Love Archives - Page 26 of 84

Five More to Go: Edwidge Danticat’s Everything Inside [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Fiction, Haitian American, Indian American, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Translation

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat Following The Art of Death (2017), a reflection on her mother’s passing, Danticat focuses this haunting eight-story collection on, well, death. Looming death becomes a bargaining chip in “Dosas,” when an ex-husband begs his ex-wife to help save her kidnapped replacement....

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang [in Booklist]

27 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers

Helen Hoang transfers a minor character from her popular 2018 debut, The Kiss Quotient, into the spotlight in her engaging follow-up. Initially introduced as the younger brother of Quotient’s protagonist’s best friend, Khai assumes leading man status here – he’s single, movie-star handsome, successful. He’s...

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In early 1940s wartime Berlin, an official letter arrives for Otto and Anna Quangel with the unbearable news that their only son is dead. Anna immediately rejects “‘those common lies ...

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part I [in The Booklist Reader]

23 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the first of a two-part series. Part II will publish on Friday, August 30, 2019. Before I can name even a single author or title, I must express my constantly regenerating, overflowing gratitude to translators who enable readers anywhere and everywhere to literally experience the...

Glory and Its Litany of Horrors by Fernanda Torres, translated by Eric M.B. Becker [in Shelf Awareness]

22 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

Once upon a time, Mario Cardoso was "a god beneath the spotlight, a counterculture sex symbol, archetype of the ideal man, Dionysus reborn." With no lack of youthful passion, he quits his architecture studies to join the chorus of a raucous production of Hair and...

The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell [in Booklist]

19 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Despite his name in the title, Nishino never gets a say – except when his words are filtered through the “ten loves” who each narrate a chapter, who each provide glimpses into his character (or lack thereof), and who validate other lovers’ impressions and memories....

100 Days in Uranium City by Ariane Dénommé, translated by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinal [in Booklist]

16 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Translation

Canadian artist Ariane Dénommé opens with, “Thanks Dad, for the stories about Uranium City,” a dedication suggesting some semblance of veracity about the many challenges endured by mining employees in a remote 1970s northern Canada town. The sense of entrapment over 100-day shifts in darkness...

Butterfly Yellow by Thanhhà Lại [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

In April 1975, the U.S. implemented Operation Babylift, a mass evacuation of children from South Việt Nam. As the country imploded, 12-year-old Hằng – who looked 8 – and her 5-year-old brother, Linh – who passed for 3 – presented themselves at the airport as...

Family Trust by Kathy Wang [in Booklist]

14 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Septuagenarian Stanley Huang declares he’ll start a foundation to give his name the longevity his body can’t. His second wife Mary has made his comfort her top priority. His first wife Linda Liang left him financially sound, obscuring his inadequacies in exchange for her freedom. Harvard...

Five More to Go: Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Translation

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder Without names, these people, this island, could be anyone, anywhere. As fantastical as the premise of her latest anglophoned novel seems, Yoko Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor, 2009) intends exactly that universality. Initially, small things disappeared...

The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams [in Booklist]

12 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Vietnamese American

The miracles were many: “born poor and blind in Vietnam on the losing side of a bloody civil war,” Julie Yip-Williams survived her grandmother’s demand to have her killed, escaped on a leaky boat with her family to Hong Kong, arrived as a refugee in...

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste [in Booklist]

08 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Maaza Mengiste’s indelible first novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gate (2010), put Ethiopian historical fiction on countless best-of, must-read, and award lists. Her monumental new novel draws inspiration from her great-grandmother, who as the eldest and in Mulan-style answered Emperor Haile Selassie’s demand for first...

A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Growing up in 1980s suburban Utah, Tunde, his younger brother and their immigrant Nigerian parents hardly resemble the local Mormon majority. Tunde's father blames his accented English for his inability – despite his U.S. engineering degree – to find meaningful employment, eventually attempting a...

The Sweetest Fruits by Monique Truong [in Booklist]

02 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Biography, European, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

*STARRED REVIEW He began life in 1850 as Patricio to his Greek mother, immigrating at two from the island of Lefcada to the Emerald Isle, his father’s birthplace, where he became Patrick. By 19, he landed in New York, made his way to Cincinnati, and married...

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins [in Booklist]

29 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Soneela Nankani instills a just-under-the-surface rage in Kat, a biracial Oakland teen who barely escaped being raped by another student, and whose mother sends her to Boston to finish junior year home-schooled by a family friend’s great-aunt. For Robin Thornton, who’s struggling with his transracial...

Five More to Go: Sok-yong Hwang’s At Dusk [in The Booklist Reader]

17 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

At Dusk by Sok-yong Hwang and translated by Sora Kim-Russell In just over a year, three Sok-yong Hwang titles – Familiar Things (2018), Princess Bari (2019), and this novel – have arrived stateside, each indelibly, adroitly anglophoned by Seoul-based Sora Kim-Russell. Lauded by Nobel Prize laureate Kenzaburō Ōe as “undoubtedly the most powerful voice...

Inhabitation by Teru Miyamoto, translated by Roger K. Thomas [in Booklist]

10 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

The original Japanese title, 春の夢 [Haru no yume], visible in blue on the cover, translates to “spring dream.” “Cherry blossom petals” opens Teru Miyamoto’s latest novel translated into English, which ends (penultimately) with “spring light.” In between, a year goes by that is part dream,...

Marie Curie: A Life of Discovery by Alice Milani, translated by Kerstin Schwandt [in Booklist]

02 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Biography, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In Milani’s graphic biography of the iconic Marie Curie, soon-to-be Nobel winner Ernest Rutherford explains the theory of transmutation in less than a dozen panels to Marie Curie’s “interested in science” daughter, Irène – so young, she calls it “tramputation.” That transparent accessibility repeats throughout,...

Transgender Pride, Literally: 11 Titles by #OwnVoices Authors and More [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, British, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Happy final Friday of Pride Month. Wow . . . that went by quickly! I have 25 (no lie!) more books on, under, next to, and all around my desk that I will not be covering here, which is actually a good thing, because that’s proof that...

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams [in Booklist]

27 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Candice Carty-Williams and Shvorne Marks are quite the dynamic duo: a debut novelist gets paired with a first-time narrator for spectacular results. Hailed (rather lazily) as the black Bridget Jones, Queenie decidedly deserves center-stage without expedient comparisons. As a Jamaican British 25-year-old Londoner, Queenie’s...

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