Heirlooms: Letters From a Peach Farmer by David Mas Masumoto [in San Francisco Chronicle]
As I write, I'm into the ninth of 16 hours that make up the audio version of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Learning about the degrading...
A spectacular book-without-words that traces one family’s immigration story with brilliant imagination. In an unnamed troubled land, a man leaves his wife and young daughter behind in search of freedom in a new country. His adjustments...
A lovingly illustrated poem, which was originally submitted anonymously by an adoptive mother to the
When Aneesa, a young Muslim girl, wakes up on the first morning of Eid with just her grandmother, she greatly misses her parents, who are on a pilgrimage to Mecca. At the prayer hall, Aneesa meets...
Here's a delightful new spin on how adoptive parents and children are bound together. Using the age-old Chinese belief that a red thread binds people together in love, Lin has created a touching fable about a...
Bing’s new pet, baby rat Ralph, proves to be a handful as he must learn to mind his own business and rein in his curiosity, not to mention his uncontrollable gnawing. Of course, his smarts and...
A delightful, joyful pair of titles about a young Muslim boy, Mat, growing up in a rural village (kampung) in 1960s Malaysia and his everyday joy of discovery and plain fun. Town Boy continues with...

As the daughter of struggling Korean immigrants, Casey Han has created a persona defined by her expensive tastes, her magna cum laude Princeton degree, and a wealthy family friend who is always there to lend a...
Something magical happens when prize-winning novelist Edwidge Danticat strings words together. From the most trivial details to breathtaking moments of enormous gravity, Danticat uses words as charms that gently beckon readers into her world and make...

At the heart of M.G. Vassanji's sixth novel, The Assassin's Song, is an exercise in perspective. Definitions of right and wrong, truth and deception, the chosen and outcast – especially in matters having to do with...
Forget pastoral countryside and quaint village life – this is post-Tiananmen China in which money rules and reinvention is the answer to survival in a new society defined by unleashed capitalism and greed. Six stories capture...
Su Qi, a sensitive Chinese Malaysian youth, comes of age in the magical jungles of Borneo, shaped by the cruelty he witnesses at the hands of his abusive father and his loving but withdrawn mother. He...
The latest from one of Japan’s leading novelists is another signature piece in which the unexpected should be anticipated. It’s just before midnight and teenaged Mari reads a thick, unnamed book in a well-lit Denny’s in...
“Beat” Takeshi Kitano, most widely known as an acclaimed filmmaker, is indeed a Renaissance man. Besides making films, he’s an actor, comedian, major TV personality, poet, painter, and novelist – and most likely more. While he...
Making the playground rounds in hopes of finding a community among stay-at-home moms and their children has left Sayoko lonelier than ever. When she gets a job offer from single, brash, energetic Aoi, she immediately signs...
Schadenfreude, of German origin, means joy at someone's distress or misfortune – surely not the best of human reactions. But publishers have turned misery into a veritable gold mine with an endless array of voyeuristic best-sellers....
A little boy visits a remote village with this library grandfather, bringing his little red fish along. Boy and fish have a rollicking adventure with books – literally – captured in full movement on wordless pages...
A little girl insists on her seventh birthday that she is finally old enough to wear one of her mother’s gorgeous saris. One by one, each magical sari tells a story of the last special occasion...