Illness Archives - Page 4 of 15

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez [in Booklist]

07 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Always approachable, immediately engaged, Hillary Huber returns as Sigrid Nunez’s cipher after voicing her 2018 National Book Awarded, The Friend. Once more, suicide looms, this time as a future intention rather than in response to a foregone event. In this is spare, sharp, simultaneously both daunting...

My Mother’s House by Francesca Momplaisir [in Booklist]

24 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Haitian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW It opens with the mellifluous Dion Graham and ends with an always-appreciated who-read-whom at recording’s end. In between, the horror is unrelenting, yet the three narrators persist with tenacious dignity and grace. Graham enthralls as the titular “my mother’s house” – Kay Manman Mwen...

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot [in Christian Science Monitor]

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

A chance to redo the past in Before the Coffee Gets Cold Time travel and café culture yields a lovely, wise brew in a translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s popular play-turned-novel. Originally debuting onstage in Japan, Before the Coffee Gets Cold won praise and awards for its playwright, Toshikazu Kawaguchi....

My Brilliant Life by Ae-ran Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Booklist]

19 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The youngest winner ever of multiple important literary prizes in her native Korea, Ae-ran Kim’s first full-length novel arrives Stateside, hauntingly English-enabled by lauded translator Chi-Young Kim (no relation). Areum suffers from progeria, a rare disease that causes rapid, premature aging: “My dad sees his...

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook [in Booklist]

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

Veteran voice actor Stacey Glembowski – already seasoned with substantial science fiction experience – immediately commands Diane Cook’s (Man v. Nature) timely novel debut in which 20 desperate men, women, children abandon their depleting City lives to become the inaugural Community in the Wilderness State....

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir, Repost

“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...

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;...

The Last Interview by Eshkol Nevo, translated by Sondra Silverston [in Booklist]

01 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Internationally bestselling author Eshkol Nevo and award-winning translator Sondra Silverston are five-for-five in enabling Anglophone readers seamless access to Nevo’s engrossing novels. Reminiscent of the retired judge in his last title, Three Floors Up (2017), who communicated with her dead husband via answering-machine messages,...

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller [in School Library Journal]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Keller's narrative can't be faulted – the story is achingly gorgeous. A widowed Korean American mother and her two mixed-race daughters move from California to Washington to live with their glamorous, unconventional Halmoni – grandmother" in Korean. Older sister Sam – suffering from sullen teenagerhood...

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...

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Mexican Canadian Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an award-winning, genre-hopping literary chameleon, having successfully written fantasy, fairy tales, vampiric adventure, noir, short stories. Clearly channeling her inner H.P. Lovecraft in Mexican Gothic, she's created her own varietal of irresistible 1950s fungal horror. Socialite Noemí is summoned home early...

Afterland by Lauren Beukes [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, South African

"You can't imagine how much the world can change in six months." Oh, but yes we can! With remarkable prescience, Lauren Beukes’ Afterland takes on an "unprecedented global pandemic" with chilling results – and surprising comic relief threaded throughout. Six years after the success of Broken...

Almond by Won-pyung Sohn, translated by Sandy Joosun Lee [in Booklist]

23 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Novels featuring neurodiverse protagonists are claiming more space on both adult and children’s shelves. The most common underlying message encourages kindness and empathy, despite obvious, sometimes impenetrable, differences. In what might be the first novel to feature a protagonist with alexithymia – an inability...

Reproduction by Ian Williams [in Booklist]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Everything here sounds off-kilter – on purpose. Discomfort pervades the reading, whether conversations are awkwardly not-quite-synched between speakers, or sentences spoken in an (unnamed) Caribbean island patois are made purposefully wooden and German words and phrases become virtually unintelligible. That jagged performance, however, seems integral...

When You Read This by Mary Adkins [in Booklist]

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

Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker – both masterful epistolary novelists – couldn’t have imagined how today’s virtual communication would become an ideal medium to tell a story about ...

Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka [in Booklist]

26 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Sure, the book is great. But the audio? It’s some sort of spectacular. In October 2018, bestselling Jarrett J. Krosoczka debuted his graphic memoir – about being raised by his grandparents when his single mother’s heroin addiction made her an unreliable parent; it was...

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout [in Booklist]

21 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Kimberly Farr returns for a fourth propitious audiobook pairing with Elizabeth Strout, her second as the title character in this conclusion-of-sorts to the 2008 Pulitzer Prized novel Olive Kitteridge. Both books follow a similar format – both are comprised of 13 interlinked stories mostly...

More to the Story by Hena Khan [in Booklist]

28 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian American

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women gets a diverse contemporary makeover in Hena Khan’s (Amina’s Voice) latest middle-grade novel, relocated to Atlanta, featuring the Muslim Pakistani American Mirza family’s four daughters – Maryam, Jameela, Bisma, and Aleeza – with their father working in Abu Dhabi, and...

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi [in Booklist]

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

Both the title and characters Gretel and Hansel might lead readers to make assumptions about Oyeyemi’s latest. Fairy tales fueled her Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox, and familiarly fantastical places, creatures, and themes abound here, too, although readers will also notice the easy weaving...

Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali [in Booklist]

07 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In an unusual narrative structure, S. K. Ali (Saints and Misfits, 2017) inserts herself directly into her latest #OwnVoices Muslim rom-com, making her aural debut. She opens by introducing two teens intrigued with “marvels” and “oddities” – whose alternating journal entries follow – then intervenes...

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