Once Removed by Mako Yoshikawa [in AsianWeek]
27 Jun, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost
In alternating voices, this lyrical novel captures the relationship between two stepsisters – one a Japanese American, the other a blond Jewish-Catholic – who are so different and yet so alike, proving that some...
For two years before she left Iran, Nafisi, a resigned university professor, spent almost every Thursday morning with seven of her favorite former female students, discussing Western classics in a...
A middle-aged yakuza who probably should have been “The Boss” but has stalled somewhere tries to figure out how to get out of the fray and quietly manipulate his way to the top.
Review: 
An especially timely, highly entertaining look – “I-ran is a sentence, Iran is a country” – at life in Southern California as an Iranian immigrant. Dumas mixes humorous misadventures with chilling memories...
Introduced in Chang’s Over the Shoulder, Korean American Allen Choice – a licensed bodyguard but not yet a private investigator – returns in this second installment to figure out the facts about the sudden, suspicious death...
A lovingly-illustrated, bittersweet tale about a little Guatemalan boy who loses his four-legged, furry best friend.
Review: 
A resonating, breathtaking first novel that chronicles the relationship of two boys, born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan – both motherless, both nursed by the same woman and both lives inextricably linked, even in...
A debut collection of nine elliptical stories about lost souls in Los Angeles.
Review: 
Xinran: The Voice of the Good Women of China
The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices is one of those books you just can’t put down. Part memoir, part history, part tragedy, part social documentary, Good Women...
The first-ever bilingual English-Tagalog story set in the United States, this book takes readers on a magical adventure through the streets of San Francisco's Manilatown to the San...
A memorable debut novel (big month for debuts, no?) about the Vietnamese live-in cook for the legendary American expats Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, a young man with a complicated past...
Khouri writes hauntingly about the life and death of her childhood best friend, Dalia, who was murdered by her own father for falling in love with the wrong man. Khouri exposes the insidious laws...
Debut novel about a djinn – a spirit or sprite, sometimes known as a genie (notice author's name) – and a certain, searching "I" who the djinn watches and, shall...
Oda, known for his outspoken anti-war sentiments, captures a group of loyal, patriotic Japanese soldiers on a South Pacific island during the final days of World War II, who are mere pawns of a...
Hahn is unflinching in her exploration of life – from murdering mothers to searching daughters to waiting wives, to necrophilia to fairy tales to deformed bodies ….
Review: 
The Creation of Fiction
Time for true confessions: When I read Ruth Ozeki's first novel, My Year of Meats, a quirky, rollicking, memorable adventure about a documentary filmmaker who exposes the abuses in...
Honoring Community
If a single picture speaks a thousand words, then the timeless images captured in Chinatown Dreams: The Life and Photographs of George Lee make up the history of a community long gone. George Lee, a...
Another quirky tale – a love story of sorts – from Japan’s favorite Gen-Xer, this time about two extremely different cousins who spend a summer together by the seashore.
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Another debut novel, this time about a married math teacher, his illicit affair with his teenage tutee, and what happens when he confesses all to his wife. Be ready to be surprised…
Review:...
An almost comic tale about an immature, overprivileged, married professor who falls in love with a much younger woman on her wedding day, set on the eve of the horrific Rape of Nanjing when...