Friendship Archives - Page 5 of 113

The Impossible Climb (Young Readers Adaptation): Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and a Climber’s Life by Mark Synnott, adapted by Hampton Synnott [in School Library Journal]

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Synnott couple compress husband Mark’s 2019 bestseller to share with younger readers Alex Honnold’s thought-to-be-impossible feat of solo free climbing – as in no ropes, no harness! – Freerider, El Capitan’s notorious 3,000-feet vertical route in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps aware that adults might argue...

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp by Jack Fairweather [in School Library Journal]

22 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, European, Jewish, Nonfiction, Polish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

What’s immediately striking here is the casting of a woman to narrate: the titular rebel is the Polish hero – a man – Witold Pilecki. So, too, is the author, Jack Fairweather, who adapted his 2019 award-winning The Volunteer. The reasons for choosing a female...

Take No Names by Daniel Nieh [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Daniel Nieh, a former international model and Chinese-English translator, introduced his protagonist Victor Li in the gripping Beijing Payback, published in 2019. Nieh's sophomore thriller, Take No Names, heightens the gasp-inducing wild ride of Victor's debut. Although both titles are easily consumable as stand-alone novels – Nieh...

The Racers: How an Outcast Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Challenged Hitler’s Best by Neal Bascomb [in School Library Journal]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, European, French, German, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

History alchemized through the Neal Bascomb lens – Russian battleship Potemkin, WWI prison camp, Nazi Germany – is a guaranteed thrill-ride; his latest takes readers into the speediest cars of the 1930s. Adapting Faster for younger audiences, Bascomb details a prominent Nazi upset played out...

Tomorrow in Shanghai by May-lee Chai [in Booklist]

05 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

In her newest story collection, May-lee Chai (Useful Phrases for Immigrants, 2018) shifts dexterously between the personal and the fantastical. Four of the eight stories feature autobiographical stand-ins who are, like Chai, the daughter of a Chinese father and white mother whose formative years are defined...

The Selfless Act of Breathing by JJ Bola [in Booklist]

01 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

JJ Bola opens with a shocking promise: “I quit my job; I am taking my life savings, $9,021, and when it runs out, I am going to kill myself.” Nigerian British actor Oseloka Obi commands immediate attention in his debut narration in a solo adult...

A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Meron Hadero [in Christian Science Monitor]

30 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Ethiopian, Ethiopian American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

From the particular to the universal: Cross-cultural stories A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Ethiopian American writer Meron Hadero highlights immigrant stories of dislocation and identity. Displacement – often by outside force, rarely by personal choice – haunts Meron Hadero’s superb debut short story...

Different Kinds of Fruit by Kyle Lukoff [in Booklist]

29 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Prolific, perennially youthful-voiced Cassandra Morris channels her infectious energy for Kyle Lukoff’s (Too Bright to See) newest vivacious protagonist, Annabelle, of Tahoma Falls, a small town just 40 minutes (but distinctly far) from Seattle. As a sixth grader, she’s about to start her final year at...

Self-Portrait with Ghost by Meng Jin [in Booklist]

28 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Following her extraordinary novel Little Gods (2020), Meng Jin presents a fascinating 10-story collection divided into four sections. One-line drawings of profiles interrupt, switching directions as if cleverly reminding readers to shift perspectives. Death haunts the first three titles. In “Philip Is Dead,” the narrator insistently...

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

27 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Once more, internationally bestselling Sayaka Murata confronts unspeakable topics with quotidian calm, shockingly convincing logic, and creepy humor in a dozen genre-defying stories, translated again by her chosen, Japanese-to-English enabler, Ginny Tapley Takemori. Death is no longer an ending, full stop, in “A First-Rate Material,”...

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Emily St. John Mandel groupies will be especially tickled to discover Glass Hotel’s narrator Dylan Moore and Station Eleven’s Kirsten Potter are half the quartet that cipher her latest, in which four narrative strands connect almost five centuries. In 1912, the youngest son of a wealthy...

The Carnegie Medal Interview: Tom Lin [in Booklist]

22 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Terry Hong, Booklist Contributing Reviewer and chair of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence selection committee, had questions for Tom Lin, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for his first novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu. Here is their conversation: So as a debut novelist in your...

Flip the Script by Lyla Lee [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Readers familiar with Lyla Lee's exuberant YA debut, I'll Be the One, will be tickled to see that singer/dancer Skye Shin is "topping the charts" in Lee's equally ebullient sophomore YA novel, Flip the Script. Like Skye, Lee's new protagonist, Hana Jin, is a Korean American...

Body Language: Writers on Identity, Physicality, and Making Space for Ourselves edited by Nicole Chung and Matt Ortile [in Booklist]

16 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Editors Nicole Chung (All You Can Ever Know, 2018) and Matt Ortile (The Groom Will Keep His Name, 2020) present 30 essays that reveal how diverse bodies “move within (and against) expectations of race, gender, health, and ability.” Gabrielle Bellot, a Black trans woman,...

The Chandler Legacies by Abdi Nazemian [in Booklist]

14 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Iranian American, Persian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Vikas Adam, who was one-third of the terrific trio that voiced Abdi Nazemian’s Like a Love Story (2019), returns solo to adroitly cipher the diverse boarding-school cast here (Nazemian closes the recording with his own author’s-note narration). Chandler Academy is tiny enough, but to be...

Tokyo Dreaming [Tokyo Ever After, Book 2] by Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The empowering delight of Emiko Jean’s Tokyo Ever After continues in Tokyo Dreaming as Her Imperial Highness Princess Izumi tries to fit into an ancient hierarchy. When the second book opens, Izumi and her mother are ensconced in Tokyo's Tōgū Palace with their somewhat malodorous pup, Tamagotchi, who's been...

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho [in Booklist]

10 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese American

Listeners familiar with Natalie Naudus’s performances – she’s amassed almost 200 narrating credits – will surely have begun to notice that she has two narrative modes for girlfriends: one with aural gravitas, the other (usually deemed “the pretty one”) pitched a few notes higher, reminiscent...

Honor by Thrity Umrigar [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Sneha Mathan returns for her third outstanding collaboration with Thrity Umrigar, their shared Indian heritage again enhancing their author/narrator symbiosis. Accents, genders, ages, backgrounds, and emotions abound, but Mathan embraces diverse characterizations with effortless ease. In a remote Indian village, a young Hindu widow has...

Troublemaker by John Cho [in Booklist]

07 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Sa-i-gu (Korean for 4-2-9 as in April 29, 1992) was a defining moment in Korean American history, when 2,300-plus Korean-owned businesses were destroyed in the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of Rodney King’s brutal arresting officers. Actor John Cho makes his fiction debut with...

The White Girl by Tony Birch [in Booklist]

02 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In 1960s Australia (not so unlike in the U.S.), the laws allow Aboriginal communities to be openly mistreated, their movements restricted, and their humanity denied. Lauded Australian Indigenous writer Tony Birch explores his country’s complex racist history through three generations of brown women, centering...

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