings. Bearing witness to both executions is Tài, a poor teenage village boy quickly forced into manhood. In an effort to reclaim his father’s severed head and finance an auspicious burial, Tài...
River of Smoke [Ibis Trilogy, Book 2] by Amitav Ghosh
26 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Fiction, Indian, South Asian
Allow me to start with two immediate thoughts about content and delivery. Content: Today's Mexican narcos, the Colombian cartels, the Afghan/Pakistani smuggling rings utterly pale in comparison to the British and American opium runners demanding access to 19th-century China. You might have studied the distant...
Toxicology by Jessica Hagedorn + Author Interview [in Our Own Voice]
27 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American
Eight years have passed (far too quickly) since I last saw the inimitable Jessica Hagedorn. Her 2003 novel, Dream Jungle, was about to come out and we were in desperate search of boba tea in New York’s East Village. Faced with a closed tea salon...
Author Interview: Jessica Hagedorn [in Bookslut]
05 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost
When I first met the inimitable Jessica Hagedorn eight years ago – her 2003 novel Dream Jungle, in which Hagedorn intertwines the alleged discovery of an ancient "lost tribe" in the remote hills of the Philippines with the problematic filming of Apocalypse Now, was just...