Historical Archives - Page 9 of 50

The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini, translated by Richard Dixon [in Booklist]

06 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Jewish, Repost, Translation, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

*STARRED REVIEW On September 11, 1844, Heyum Lehmann from Rimpar, Germany disembarked from a ship in New York harbor to become Henry Lehman. Brothers Emmanuel and Mayer soon followed. From immigrant store owners turned cotton traders in pre-Civil War Alabama, the brothers moved to banking in...

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Spare and devastating, At Night All Blood Is Black by French Senegalese author David Diop is a bone-chilling anti-war treatise. He chooses as backdrop a little-known chapter of World War I annals, when the French government drafted some 200,000 soldiers from its colonies, including Senegal....

The Living Is Easy by Dorothy West [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

The late, great Dorothy West's trailblazing debut novel, The Living Is Easy, remains presciently relevant almost three-quarters of a century after its initial publication. Racial inequity, police brutality, Black incarceration all haunt West's biting narrative, ready to resonate with a new generation of contemporary readers. Set...

Papaya Salad by Elisa Macellari, translated by Carla Roncalli Di Montorio [in Booklist]

26 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Italian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Thai, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Although Thai Italian artist Elisa Macellari’s Kusama (2020) hit U.S. shelves first, Papaya Salad is actually her debut title, originally published in 2018 in her native Italy. Introducing her tale as “a story the protagonist told me when I was a child and which I stumbled across...

The Mermaid from Jeju by Sumi Hahn [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Junja was a “real” mermaid, a Korean haenyeo – one of the world-renowned freediving women who gather sea life – of Jeju Island. By 2001, she’s spent most of her life as “a pillar of the Korean American community in...

The Dragons, the Giant, the Women by Wayétu Moore [in Booklist]

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

Wayétu Moore is the first to speak, although only briefly, to share her initial excitement over the possibility of narrating her elegant memoir. That opportunity, alas, became another “casualty of COVID-19,” preventing her from safe studio time, but she adds a personal thanks to narrator...

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam [in Booklist]

11 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

What a striking confluence here: National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi’s co-writer, Yusef Salaam, was one of the Exonerated Five. Debut narrator Ethan Herisse portrayed the teenage Salaam in Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed dramatization of the aftermath of the Central Park jogger attack, When They See...

Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai, edited by Kyoko Wada, translated by Polly Barton [In Shelf Awareness]

04 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

A continuous "runaway bestseller" for over two centuries, Hokusai Manga re-emerges in the U.S. in an irresistible boxed gift set. Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), renowned for his iconic The Great Wave Off Kanagawa print and the woodblock series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, created...

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell [in Booklist]

27 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Here’s what we might know – or agree on from limited historic documents and scholarly guessing research – about the Bard’s wife: she’s commonly named “Anne Hathaway” but her father referred to her as “Agnes” in his will; she was older than her still-teenage husband;...

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker [in Library Journal]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, the Galvin family seemed perfect. Father Don's work with the Air Force brought the family to (coincidentally, presciently named) Hidden Valley Road in Colorado. There, mother Mary oversaw the raising and nurturing of their dozen children – 10 boys and...

The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories by Caroline Kim [in Christian Science Monitor]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Short Stories

Korean American experience resonates in The Prince of Mournful Thoughts The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. "There is so much I wish to make my daughter understand, but cannot,” an immigrant father muses...

The Winter of the Cartoonist by Paco Roca, translated by Andrea Rosenberg [in Booklist]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Spanish, Translation

In a book about rebels, reading against the presented order is highly recommended. Eisner-nominated Paco Roca (The House, 2019) is part of the Spanish graphic novel elite, already awarded virtually all the Spanish honors, and this is the work he’s “always wanted to create”: both...

The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family by Bettye Kearse [in Library Journal]

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

Retired pediatrician Bettye Kearse, her family’s eighth griot (storyteller/historian/genealogist), traces her lineage over two centuries: “Always remember – you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president,” her predecessors instilled. The fourth U.S. president, James Madison, never had biological children with wife Dolley. He...

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre [in Booklist]

07 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

Argentine writer José Hernández’s 1872 epic poem, Martín Fierro, became both an historical and literary classic for preserving and celebrating the gaucho, equal parts horseman, rebel, and legend. In Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s latest, shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, she transforms a few lines from...

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson [in Booklist]

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

In writing her now-classic The Warmth of Other Suns (2010), Pulitzer-Prized (and first Black woman so honored) Isabel Wilkerson reveals in her highly anticipated follow-up, “while working on ...

Guantánamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison by Sarah Mirk [in Booklist]

02 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW For this project 10 years in the making, journalist/writer Sarah Mirk gathered a diverse dozen comic artists; fellow journalist/writer Omar El Akkad (American War, 2017), who provides the searing introduction; and historian/journalist Andy Worthington (The Guantánamo Files, 2007), who contributes fact-checked accuracy. Together, this creative village...

Algériennes: The Forgotten Women of the Algerian Revolution by Swann Meralli, illustrated by Deloupy, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger [in Booklist]

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

While reading about the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), contemporary French woman Beatrice learns she has a specific label: she’s an “enfant d’appelé,” literally “a child of one called up” to serve in the Algerian War. Her father was such a soldier, but he’s never...

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly [in Booklist]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Ramón De Ocampo, co-narrator of Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe (2017) and a fellow Filipino American, returns to Kelly’s work solo this time, ciphering three siblings who share an address but seemingly little else. Their combative parents are too distracted to be nurturing, leaving...

The Third Population by Aurélien Ducoudray, illustrated by Jeff Pourquié, translated by Kendra Boileau [in Booklist]

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

The opening is undoubtedly jarring: in a father/son conversation about an upcoming work trip, author Aurélien Ducoudray explains he’s going “[t]o a place where crazy people live.” Despite the initially shocking language (most likely not lost in translation by Penn State University Press’s editor-in-chief Kendra Boileau), the...

Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, European, Hmong American, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

"The people in this book are people from your lives," Kao Kalia Yang writes to her three sleeping children in the final chapter of her affecting hybrid nonfiction collection, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Minnesota – where Yang has lived for...

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