Historical Archives - Page 35 of 50

House of Five Leaves (vol. 1) by Natsume Ono, translated by Joe Yamazaki

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Natsume Ono is one versatile manga artist. She can go from contemporary lost souls (not simple) to an estranged mother/daughter relationship (Ristorante Paradiso) to a cozy Italian restaurant (Gente) and then effortlessly tackle feudal Japan's wandering warriors. Welcome to the uncertain world of Akitsu Masanosuke who...

Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracy Kidder

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction

Words of warning ...

Eight Days: A Story of Haiti by Edwidge Danticat, illustrated by Alix Delinois

30 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Haitian, Haitian American

This has been one tragic week: the deadly Oaxaca, Mexico mudslide, the two Rutgers freshmen whose abusively invasive actions led to the suicide of a third first-year student, the deaths of iconic actor Tony Curtis and director Arthur Penn ...

YUMMY: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

True stories about kids with tragic endings are undoubtedly effective in fueling parents' worst nightmares. This one proves especially haunting. Six years ago today, "Yummy" Sandifer made the cover of Time magazine. Along with his mugshot were the words, "The Short, Violent Life of Robert 'Yummy'...

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (vol. 4) by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Akemi Wegmüller

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation

No men? No problem. Women can and will adjust to anything, including getting quickly used to power! This entertaining gender-bender series – an alternate history of ancient Japan – continues with the ascension of women to all leadership positions, including inheriting the Shogunate. What begins as "merely...

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Israeli, Memoir, Nonfiction, Palestinian

On this eve of 9/11, I'm in a frustrated funk. Regardless of political, religious, cultural, or ethnic affiliations, I think most Americans are shaking their heads at the state of the world, and definitely not shaking enough hands; not enough of us have been able...

The Typist by Michael Knight

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Nonethnic-specific

Francis Vancleave – mostly known as Van – has survived World War II behind a desk working as a typist for the military higher-ups. His skill – something his mother taught him as a teenager on nights his father was away working as a tugboat captain –...

African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal]

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

Charlene Regester (African & Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose “contributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.” Madame...

Spork by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

02 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race

First off, Spork is one of the cutest, most clever books on mixed-race issues to land on my desk in a long time. Both story and illustrations create a perfect package of ticklish, delightful fun ...

The Hidden Girl: A True Story of the Holocaust by Lola Rein Kaufman with Lois Metzger

25 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in European, Jewish, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Lola Rein Kaufman's "'memory button'" got turned on on September 17, 1939, when Russian tanks, trucks, and soldiers entered her small hometown of Czortków in what was then Poland. She was not yet 5 years old. Before she reached her 10th birthday, she lost her...

Water Ghosts: A Novel by Shawna Yang Ryan

20 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction

How ironically fitting that Shawna Yang Ryan’s debut novel – about, yes, ghosts! – has already had multiple lives. First published in 2007 as Locke 1928 by a tiny non-profit California press, El León Literary Arts, it returned to bookshelves two years later in a new incarnation with...

Author Interview: Karen Tei Yamashita [in Bookslut]

06 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost

For the last two months or so, Karen Tei Yamashita will not get out of my life. And I say that with a goofy-grinned "wahhh" of delighted surprise. While I’ve been an ardent admirer of Yamashita’s books for some 20 years (yup, I have all...

Ōoku: The Inner Chambers (vol. 3) by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Akemi Wegmüller

04 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation

Award-winning Fumi Yoshinaga's dramatically entertaining gender-bender series, which offers an alternate history of premodern Japan, concludes the story began in volume 2 of how the first female shogun inherited her post and rose to power as recorded in the Chronicle of a Dying Day. Having grown...

Bijou Roy by Ronica Dhar

28 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, South Asian American

Six months after Nitish Roy’s death, his wife and two daughters gather in Calcutta, India where Bijou Roy as the oldest must send her father’s ashes down the holy river to eternal rest. The haphazard ceremony – made even more so because she is not...

I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita [in Library Journal]

18 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Comprising 10 novellas that took 10 years to craft, this is Yamashita’s (Circle K Cycles) magnum opus. Year by year, the novellas mark a decade’s worth of tumultuous Asian Pacific American (APA) history, from 1968, when ethnic studies was painfully birthed in San Francisco,...

We Troubled the Waters by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Rod Brown

14 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Young Adult Readers

Although at first glance, this might look like a children's title – it is essentially a picture book – the sometimes difficult contents make it much more suitable for middle grade readers and older. Even adults will certainly find deeply resonating moments to appreciate throughout. Ntozake...

Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History by Canyon Sam, foreword by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

21 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Tibetan

Last night, six of my book hens (my mother likes to refer to my book club as "the chicken coop," which has an amusing ring to it in Korean: "kkoh-kkoh-jang") got together for a lively discussion of Canyon Sam's debut, Sky Train. Even though I...

Resistance: Book 1 by Carla Jablonski, illustrated by Leland Purvis, color by Hilary Sycamore

18 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in European, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

Here's something else that APAs and Jewish Americans have in common: we share the same heritage month! Yup, as of April 2006, May is not only our Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, but May is also Jewish American Heritage Month! Various stereotypes have long linked...

Blood Hina: A Mas Arai Mystery by Naomi Hirahara

06 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American

Every time I close a Mas Arai mystery (this is my third – I know, I need to catch up), and in spite of the sometimes gruesome body count, I have to admit I miss the crotchety old man with his Japanese phrases mixed in...

Pearl of China by Anchee Min [in Library Journal]

15 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Min opens her latest with guilty sobs recalling her "brainwashed" teenaged self in 1970s China, when she was forced to denounce Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning writer Pearl S. Buck to Madame Mao. That guilt clearly drove Min (Red Azalea) to write this "based on the...

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