Family Archives - Page 34 of 144

Five More to Go: Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King [in The Booklist Reader]

26 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Biography, Black/African American, Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste Maaza Mengiste’s indelible debut, Beneath the Lion’s Gate (2010), put Ethiopian historical fiction on countless best-of, must-read, and award lists. Her monumental new novel draws inspiration from her great-grandmother, who as the eldest – and in Mulan-style! – answered Emperor...

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

While Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story is recommended for audiences ages 3 to 6, it's undoubtedly a book that will last on shelves well into readers' double digits. Kevin Noble Maillard – co-editor of Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World, Syracuse University law professor and...

The Farm by Joanne Ramos [in Booklist]

24 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW New mother Jane is a struggling Filipina immigrant desperate to do the best for her daughter. Jane’s older cousin Ate has worked tirelessly for decades to provide for her children on the other side of the world. Mae, born to a Chinese immigrant father...

The Far Field by Vijay Madhuri [in Library Journal]

23 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Sometimes, pushing "stop" before a book's end might be the best course of action. Seasoned reader Sneha Mathan provides her usual nuanced, affecting narration throughout the 14 hours here, yet even her resonating performance can't prevent the frustration of a stupendous story that veers fatally...

Three Flames by Alan Lightman [in Booklist]

22 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Novelist and physicist Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams) has traveled twice yearly since 2003 to Cambodia to work with his Harpswell Foundation which empowers women leaders in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. In his first novel in seven years, Lightman’s opening dedication directly spotlights Harpswell’s “strong and...

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood [in Booklist]

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW In her September 16, 2019, cover article for Time magazine, Atwood recalls informing the showrunner for the Emmy-winning Hulu adaptation of her iconic The Handmaid’s Tale, “You absolutely cannot kill Aunt Lydia, or I will have your head on a plate.” Aunt Lydia, it...

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

By 2142, “generations of interracial partnerships from the twenty-first century onward [have] rendered [names] meaningless” as markers of ethnicity. Time-traveling Agent Kin is named after quinoa; his fellow agent Markus Fernandez is a pale Brit/northern Californian. Author Mike Chen is Chinese American and channels Idris Elba...

Our Favorite Day by Joowon Oh [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Papa is an elderly creature of habit: every day begins with a cup of tea, tending to his plants, tidying up, and getting dressed to ride the bus into town. His regular walk takes him by familiar stores and lands him at the same...

Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad [in Booklist]

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Thai, Thai American

Slightly gravelly voiced Scottish actor Euan Morton takes immediate command here, crisply enunciating Bangkok-native, New-York based Pitchaya Sudbanthad’s ambitious debut. What initially reads like unrelated short stories reveals a broader overview of a city in constant flux, its past, present, and future represented by a...

Last of Her Name: A Novella & Stories by Mimi Lok [in Booklist]

12 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Repost, Short Stories

As co-founding (with Dave Eggers) executive director of the human rights and oral history organization, Voice of Witness, Mimi Lok channels her intimate observation of human relationships into an astute first story collection. The titular story features a dual narrative of extreme circumstances as experienced...

I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer by Ahmet Altan, translated by Yasemin Çongar [in Booklist]

11 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Turkish, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW For “speaking a few innocuous words on a television program in the aftermath of the failed 2016 “coup” against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Altan was sentenced to life imprisonment, recounts his friend and lawyer Philippe Sands in his foreword to this book....

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth [in Booklist]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Jokha Altharthi makes literary history as the first female Omani author to be translated into English and as author of the first novel written in Arabic to win the Man Booker International Prize. She shares that extraordinary success with translator and Oxford professor Marilyn...

Nosy White Woman by Martha Wilson [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Martha Wilson, a U.S. expat who has lived in Canada for more than two decades, adroitly balances characters from both sides of the shared border (and beyond) throughout her exceptional debut of 16 short stories, Nosy White Woman. While first collections might often prove uneven,...

The Parade by Dave Eggers [in Booklist]

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

As McSweeney’s founder Dave Eggers’ default narrator-of-choice for over a dozen titles, Dion Graham improves – again – Eggers’ original with his meticulous, mellifluous aural presentation. Eggers’ latest is a slim, tense title that, on the page, might read more didactic parable than affecting novel. Anonymity...

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga [in Booklist]

06 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

When violent unrest arrives in Syria, Jude’s family is cleaved in half as she and her pregnant mother leave behind her father and older brother to live with her uncle’s family in Ohio. Jude perseveres with English, an unfamiliar (sometimes unwelcoming) culture, establishing new friendships,...

The Last Word: Audios of Posthumously Published Books – Part 2 [in Booklist]

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Australian, Black/African American, European, Lebanese American, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese American

The one thing in life that’s guaranteed is, well, death. But books are certainly a lasting legacy. And sometimes, when we get the books after their creator has passed on, an audiobook can breathe new life into the text, animating from beyond. A bittersweet legacy, indeed, but...

Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary: Selected Works of Kathleen Collins by Kathleen Collins [in Booklist]

03 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Drama/Theater, Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW In 2014, a quarter-century after the 1988 death of filmmaker/playwright/writer/activist Kathleen Collins at 46 of breast cancer, indie distributor Milestone Films reintroduced her groundbreaking 1982 movie, Losing Ground, one of the first films written and directed by an African American woman, inspiring new interest in the...

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid [in Booklist]

02 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW When Anthony Shadid’s own nuclear family falls apart – his marriage ends, he’s separated from his only child – he returns to Marjayoun, Lebanon in August, 2007 with “foolish and rash ...

Dying by Cory Taylor [in Booklist]

31 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“I am making dying bearable for myself,” Cory Taylor reveals in her final book, originally published in her native Australia just months after she passed away in 2016 from melanoma-related brain cancer at 61. A euthanasia drug she bought online allowed Taylor some semblance of...

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part II [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for Part I. Last week, we shared a baker’s dozen of titles by Asian women writers, made accessible by dedicated, invaluable translators who continuously, miraculously enable anglophone readers in discovering, enjoying, and sharing books from around...

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