Love Archives - Page 4 of 84

Dead-End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda [in Booklist]

08 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Banana Yoshimoto (born 1964) debuted as one of Japan’s youngest literary phenoms. In the decades since, she continues to produce brilliantly relevant fiction, notable for an open, accessible simplicity that belies revelatory observations about life, love, happiness, and more. Her latest...

Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning Noah Van Sciver shares in his author’s note he was born into an LDS family descended from a husband of Brigham Young’s daughter, Elizabeth. After his parents’ divorce when he was 12, he began to learn “about Joseph Smith and everything that [his]...

Notes from a Young Black Chef (Adapted for Young Adults) by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein [in School Library Journal]

06 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nigerian American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Narrator Malik Rashad isn’t quite Kwame Onwuachi, who ideally narrated his original 2019 memoir – but here, that’s not necessarily a liability for younger audiences who might need a smidge more animation. Rashad affectingly channels Onwuachi, the self-described “black kid from the Bronx ...

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng [in Booklist]

01 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Bird is 12. Home is a 10th-floor dorm apartment without a working elevator. His Harvard professor father has been demoted to clerical duties at the library. Since his mother, Margaret, left three years ago, Bird is called Noah, anything to disassociate from her since she’s...

Death Doesn’t Forget [Taipei Night Market, Book 4] by Ed Lin [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American

Though Death Doesn't Forget is the fourth in the Taipei Night Market series, versatile novelist Ed Lin nimbly ensures each volume could easily stand alone. Of course, the recommended route is to read the titles in order – Ghost Month; Incensed; 99 Ways to Die – to further...

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Nigerian, Nigerian American, Repost, Short Stories

The nearly 15 years Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi spent writing and rewriting proves to be tenacity well invested, resulting in her audacious debut, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories. The 10 chapters here work as standalone pieces (many were previously published in...

Mighty Justice (Young Readers’ Edition): The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe, adapted by Jabari Asim [in School Library Journal]

24 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Until her death at 104 in 2018, Dovey Johnson Roundtree—“a Black woman born in the early twentieth century in the Jim Crow South” – shared a remarkable 24-year friendship with Katie McCabe, a self-described “white woman who came of age in 1950s Washington, DC.” Theirs...

One Life: Young Readers Edition by Megan Rapinoe [in School Library Journal]

15 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Megan Rapinoe read her original 2020 memoir herself. Here, for the young readers edition, Nicole Lewis proves to be an optimal, dynamic match. Rapinoe made international headlines – and fielded a vicious media onslaught – when she emulated Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protests against racism targeting...

The Selfless Act of Breathing by JJ Bola [in Booklist]

01 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

JJ Bola opens with a shocking promise: “I quit my job; I am taking my life savings, $9,021, and when it runs out, I am going to kill myself.” Nigerian British actor Oseloka Obi commands immediate attention in his debut narration in a solo adult...

Self-Portrait with Ghost by Meng Jin [in Booklist]

28 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Following her extraordinary novel Little Gods (2020), Meng Jin presents a fascinating 10-story collection divided into four sections. One-line drawings of profiles interrupt, switching directions as if cleverly reminding readers to shift perspectives. Death haunts the first three titles. In “Philip Is Dead,” the narrator insistently...

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel [in Booklist]

24 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Emily St. John Mandel groupies will be especially tickled to discover Glass Hotel’s narrator Dylan Moore and Station Eleven’s Kirsten Potter are half the quartet that cipher her latest, in which four narrative strands connect almost five centuries. In 1912, the youngest son of a wealthy...

The Carnegie Medal Interview: Tom Lin [in Booklist]

22 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Terry Hong, Booklist Contributing Reviewer and chair of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence selection committee, had questions for Tom Lin, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for his first novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu. Here is their conversation: So as a debut novelist in your...

Flip the Script by Lyla Lee [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Readers familiar with Lyla Lee's exuberant YA debut, I'll Be the One, will be tickled to see that singer/dancer Skye Shin is "topping the charts" in Lee's equally ebullient sophomore YA novel, Flip the Script. Like Skye, Lee's new protagonist, Hana Jin, is a Korean American...

French Braid by Anne Tyler [in Booklist]

17 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Okay, Anne Tyler devotees and newbies (are there any?): settle in for another utterly engrossing multi-generational saga of Baltimoreans (who scatter), gently, absorbingly read by versatile Kimberly Farr. In her third iteration as Tyler’s cipher, Farr effortlessly adapts to Tyler’s distinct phrasings and rhythms,...

The Chandler Legacies by Abdi Nazemian [in Booklist]

14 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Iranian American, Persian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Vikas Adam, who was one-third of the terrific trio that voiced Abdi Nazemian’s Like a Love Story (2019), returns solo to adroitly cipher the diverse boarding-school cast here (Nazemian closes the recording with his own author’s-note narration). Chandler Academy is tiny enough, but to be...

Tokyo Dreaming [Tokyo Ever After, Book 2] by Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The empowering delight of Emiko Jean’s Tokyo Ever After continues in Tokyo Dreaming as Her Imperial Highness Princess Izumi tries to fit into an ancient hierarchy. When the second book opens, Izumi and her mother are ensconced in Tokyo's Tōgū Palace with their somewhat malodorous pup, Tamagotchi, who's been...

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho [in Booklist]

10 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese American

Listeners familiar with Natalie Naudus’s performances – she’s amassed almost 200 narrating credits – will surely have begun to notice that she has two narrative modes for girlfriends: one with aural gravitas, the other (usually deemed “the pretty one”) pitched a few notes higher, reminiscent...

Honor by Thrity Umrigar [in Booklist]

08 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Sneha Mathan returns for her third outstanding collaboration with Thrity Umrigar, their shared Indian heritage again enhancing their author/narrator symbiosis. Accents, genders, ages, backgrounds, and emotions abound, but Mathan embraces diverse characterizations with effortless ease. In a remote Indian village, a young Hindu widow has...

Pina by Titaua Peu, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman [in Booklist]

06 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Tahitian, Translation

In Tahiti, Tenaho is one of those “quartiers nobody ever hears about,” but what happened to that family “with too many kids ...

Family Album by Gabriela Alemán, translated by Dick Cluster and Mary Ellen Fieweger [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, South American, Translation

Family Album, from award-winning author Gabriela Alemán, is a shrewd, beguiling collection. In eight genre-defying stories, the Brazil-born, Ecuador-based Alemán deftly confronts push-button topics like colonialism, identity, and religion. Dick Cluster, who translated Alemán's novel Poso Wells (2018), returns here with Mary Ellen Fieweger to provide...

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