Illness Archives - Page 7 of 15

Olive Witch by Abeer Y. Hoque [in Christian Science Monitor]

09 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Bangladeshi, Bangladeshi American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

'Olive Witch' is the memoir of an outsider on a quest for belonging “bow echo,” the very first words of Abeer Y. Hoque’s raw, unblinking, urgent-in-these-times memoir, Olive Witch, is an easy-to-miss clue. Followed by a temperature (73°F) and what looks like a diary entry, the...

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron [in Library Journal]

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW A full decade has passed since William Styron (Sophie's Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner, As I Lay Dying) died at 81 in 2006. He might have died 21 years earlier by suicide, but he escaped that "near-violent dénouement." With raw, unflinching openness, Styron shared...

Unbecoming by Jenny Downham [in School Library Journal]

03 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, British, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Mary, Caroline, and Katie are three very different generations in the same family; finding themselves unexpectedly under the same roof forces them to confront a complicated past that has kept them estranged for decades. Mary is the grandmother, newly widowed, fighting the dementia that...

The Mortifications by Derek Palacio [in Library Journal]

21 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A mother, Soledad, flees Cuba, abandoning her revolutionary husband Uxmal and absconding with their 12-year-old twins Ulises and Isabel. She bypasses Miami for Hartford, CT, finding work as a court stenographer, making her the transcriber of other people's words. Although Uxmal’s presence never seems to...

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee [in Booklist]

19 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A decade after her international best-selling debut, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), Min Jin Lee’s follow-up is an exquisite, haunting epic that crosses almost a century, four generations, and three countries while depicting an ethnic Korean family that cannot even claim a single shared...

Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes [in School Library Journal]

28 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

The Avalon Family Residence might sound nice, but it's not: "peeling paint, cockroaches…our tiny room." Dèja, her parents, and her two younger siblings are homeless, currently staying in a Brooklyn shelter. Her father can't work, and her exhausted mother is menially employed. As Dèja starts fifth...

Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko by David Jacobson, illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri, translated by Sally Ito and Michiko Tsuboi

23 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry

Japan's latest tsunami warnings were just recently lifted, saving countless citizens from another Fukushima disaster-like tragedy which killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless in March 2011. Amidst the apocalyptic aftermath, human goodness prevailed. Five years ago, a single poem managed to reach millions...

Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe

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

Lucas and Katya spend a year in love as boarding school seniors and have a baby. Their parting leaves Lucas estranged throughout daughter Vera’s childhood; he eventually graduates to being a weekend dad. At 16, Vera goes to a party she shouldn’t have, which ends with...

Beware That Girl by Teresa Toten [in School Library Journal]

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

Kate has always been a liar – out of necessity rather than malice. She's smart and savvy and knows how to be a good friend. She's also the best scholarship student Manhattan's tony Waverly School has ever had. Olivia, by contrast, has grown up with every...

The Bombs that Brought Us Together by Brian Conaghan [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British, European, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Some time, somewhere, Little Town and Old Country are separated by borders and bombs. If Little Town is said to be filthy, broke, and run by ragtag criminals, Old Country is conformist, rich, and militaristic. Almost 15, cautious Little Towner Charlie Law stays relatively safe...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Nicola Yoon’s Everything Everything

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2016, Young Adult Readers

Just My Luck by Cammie McGovern [in School Library Journal]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Benny’s father endures long-lasting effects when he suffers a brain aneurysm. Benny’s life was already tough: his brother George, who has autism, requires special attention; Benny’s best friend moved away, and making new friends hasn’t been easy. Now with his father’s recovery uncertain, the whole...

The Story of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden

15 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Let me just say right up front: this is a (funny, yes – funny) story about cancer. As it might be expected of such stories, this is also filled with tears and resilience, suffering and hope, exhaustion and tenacity. And, it's undoubtedly one of the most unputdownable graphic memoirs I've read...

Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart

19 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Six days before eighth grade starts, Lily and Dunkin meet for the first time. Lily is still known mostly as Timothy, the boy name he was given at birth – but he's practicing being his true self: a girl named Lily. Dressed in her mother's dress and sandals,...

On My Own by Diane Rehm [in Library Journal]

16 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Egyptian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Beloved NPR host Diane Rehm’s latest memoir begins with her husband John's end – depleted by Parkinson's disease, unable to "stand walk, eat, bathe, or in any way care for himself on his own, he was now ready to die." After 54 years of marriage –...

Guardians of the Louvre by Jirô Taniguchi, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian

13 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

A Japanese manga artist lies feverish in a hotel bed, having arrived in Paris after attending an international comics festival in Spain. His plans to spend five days in the City of Lights before returning to Tokyo are temporarily waylaid, haunted by “alarming thoughts … like...

Fortune Smiles: Stories! by Adam Johnson [in Library Journal]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW To bring Adam Johnson’s six stories – which together won the 2015 National Book Award for fiction – to waiting ears takes a village of seasoned narrators. In “Nirvana,” Jonathan McClain deftly voices a desperate husband who uses technology to soothe his ill wife. Dominic Hoffman –...

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly, illustrated by JM Ken Niimura

25 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Barbara Thorson is most definitely not your average fifth-grader. She refuses to buy the "motivational speaking" going on in the front of the classroom on career day, quipping to the less-than-esteemed guest, "I already have a 'career,' thank you." Indeed, Barbara's calling is so much greater:...

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, foreword by Abraham Verghese [in Library Journal]

24 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW In his sublime "foreword [that] might be better thought of as an afterword," physician and bestselling author Abraham Verghese reveals that he came to know Paul Kalanithi "most intimately when he'd ceased to be." That, too, is true of every listener here. Neurosurgeon Kalanithi died in...

Negroland by Margo Jefferson [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW "I was taught to avoid showing off," Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Margo Jefferson (writing, Columbia University; On Michael Jackson) begins. "But isn't all memoir a form of showing off?" That hesitation permeates throughout, the restraint perfectly mimicked in Robin Miles's elegant recitation. This work is a...

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