Library Journal Archives - Page 6 of 17

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

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

Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human...

The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins [in Library Journal]

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

Although the "Son of Sam" law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or creating other crime-based entertainment, the Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 citing First Amendment violations. Decades later, Dawkins, a convicted murderer serving life without parole, received...

The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon [in Library Journal]

27 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jordanian, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After introducing a stupendous community of left-behind stateside military wives in her debut collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone, Siobhan Fallon presents in her first novel two women who have accompanied their U.S. Army husbands to Jordan. Shared circumstances ease Cassie and Margaret...

A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma [in Library Journal]

26 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American

Badly behaved Indian and Indian American men claim the spotlight in Sharma's first story collection, yet moments of unexpected humor and pathos save at least some of the men from utter disdain. In "Cosmopolitan," a recently single older man studies women's magazines to become a...

Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Louise Heal Kawai [in Library Journal]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Fourth grader he may be, but our narrator is quite the sharp observer of his surroundings. His father is dead; his mother runs a "fortune-telling and that kind of stuff" salon. She's often the recipient of his unguarded bluntness: "If video games make you stupid,...

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin [in Library Journal]

20 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW That Aviva Grossman became infamous as "Florida's answer to Monica Lewinsky" provides a quick snapshot of why she's now living in small-town Maine as Jane Young. As a 20-year-old intern to Miami Congressman Aaron Levin, she not only had that affair with the married,...

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende [in Library Journal]

11 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American

A big bang brings together two professors, an illegal immigrant, and a frozen corpse during a 2016 blizzard. Professor Richard Bowmaster rear-ends a Lexus driven by Guatemalan nanny Evelyn Ortega, who then appears that evening at Richard's brownstone with a harrowing tale that requires Richard...

Soul Cage [Reiko Himekawa, Book 2] by Tetsuya Honda, translated by Giles Murray [in Library Journal]

09 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Narrator Emily Woo Zeller went solo in The Silent Dead, which introduced Anglophone readers to Tokyo Metropolitan Police lieutenant Reiko Himekawa in her 2016 debut (smoothly rendered by Giles Murray who consistently translates again here); in Honda's sophomore series title, Zeller has company. Feodor Chin...

We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman [in Library Journal]

06 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Audio, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost

As she did for Palestinians in Occupied Voices, Wendy Pearlman (political science, Northwestern Univ.) again gives agency to a population under siege, this time to Syrians. Fluency in Arabic provides Pearlman direct access to “hundreds of Syrian men, women, and children” of all backgrounds –...

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehesi Coates [in Library Journal]

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

If you were among the millions who discovered 2015 MacArthur “Genius” Ta-Nehesi Coates in his mega-bestseller, Between the World and Me, in his own voice, or you were an earlier pioneer who heard The Beautiful Struggle (2008) elegantly read by J.D. Jackson, consider choosing the...

New People by Danzy Senna [in Library Journal]

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

Danzy Senna (Caucasia), the child of a Caucasian poet mother and an African American scholar father, uses her lauded writing to examine (at times, perhaps even exorcise) her mixed-race heritage in novels, short stories, and memoir. She bestows her own middle name, Maria, to her...

The Heirs by Susan Rieger [in Library Journal]

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

Susan Rieger (The Divorce Papers) shows how a wealthy Manhattan family's marital dysfunctions break, prune, and graft the branches of their family tree. Rupert Falkes, a British orphan-turned-New York elite, is dead. As far as the world knows, he's survived by his blue-blooded wife, Eleanor, their...

The Nothing by Hanif Kureishi [in Library Journal]

31 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Repost

Initially, there were two: aging filmmaker Waldo and his 22-years-younger wife of 20 years, Zee. Bed- and wheelchair-bound for three years, Waldo has "been expecting to die any day," he admits. "I was enjoying my decline and slipping away cheerfully, and now this happens." Because...

How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry [in Library Journal]

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

Emilia Nightingale returns from Hong Kong to her childhood home in Peasebrook in the middle of the English Cotswolds when she inherits Nightingale Books after her father's death. Taking over the establishment means that the villagers immediately become part of her inheritance, including a klepto...

The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story by Edwidge Danticat [in Library Journal]

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

Compassion goes a long way when writing about death – especially the death of loved ones. Narrating such a book requires a gentleness, a soothing rhythm. That Danticat reads her latest nonfiction – a thoughtful meditation bookended by her mother's fatal cancer diagnosis and Danticat's...

The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller [in Library Journal]

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

Kirby Heyborne deploys his gentle charm to give voice to 12-year-old Walter Lavender Jr. who, owing to "a motor speech disorder," might seem mute to the outside world but has an imaginative soul that can't be silenced. Always an insightful observer, Walter is an unparalleled...

How to Be a Muslim: An American Story by Haroon Moghul [in Library Journal]

08 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian American

With raw honesty (the memoir opens with suicide ideation), debilitating angst (the unrelenting hold of mental illness), and humor when least expected (the terrors of securing a prom date), Haroon Moghul’s memoir becomes an illuminating antidote to contemporary Islamophobia. As the U.S.-born son of immigrant Pakistani...

The Sisters Chase by Sarah Healy [in Library Journal]

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

When Diane dies in a car accident, her daughters, 18-year-old Mary and 4-year-old Hannah, are left effectively with nothing. The family's rundown New Jersey seaside motel, which has always been home, is less than worthless owing to back taxes. Without resources, Mary and Hannah head...

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy [in Library Journal]

04 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Maile Meloy (Madame Lazarus) makes her narrating debut with this disturbing thriller that showcases a parent's worst nightmare – the disappearance of children. Best friends and cousins Liv and Nora take their husbands and two children (each) on a holiday cruise. The families bask in...

The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani [in Library Journal]

02 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Japanese-born, Germany-based Tawada (Memoirs of a Polar Bear) writes facilely in both languages and creates incomparable award-winning fiction that defies easy labels. Tawada's latest in translation (smoothly rendered by Mitsutani, who also translated one of Tawada's earliest works, the three-storied The Bridegroom Was a Dog)...

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