Historical Archives - Page 10 of 50

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh [in Library Journal]

26 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Arya Sagar, who has dozens of Indian/South Asian audio credits, enhances Amitav Ghosh’s ("Ibis" trilogy) already penetrating around-the-world mythic quest with his mellifluous narration, especially heightened with (mostly) agile adjustments for regional accents. Ghosh’s peripatetic hero, Deen Dutta, is an earnest Brooklyn-based rare books dealer,...

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author/artist Trung Le Nguyen’s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. The opening page ingeniously distinguishes three interwoven narratives with three color palettes: red is the urgent now, about young Tiến...

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

Returning to the Palestinian multi-generational epic format that made her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin (2010), an international bestseller, Susan Abulhawa's haunting Against the Loveless World features another extended Palestinian clan enduring exile, surviving persecution, and (sometimes) cheating death. Abulhawa's compelling cipher is a woman with...

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang and Adrien Gombeaud, illustrated by Ameziane, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lun Zhang was there during “the largest spontaneous gathering in all of Chinese history,” surrounded by “the joys and smiles of Beijing’s youth” hoping to achieve freedom and democracy. At 26, he was older than his student counterparts; he had “lived through the regime’s most...

Brother’s Keeper by Julie Lee [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

For debut author Julie Lee, the Korean War is deeply personal: her mother was 15 and living in North Korea when the war commenced on June 25, 1950. Drawing on her mother's memories of her north-to-south escape and relocation, Lee's Brother's Keeper is a compelling #OwnVoices...

Inheritors by Asako Serizawa [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

Pieces of Asako Serizawa's intriguing novel-in-interlinked-stories, Inheritors, have been published since 2005 and winning awards (O. Henry, Pushcart) since 2013. Her acknowledgements reveal "this book [took] so long to write," but her tenacity is a gift to readers. With 13 stories featuring five generations of...

Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel [in Booklist]

09 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, W. Caleb McDaniel’s 2019 debut gets a 2020 aural adaptation, helmed by prolific Paul Heitsch, who adds solemn gravitas to an utterly compelling narrative. Born enslaved in 1818/1820 in Kentucky, Henrietta Wood was freed in 1848 and...

The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, Piper Kendrix Williams [in Booklist]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In their joint introduction, four The College of New Jersey colleagues – three African American women, one gay white man, all PhD-ed – declare, “Toni Morrison is our greatest living historian about love, race, nation, and just about everything else of consequence.” The Nobel...

Author Interview: Traci Chee [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Magic of Reality Traci Chee is the author of The Reader Trilogy and the novel We Are Not Free, coming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on September 1. She studied literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz and earned a Master of Arts degree from San Francisco...

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee [in Shelf Awareness]

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

In a mesmerizing genre-switch, YA author Traci Chee moves from the fantasy worldbuilding of her acclaimed The Reader trilogy (The Reader; The Speaker; The Storyteller) to World War II historical fiction, with unforgettable results, in We Are Not Free. As a fourth-generation Japanese American, Chee gets personal, affectingly...

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich [in Booklist]

28 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW How are Thomas and Rose faring? Did Patrice get her degree? How much has Archille grown? Did Millie make Zhaanat famous? So immersive are the 13.5 hours spent with Louise Erdrich’s (LaRose) latest community of families, friends, even strangers, that long after recording’s end,...

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW To begin at the end seems most fitting: “If Jesus actually did have a wife ...

Deacon King Kong by James McBride [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW On a cloudy September 1969 afternoon, septuagenarian widower Sportcoat – less respectfully dubbed Deacon King Kong for his addiction to the local moonshine – shot 19-year-old drug dealer Deems, then saved Deems’ life with an unseemly version of the Heimlich maneuver when Deems nearly...

Apeirogon by Colum McCann [in Booklist]

11 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Biography, Fiction, Irish American, Israeli, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW When Colum McCann first considered narrating his books, he offered to audition for his own National Book Awarded Let the Great World Spin: “...

The Swamp by Yoshiharu Tsuge, translated by Ryan Holmberg [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Yoshiharu Tsuge abandoned making manga in 1987, and yet his legacy has only expanded – deservedly so – during the decades since, far beyond his native Japan. Considered one of the originators of the graphic 'I-novel' (shishōsetsu), he eventually "abandoned what had been considered one...

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora [in Booklist]

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

The eponymous conjure women here are two midwife/healers: enslaved mother May Belle and her eventually free daughter Rue. Their story gets revealed in three time-jumping segments – slaverytime, wartime, freedomtime – that readers will need to realign for full disclosure of brutal secrets, hidden pasts,...

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston, edited by Genevieve West [in Booklist]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Armed with significant acting credits and plentiful lauds, Aunjanue Ellis makes her audiobook debut as the voice of one of the 20th-century’s most celebrated, iconic writers. In a word, her performance is stupendous. Texas Woman’s University professor Genevieve West’s definitive new collection features, for...

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio [in Booklist]

02 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Making both her print and audio debut, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is a double powerhouse. As a writer, she gifts readers her “creative nonfiction, rooted in careful reporting, translated as poetry, shared by chosen family, and sometimes hard to read.” She’s anything but hard to...

Paying the Land by Joe Sacco [in Booklist]

22 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

Best known for his Palestine books – most notably, Footnotes in Gaza (2010) – frequent Eisner Award-winner Joe Sacco’s nonfiction titles share essential overlapping features: talking heads given agency to speak their truths, exquisitely detailed artwork, meticulously revealed events. Here Sacco heads to Canada’s Northwest Territories, home...

Five More to Go: Kim Hyun Sook’s Banned Book Club [in The Booklist Reader]

15 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Korean, Latin American, Lists, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook with Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Ko Hyung-Ju Busan-based wife-and-husband team Kim and Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous...

BookDragon Historical Tag