Friendship Archives - Page 26 of 113

The Farm by Joanne Ramos + Author Interview [in Bloom]

19 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

“I cared more about making the reader uncomfortable than happy, because … discomfort makes you question and think” She began her American life as a six-year-old immigrant from the Philippines. She entered adulthood with a Princeton pedigree which well-served her lofty finance career. She was a...

Now Hear This: Priya Ayyar [in Booklist]

12 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...

A Match Made in Mehendi by Nandini Bajpai [in Booklist]

11 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

When Simi’s habitual klutziness leads (surprise!) to the unlikely pairing of her recently single cousin with the furniture store owner’s lawyer-to-be son, her mother and masi – mother’s sister – have irrefutable proof that Simi’s inherited the family talent: matchmaking. For three generations, the women...

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris [in Booklist]

10 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, European, Fiction, Jewish, Repost

“Choosing to live is an act of defiance, a form of heroism,” Lale assures his lover Gita. The pair are both Slovakian Jews, trapped in the hell of Auschwitz-Birkenau. As the death camp’s Tätowierer – the tattooist who scars prisoners with everlasting numbers – Lale...

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne [in Booklist]

08 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The son of a Yorkshire pig farmer, Maurice Swift is his family’s black sheep, and will do whatever it takes to succeed. That “whatever” means escaping rural England for West Berlin where he meets visiting writer Erich Ackermann, who provides Maurice his first authorial...

Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie [in Booklist]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

YouTube star Alex Bertie readily admits “that as far as trans people go, I’m very privileged. I’m a white educated male with family support, a roof over my head, and a job.” Being British also guaranteed access to a national health system that paid for...

The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung [in Booklist]

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

“I suppose I should warn you that I tell a story like a woman: looping into myself, interrupting,” announces Catherine Chung’s protagonist Katherine. “Things have never seemed straightforward to me; the path has never been clear.” As the child of a WWII veteran father and...

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Pulitzer Prized, National Book Awarded for The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead moves a century-plus forward to 1960s Florida, where having darker skin remains crime enough (the contemporary irony looms). J.D. Jackson proceeds deliberately, his narration measured and nuanced, avoiding over-performing through even the most...

Beijing Payback by Daniel Nieh [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW With a mere handful of solo credits, Ewan Chung is a relative newbie to audiobooks, but his remarkable versatility proves the ideal fit to showcase Daniel Nieh’s outstanding thriller. The DC-born Chung is a talented polyglot, fluent in Mandarin (he translated the DVD audio...

Count Me In by Varsha Bajaj [in Booklist]

27 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian African, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American

Karina and Chris are next-door neighbors and attend the same school, but they “have [their] own paths”: Karina – ebulliently voiced by Priya Ayyar, who shares her character’s Indian American ancestry – is drawn to photography and books; Chris – earnestly narrated by Christopher Gebauer...

Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Few historical tragedies compare to the hell-on-earth endured by the Japanese military’s so-called “comfort women,” a grossly abused term for mostly young girls kidnapped during WWII into sexual slavery. For Lee Ok-sun, one of Korea’s few survivors, her “service” included 30–40 men daily in...

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi [in Booklist]

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “I used to be a racist most of the time,” insists Ibram X. Kendi, a surprising revelation from 2016’s winner for the National Book Award for Nonfiction (Stamped from the Beginning). “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist,’” he explains. “It is ‘antiracist’...

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino, translated by Sam Bett [in Booklist]

21 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Best known for his brainy death-and-destruction mystery series featuring Detective Galileo and Detective Kaga, who have successfully arrived Stateside from Japan, Keigo Higashino reveals a softer side to his prolific imagination here. The Namiya General Store has been closed for decades, but three delinquent young men...

Kitchen Curse: Stories by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker, Tiffany Tsao, Maggie Tiojakin, and Benedict Anderson [in Library Journal]

18 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indonesian, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Eka Kurniawan, the first Man Booker International Prize-nominated Indonesian writer (he was long-listed in 2016 for Man Tiger), makes his collection-in-English debut, with the majority of the 16 stories translated by Annie Tucker, his PEN/Heim Translation Fund-awarded Beauty Is a Wound translator; three of the...

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian [in Booklist]

17 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Persian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW It’s 1989 and AIDS is a death warrant, but first love knows no limits. Despite a teeny little blip when Lauren Ambrose mispronounces “Audre Lorde,” the cast of Abdi Nazemian’s latest presents in near-perfect pitch. Ambrose is fashion-forward creative genius Judy (named after Garland),...

Silence of the Chagos by Shenaz Patel, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman [in Booklist]

15 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Indian African, Repost, South Asian, Translation

Forced expulsions have long been part of man’s history, motivated by politics, prejudice, geography, human-made disasters, and natural forces. Virtually unknown is the full-scale eviction of the Chagossians, a Creole-speaking native ethnic group with African and Asian ancestry, from Diego Garcia, the largest island in...

Parade: A Folktale by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell [in Booklist]

14 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The presentation is exquisite: slightly smaller than a single hand, Hiromi Kawakami’s spare text is interrupted by Takako Yoshitomi’s delightful two-color illustrations of mostly geometric shapes with anthropomorphized additions. Subtitled “A Folktale,” these less-than-100 pages easily stand alone as a parable about memory, mythic...

There’s Something about Sweetie by Sandhya Menon [in Booklist]

11 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Vikas Adam has deservedly earned the title of Sandhya Menon’s male voice of choice, assuming hero status in all her titles thus far. He affably returns here as Ashish, the younger brother of Rishi from When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), and he’s about to get a Bollywood-worthy romance of...

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay [in Booklist]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Until his cousin Jun was murdered, Jay thought little of his Filipino heritage. A Michigan senior headed to university in the fall, Jay’s been on auto-pilot for most of his 17 years. Similar in age, Jun and Jay stayed avid pen pals after childhood...

The Matchmaker’s List by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

08 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

At 29, Raina’s known true love, but also debilitating heartbreak when happily-ever-after didn’t happen. Still single, she reluctantly agrees to meet the men of her grandmother’s choosing. Not that her family is particularly marriageable: Nani seemed more servant than partner to Raina’s late grandfather, her...

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