Identity Archives - Page 38 of 83

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW On November 4, 2013, two students on their way home overlap by eight minutes while riding the 57 bus across Oakland, Calif. Sasha, a private school senior, has Asperger's syndrome, was assigned male at birth, identifies as agender (neither male nor female), uses the...

The Vanishing Princess: Stories by Jenny Diski [in Booklist]

09 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Although Jenny Diski is renowned across the pond, her defiant treatise against her terminal cancer, In Gratitude, published just before her 2016 death is, ironically, what earned her substantial stateside acclaim. Now available posthumously to U.S. readers is her spectacular 1995 collection of bizarre-to-rueful-to-stunning stories, bookended by...

The Watcher: Inspired by Psalm 121 by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Bryan Collier [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Poetry, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW For those unfamiliar with "golden shovel" poems, here's how they work: choose an existing poem, then create a new poem by ending each line with the exact words, in order, of the original poem. Here, Coretta Scott King Award winner Nikki Grimes opens with Psalm...

A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee [in Library Journal]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

*STARRED REVIEW The five "narrative parts" of this work, designated only with Roman numerals, comprise five styles: short story; first-person, faux memoir; folktale of sorts; 10-parts-plus-epilogue novella; and no-punctuation vignette. The connections require attention, with results well worth the reader's intriguing participation. An Indian American professor's tragedy-ensuing...

The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo [in Library Journal]

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

Columbia undergrads Lucy and Gabe meet in a Shakespeare seminar – on 9/11. Their class – including the professor who glibly asks if the pilot was drunk when his TA announces the first tower crash – is as yet unaware of the devastating reverberations to...

New Boy [Hogarth Shakespeare] by Tracy Chevalier [in Library Journal]

02 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Internationally lauded for historical novels (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Tracy Chevalier takes a surprising narrative path as she returns over the Pond to her capital birth-city (she’s been British-domiciled for decades) with the Bard in tow: Chevalier’s privileged fifth graders play out Othello...

The Last Days of Café Leila by Donia Bijan + Author Interview [in Bloom]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Café Leila & Beautiful Ruins: Q&A with Donia Bijan “Strange things happened when I returned to Tehran in 2010 after thirty-two years in exile,” writes Donia Bijan in her recent essay, “The Women’s Hour.” Traveling with her sister, she found her childhood home – the hospital their father built...

Mad Country: Stories by Samrat Upadhyay [in Library Journal]

30 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nepali, Nepali American, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Vikas Adam’s remarkable chameleonic range proves ideal for Samrat Upadhyay’s (Arresting God in Kathmandu) latest superb collection, set mostly in Nepal. Exceptionally gifted with accents, Adam could easily be mistaken for a multi-person cast; he's effortlessly convincing as a disappointed father, a female inmate,...

Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patty Yumi Cottrell [in Library Journal]

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

Helen receives a call from her "Uncle Geoff" (although she's unsure of how they're related) that her 29-year-old adoptive brother has killed himself. Both Helen and her brother were adopted as babies from Korea by a white – some might add willfully culturally illiterate –...

Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym [in Library Journal]

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British Asian, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Kym’s first violin was a paper cutout copied from an encyclopedia; her first actual instrument was a “harsh, factory-made thing” on which she immediately taught herself “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” By her first or second lesson, Kym knew playing the violin "was not simply for...

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia [in Library Journal]

22 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In sleepy Pine Valley, MN, 18-year-old Hattie Hoffman – beloved daughter, excellent student, best friend, adored girlfriend, talented actress – lies dead. Solving her gruesome murder is up to local sheriff Del Goodman, a family friend who watched Hattie grow up. Her English teacher Peter Lund...

Beartown by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith [in Library Journal]

18 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Swedish, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s novels tackle serious subjects – isolated aging in A Man Called Ove, death and responsibility in My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, abandonment in Britt-Marie Was Here, dementia in And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer...

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal [in Library Journal]

16 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Rakesh Satyal (Blue Boy) brings together two couldn't-be-more-different Indian Americans for friendship, fun, and more (no, not like that). Harit, a department store salesman, has recently lost his sister; his mother, catatonic with grief, only reacts when Harit dons a sari and channels his dead...

Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig [in Library Journal]

12 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Myanmarese (Burmese), Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Fifteen years after her debut, The Good Men, Charmaine Craig returns with an epic based on the lives of her Burmese mother and maternal grandparents. A former actor, Craig is the ideal narrator to voice her family's narrative as she guides readers through the...

Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo, translated by Sondra Silverston [in Booklist]

11 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Uncategorized

Three residents of a three-floor Tel Aviv apartment building reveal what really goes on behind closed doors. First-floor-domiciled Arnon tells an old army buddy that his young daughter was abused by their neighbor, his marriage is suffering, and the neighbor’s teenage Parisian granddaughter is about...

Celebrate Latinx Heritage Month with Cuban and Cuban American Literature [in The Booklist Reader]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Once upon a time, Cuba was an enigmatic, faraway place that conjured up images of I Love Lucy, history lessons about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and recurring headlines about Guantánamo. As far as books go, two loomed large: Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, a multi-generational...

Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China by Xiaolu Guo [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Nine Continents' is Chinese author Xiaolu Guo’s resonant memoir about leaving her past Audiences familiar with Chinese-born, British-transplanted Xiaolu Guo’s prolific output know she’s alchemized elements of her own life to produce her fiction and films. Her remote village upbringing and Beijing education inspired Twenty Fragments...

No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts [in Library Journal]

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

As Sarah Jessica Parker’s inaugural selection for the American Library Association’s Book Club Central, Stephanie Powell Watts’s (We Are Only Taking What We Need) first novel is getting well-earned attention. Initially inspired by The Great Gatsby, Watts wanted to give voice to the mostly silent...

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay [in Library Journal]

29 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Haitian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW For such a vulnerable, raw memoir, no one but the author could voice the breathtaking revelations, brutal truths, and profound knowledge contained here. “Every body has a story and a history,” Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Difficult Women) begins. Gay stands 6'3"; at her heaviest, she...

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul [in Library Journal]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Certain authors are their own best narrators – even more true for memoirs (think Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Luvvie Ajayi). Here, Scaachi Koul’s accomplished reading comes with the bonus of regular vocal interjections from her father. With this first book, a collection of smart, sassy, revealing...

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