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BookDragon Friendship Tag

The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi, translated by Emily Balistrieri [in Booklist]

15 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Reminiscent of Groundhog Day-like repetition, each chapter duplicates the same opening paragraphs, ending with the same “gross love language” (but watch for that perspective shift). The intriguing premise is that an unnamed university junior in Kyoto reveals how he “accomplished absolutely nothing” in his first two years....

Before Your Memory Fades [Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Book 3] by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot [in Booklist]

12 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Short Stories, Translation

In the third installment of the internationally best-selling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, some of the familiar crew from Tokyo’s Café Funiculi Funicula move to Hakodate’s Café Donna Donna on Hokkaido after its proprietor, Yukari Tokita, leaves indefinitely for the U.S. to help a young...

Esther’s Notebooks by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor [in Booklist]

11 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Riad Sattouf, renowned for his Arab of the Future autobiographical series, is just as famous in France for Esther’s Notebooks, which began as a weekly newspaper comic spotlighting the observations and experiences of a friend’s daughter. The comics’ popularity inspired best-selling books and an...

Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal about the Japanese American Incarceration by Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Lauren Tamaki [in Booklist]

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, he authorized the removal and imprisonment of over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Three photographers – two white and free; one Japanese and imprisoned, relying on contraband...

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

07 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

The cover boasts a recommendation from global phenom BTS’s leader RM. The PR materials tout its “runaway best-seller” status in its native South Korea, where mental illness remains stigmatized in a country with one of the world’s highest suicide rates. As a twentysomething social media director...

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

06 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Multiple shes and cats populate this gratifying, slim novel-in-stories, which arrives with a decades-long history that undoubtedly underscores its timeless appeal. Makoto Shinkai launched his career as one of Japan’s most lauded animation and manga artists with the five-minute film, She and Her Cat (1999), later expanded...

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Town was once a fish-farm village, but it’s now internationally known for the corporation that aggressively expanded it into a bustling city-state. Here, class stratification is impermeable. Su is a Citizen. Do-kyung is a Saha, an inconsequential resident of the crumbling Saha Estates who...

All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End: The Cartoons of Charles Johnson by Charles Johnson [in Booklist]

04 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Prodigious National Book Award-winning, 1998 MacArthur “Genius” Charles Johnson is now in his 70s, having been repeatedly lauded in multiple genres. Perhaps not as well known is that Johnson began his literary career as a cartoonist (in high school!) – and never stopped drawing,...

When Everything Turned Blue by Alessandro Baronciani, translated by Carla Roncalli di Montorio [in Booklist]

03 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Italian, Nonethnic-specific, Translation, Uncategorized, Young Adult Readers

Marco, Chiara remembers of her close friend, “was not afraid ...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 3: From Macedonia to France by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

29 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW French comics creator Fabien Toulmé’s stupendous trilogy concludes Hakim’s epic three-year odyssey from war-torn Syria to finally reaching safety in France. Hannah Chute returns to deftly translate the third volume. To remind audiences of previous events – though reading in order is a gratifying must...

The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

PEN/Faulkner finalist Matthew Salesses, a transracial Korean adoptee, again distills his own experiences with race and (e)masculinity for laudable literary inspiration in The Sense of Wonder. His intricate novel spotlights three basketball players at different points of their careers – starting out, at the pinnacle,...

The Scent of Burnt Flowers by Blitz Bazawule [in Booklist]

27 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Fiction, Ghanaian, Ghanaian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A faux pastor with a costume-shop collar and his not-yet wife; a mermaid with a silver guitar; a pill-popping, weak-hearted FBI agent who withstands gruesome torture; Sidney Poitier signing autographs for Russian soldiers ...

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre, translated by Montana Kane [in Booklist]

25 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW That this story starts with “CHAPTER 20” will likely make readers pause to wonder if an earlier volume might have been missed. But worry not, and read on. A half-dozen pages later shows “CHAPTER 19,” revealing the narrative is moving in reverse. For 37 years,...

Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, translated by David Boyd and Lucy North [in Booklist]

23 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Emi Yagi’s first novel, which won Japan’s Dazai Osamu Prize for the best debut fiction, is a brilliant exposé of discontented contemporary womanhood. Shibata’s professional life has been plagued by men – from sexual harassment at her last job to sexist roles at her current....

Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong [in Booklist]

22 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Once upon a time, they seemed to be an ideal family: parents Hank and Karen Liu Brighton; their biracial daughters Morgan and Riley. They owned a small organic grocery store in Eugene, Oregon, then expanded into a globally sourced luxury goods empire called Kaleidoscope. First, Morgan...

Halina Filipina: A New Yorker in Manila by Arnold Arre [in Booklist]

21 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Indie publisher Tuttle showcases Filipino creator Arnold Arre, whose The Mythology Class (another Tuttle title) was the first comic to win the Philippine National Book Award. Renowned for his fantasy works, Arre describes Halina Filipina as a “no-frills relationship story” in an afterword describing the...

Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega, illustrated by Rose Bousamra [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Caribbean American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Claribel A. Ortega (Witchlings) writes buoying books inspired by her Dominican heritage. She empathically takes on the timeless challenges of "good" and "bad" hair in Frizzy, gloriously depicted by debut illustrator Rose Bousamra. Going to the salon every Sunday is "without fail" the "worst part of the week"...

Artist by Yeong-shin Ma, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

15 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Yeong-shin Ma’s dazzling 2020 English debut, Moms, won the 2021 Harvey Award for Best International Book and has recently been picked up for a TV series. Fortuitously paired again with award-winning Korean Canadian translator Janet Hong, Ma’s spectacular latest import arrives in brilliant full...

Gunk Baby by Jamie Marina Lau [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Repost

Melbourne author Jamie Marina Lau was the same age as her 24-year-old protagonist when Gunk Baby, her second novel, was published in Australia in 2021. Following the success of Lau's 2018 debut, Pink Mountain on Locust Island, which was shortlisted for Australia's Stella Prize, Gunk Baby arrives Stateside...

The Joy of Quitting by Keiler Roberts [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Ignatz Award-winner Keiler Roberts (My Begging Chart) collates a decade of work from five previous titles – Powdered Milk (2012), Miseryland (2015), Sunburning (2017), Chlorine Gardens (2018), and Rat Time (2019) – in The Joy of Quitting, a summary of much of her life thus far....

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Smithsonian Institution
Asian Pacific American Center

Capital Gallery, Suite 7065
600 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20024

202.633.2691 | APAC@si.edu

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SmithsonianAPA brings Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture to you through innovative museum experiences and digital initiatives.

About BookDragon

Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

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