Library Journal Archives - Page 3 of 17

Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough [in Library Journal]

08 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW At 12, Artemisia Gentileschi loses her mother, but not before "Prudentia Montone spent/ the last of her strength/ to burn into [Artemisia's] mind/ the tales of women/ no one else would/ think to tell" – including biblical heroines Susannah and Judith, who thwarted male...

I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan by Khalida Brodi [in Library Journal]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

When she was 25, Forbes named Khalida Brohi to its 2014 "30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs" list for founding Sughar Foundation, which trains and empowers rural Pakistani women. Brohi makes both her authorial and performance debuts as she chronicles her journey from a rural Pakistani...

One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasedevan [in Library Journal]

05 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian, Translation

In many ways, Kali and Ponna's lives couldn't be more fertile. Their fields and their cows keep them well nourished. Their playfulness and passion feed their souls. But after 12 years of marriage, they remain childless, leaving the couple helpless against the disdain disguised as...

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Versatile, seasoned narrator Robin Miles is as comfortable narrating literary historic context as she is effortlessly adopting the vernacular patois of an octogenarian former slave. Published almost 90 years after its completion, Zora Neale Hurston’s (Their Eyes Were Watching God) presentation of Oluale Kossula,...

Less by Andrew Sean Greer [in Library Journal]

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

Arthur Less is, well … considerably less, now that he's middle-aged, alone, and pretty much broke. The pinnacle of his novel-writing career might have been his first New York Times review, which while "good," assigned him an epithet that would haunt (taunt?) him in the...

Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon [in Library Journal]

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

"I'll tell you how it started," Rachel Lyon’s extraordinary debut promises. "With a simple, tragic accident … and a photograph." A boy is dead after tumbling off the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building. His descent is unintentionally caught on film by the artist living...

The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek [in Library Journal]

26 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American

American by birth, Syrian by parentage, journalist and civil rights lawyer Alia Malek (A Country Called Amreeka) has the cultural and linguistic fluency to be both insider and outsider in either country. Through four generations of extended family stories – from her wealthy businessman great-grandfather...

Small Country by Gaël Faye, translated by Sarah Ardizzone [in Library Journal]

24 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, European, Fiction, French, Hapa/Mixed-race, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW French singer/rapper Gaël Faye transforms his own background into an impressive, searing coming-of-age first novel about a Burundian family's implosion during the 1990s. What seemed like an idyllic, privileged childhood for 10-year-old Gabriel – made memorable by mischievous adventures with close friends – begins...

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje [in Library Journal]

13 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Canadian, European, Memoir, Repost, Sri Lankan American

*STARRED REVIEW "Ours was a family with a habit for nicknames, which meant it was also a family of disguises," 14-year-old Nathaniel, aka Stitch, reveals early in Michael Ondaatje's newest fiction. Narrator Steve West – London-born like Ondaatje's protagonist – confidently takes Nathaniel from bewildered teenager...

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith [Beartown 2] [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Everything that happens in this resonating sequel to Beartown is revealed in the first two pages. But listeners will want to hear every word to discover how the events play out – better yet, they'll want to absorb every echoing nuance brilliantly embodied by...

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar [in Library Journal]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American

Two interwoven stories illuminate and haunt here, both about fatherless girls attached to mapmakers, each blurring gender lines, both enduring peripatetic, precarious journeys to reach family and safety. Twelve-year-old Nour commands her contemporary story – Manhattan-born, father lost to cancer, taken to Syria with two sisters...

The Pisces by Melissa Broder [in Library Journal]

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

Essayist/poet Melissa Broder voiced her previous audiobooks So Sad Today and Last Sext, and she's the natural choice to narrate her first novel. She reads here with firm, measured precision, determined to keep moving forward steadily, as if she knows she's got a page-turner listeners...

White Houses by Amy Bloom [in Library Journal]

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

“I sound like the hayseed I am and the smoker I was and the drinker that I expect I’ll continue to be,” Lorena Hickok describes herself. With her raspy, no-nonsense delivery, Tonya Cornelisse embodies “Hick,” the real-life lover, confidante, and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt....

A Tokyo Romance: A Romance by Ian Buruma [in Library Journal]

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“Japan shaped me when the plaster was still wet,” writes New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma. In his mid-20s in 1975, the Dutch-born Buruma, who is half English and half German Jew, arrived in Tokyo to study film at Nihon University College of...

Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower by Roseann Lake [in Library Journal]

08 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

With a superb blend of historical, cultural, socioeconomic reportage, and plenty of engaging real-life stories, The Economist’s Cuba correspondent Roseann Lake alchemizes her five years in Beijing into a lively first book about the fate and future of China’s accomplished, independent, powerful – and unmarried – women. Over the last...

There There by Tommy Orange [in Library Journal]

06 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “[B]eing able to understand where we came from, what happened to our people, and how to honor them by living right, by telling our stories” could be goals for any community – but the words are especially resonant for debut novelist Tommy Orange’s sprawling Native American cast: “the world is...

I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell [in Library Journal]

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Irish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Cats may have nine lives, but Maggie O’Farrell, who won the Costa Book Award for The Hand That First Held Mine, has had 17, as revealed in this stupendous collection of essays named for various body parts that have caused her near demise. Her...

The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam [in Library Journal]

01 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Nonfiction, Repost

Within the first few minutes, the chameleonic Adjoa Andoh quickly grabs listeners' attention with the high-pitched ululating trilling that will repeat throughout the almost 10 hours of narration here. Ethiopian Canadian journalist Edemariam couldn't have found a better narrator to embody her late nonagenarian grandmother,...

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea [in Library Journal]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Despite the title, the Angels here are more damaged than broken, with even a promise of salvation – more than less – by title's end. Narrated by Luis Alberto Urrea (The Water Museum), who has magnificently recorded most of his audio adaptations, this House...

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah [in Library Journal]

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

Meet the Allbrights: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-afflicted Vietnam War returnee Ernt, his perennially in-denial wife Cora, and mature-beyond-her-years teenager Leni. Bequeathed a remote homestead in 1974 by a fallen army buddy, Ernt relocates his family to wild, remote Alaska, chasing dreams of self-sufficiency and simple...

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