Love Archives - Page 42 of 84

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee [in Christian Science Monitor]

22 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

'The Queen of the Night' blends opera and mystery into a grandiose read Fourteen-plus years after his Whiting Award-ed debut, Edinburgh, hit shelves in late 2001, literary social media-darling Alexander Chee returns with The Queen of the Night, in which another – albeit very different –...

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende, translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson [in Library Journal]

09 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Japanese American, Jewish, Latina/o/x, Repost, Translation

Multiple narratives swirl around Alma Belasco, a Polish teenager who escaped the Nazis in 1939 and arrived in San Francisco to share a privileged life with an indulgent aunt and uncle. Now 73, Alma is a favorite resident in a senior facility, devotedly looked after...

Shelter by Jung Yun [in Library Journal]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Faced with financial crisis, college professor Kyung Cho and his wife, Gillian, are considering selling their overmortgaged home. During the initial realtor meeting, the couple discovers Kyung's mother wandering disoriented and naked beyond their backyard. Kyung misunderstands his mother's garbled Korean – the language she...

The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith [in Library Journal]

14 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Han Kang, a South Korean writing professor with Iowa Writers Workshop training, makes her English-translation debut with this spare, spectacular novel, in which a multigenerational, seemingly traditional Seoul family implodes. Yeong-hye, the youngest of three adult children, repeatedly announces "I had a dream," violent, bloody,...

The Gap of Time [Hogarth Shakespeare] by Jeanette Winterson [in Library Journal]

10 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, British, Fiction, Repost

Jeanette Winterson inaugurates “The Hogarth Shakespeare” series – “a major international project [that] will see Shakespeare’s plays reimagined by some of today’s bestselling and most celebrated writers” – with a contemporary reinvention of The Winter’s Tale. In Winterson’s version, the setting moves between post-2008 market-crashed London and a...

Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy [in School Library Journal]

03 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW "The word fat makes some people uncomfortable," Willowdean Dickson remarks. Called Dumplin’ by her mother, Will insists that fat is "not an insult." She's comfortably self-aware, buoyed by her late aunt, whom she still deeply mourns, and her picture-perfect best friend. When she introduces herself...

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon [in School Library Journal]

02 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Nicola Yoon’s superb debut begins and ends with books. Stories are how 18-year-old Madeline has survived with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency – "you know it as 'bubble baby disease’" – in her sanitized world that includes only her doctor mother and a nurse. She's been content...

Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

So it wasn't even dusk yet and already the spine was tingling as soon as I opened the book. I kept looking around to make sure what was on the page hadn't somehow escaped and was about to pounce on me. With Halloween just over...

Love Love by Sung J. Woo [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW At 40, Kevin Lee, an almost-tennis-pro-turned-club-instructor, finds out he’s adopted when he tries to donate a kidney to his less-than-deserving widower father. The only clues to Kevin's identity are an unfinished letter from his late mother with a nude centerfold of his birthmother. Meanwhile, his younger...

Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe, translated by [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Death by Water takes readers on a wild ride of epic proportions In addition to being noted for his prodigious literary accomplishments, 1994 Nobel Prize-winning Kenzaburō Ōe is known for being politically outspoken. He made international headlines again during this year’s 70th anniversary of the Nagasaki/Hiroshima...

The Marvels by Brian Selznick

05 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, British, Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

Wonderstruck. I know, I know – that's the title of Brian Selznick’s previous jaw-dropping accomplishment on the page ...

Strange Light Afar: Tales of the Supernatural from Old Japan by Rui Umezawa, illustrated by Mikiko Fujita

01 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Japanese, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

How did we get to the month of Halloween already? To get you ready for the upcoming fright-fest, check out these eight spooky tales that have managed to stay scary for generations. Lost ghosts, evil spirits, deceptive other-worldly beings, hauntings, murders and worse. Goosebumps gotcha...

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

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

This week, the National Book Foundation is releasing the longlists category by category, day by day, for the coveted National Book Award (winners will be announced November 18). Included among the 10 titles cited for "Young People's Literature" is Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap. [I confess I have fingers,...

Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

At 17, Maggie Thrash and her mother are visiting her brother in New Mexico where he's attending college. "I don't approve of your running off with this person you haven't seen in two years," her mother admonishes her, while her brother deadpans a "I'm bitterly...

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

So you know how the book ends by the second paragraph in the "Prologue." But holy moly, once you start, you'll want to experience every detail of how the eponymous boys in the boat – "nine young men from the state of Washington – farm boys, fisherman, and...

The Bishop’s Wife [A Linda Wallheim Mystery, Book 1] by Mette Ivie Harrison

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

Here in my temporary exile in the Beehive State, I remain fascinated by the religion that dominates my current location. In a moment of ironic timing, as I was wandering the many surrounding mountains with narrator Kirsten Potter stuck in the ears, this passage stuck: "Whenever friends from other...

The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Oh, holy moly ...

A Year Without Mom by Dasha Tolstikova

02 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Russian, Russian American, Young Adult Readers

Dasha is 12. She lives in a four-room apartment in Moscow with her mother and her grandparents. Her father lives in Los Angeles. She would like a cat, but she's too allergic. One night, she overhears her grandmother assuring her mother: "She will be fine. We...

China Rich Girlfriend [Crazy Rich Asians 2] by Kevin Kwan

31 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Singaporean, Singaporean American, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Summer is waning way too quickly, but you still have a final week left to indulge in frothy reads: the over-the-top excesses of Singaporean Manhattanite Kevin Kwan’s novels might be just what you've been looking for as Labor Day looms. If you haven't yet relished Kwan's debut,...

Wandering Son (vol. 8) by Shimura Takako, translated by Matt Thorn

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Adolescence is difficult enough to navigate, but throw in a few gender-bender issues and you've got multiple challenges earlier generations probably didn't (wouldn't? couldn't?) openly face. With all manner of identity awareness growing worldwide, Shimura Takako’s award-winning, internationally lauded manga series gently and insightfully reflects the gender spectrum on...

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