Love Archives - Page 5 of 84

The Good Asian (vol. 2) by Pornsak Pichetshote, illustrated by Alexandre Tefenkgi, colored by Lee Loughridge [in Booklist]

01 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Thai American, Vietnamese, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW To best appreciate this volume, readers must go back to the first book. Pornsak Pichetshote’s exquisite narration is an intricate temporal puzzle, his scenes moving between past and present, revealing just enough partial (scintillating, shocking, shrewd) backstory each time with many threads that require careful...

Inheritance: A Visual Poem by Elizabeth Acevedo, illustrated by Andrea Pippins [in Shelf Awareness]

31 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Elizabeth Acevedo, the author of the multi-award-winning The Poet X and Clap When You Land, is also a National Poetry Slam Champion. Inheritance, her most famously performed poem, is here set in print, enhanced with stupendous art by author/illustrator Andrea Pippins (Young, Gifted and Black). Hair – and how...

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford [in Booklist]

30 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Jamie Ford (Love and Other Consolation Prizes, 2017) showcases “transgenerational epigenetic inheritance” – inheriting trauma through generations – in another multi-temporal narrative spanning two-and-a-half centuries across the globe. Ford deftly reveals seven women’s lives, beginning with progenitor Afong, “the first Chinese woman to set foot...

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty [in Shelf Awareness]

25 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost, Short Stories

The dozen stories of Morgan Talty's vivid debut collection, Night of the Living Rez, certainly stand alone – eight of them were previously published in various prestigious journals including the Georgia Review and Narrative magazine, which also awarded him a 2021 Narrative Prize. To discover all 12...

Keya Das’s Second Act by Sopan Deb [in Shelf Awareness]

23 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

New York Times journalist Sopan Deb wrote poignantly about family in his memoir, Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me. He turns to fiction in Keya Das's Second Act, further exploring how parents and children can become detached and, perhaps, discover new paths to lasting connections. As...

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk [in Booklist]

19 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Actor Hannah Cabell’s stage training clearly gives her a stupendous boost in the recording studio; with a mere dozen credits, she’s already superb – and proves herself an ideal audio enabler for Toronto librarian Eva Jurczyk’s novel debut. Liesl Weiss’ boss, Christopher, is lying...

Nuclear Family by Joseph Han [in Booklist]

16 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Grace, 21, and Jacob, 25, are Korean Hawaiian on their father’s side (three Cho generations are currently islanders); maternally, they are both South and North Korean, with their closest Jeong relatives in Seoul. College senior Grace lives at home and works at their parents’ Cho’s...

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Sam Bett [in Booklist]

13 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Brian Nishii’s fluency is evident within minutes, and continues throughout, as he reads Japanese names, places, and words as smoothly and accurately as English text. What’s not as initially clear is that the narrative is a multilayered reveal – something easily distinguishable in the print...

Free Love by Tessa Hadley [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Meet Phyllis Fischer – she prefers Phyl – the latest protagonist of British auteur Tessa Hadley, who so brilliantly writes of familial relationships often facing significant change, possibly collapse. English actor Abigail Thaw, who voiced Hadley’s Late in the Day (2019), delivers another resounding performance;...

Face: A Novel of the Anthropocene by Jaspreet Singh [in Shelf Awareness]

11 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Jaspreet Singh's third novel, Face, presents a mesmerizing narrative. "In this new epoch most stories rhyme with crime," Singh opens. (Indeed, two murders on two continents will happen by novel's end.) This clever beginning introduces strangers Lucia and Lila ("correct pronunciation: Leela"), who meet in...

Circa by Devi S. Laskar [in Shelf Awareness]

10 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Devi S. Laskar's sophomore novel, Circa, is an intense meditation on multigenerational grief and loss. Laskar (The Atlas of Reds and Blues) adopts an uncommon second-person narration for Heera, born in New York and raised in Raleigh, N.C., by Indian immigrant parents. She's American by birthright,...

Talking Stories for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month [in Booklist Reader]

05 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. So’s death in December 2020 at just...

When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley [in Shelf Awareness]

02 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Repost

Soon Wiley's searing debut, When We Fell Apart, deftly reveals in alternating chapters an abruptly truncated love story. Min Ford, a biracial Korean American, is a Samsung cultural specialist who has lived for three years in Seoul. Kim Yu-jin is in her final year at...

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Edoardo Ballerini is that rare talent who instantly, effortlessly transports listeners into a story. His agile adaptability further enhances Ruta Sepetys’ (The Fountains of Silence, 2019) latest historical fiction as he expertly performs characters’ specific details, empathically channels emotions, and deftly reveals a narrative rife...

Keeping Two by Jordan Crane [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Jordan Crane (The Last Lonely Saturday) spent more than two decades creating Keeping Two, a magnificently multilayered graphic novel that empathically addresses the universal human fears of losing those most beloved. In the course of a single evening, the story introduces, challenges, and reconnects two...

You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar by Pyae Moe Thet War [in Booklist]

18 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese), Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW She has two names, Moe Thet War and Pyae Pyae (pronounced “puh-yay, puh-yay”). Both were carefully chosen by her parents. As a Myanmar-born, U.S.- and British-educated, Myanmar-returned resident with a perfect American accent, Pyae Pyae unabashedly explores her “liminality ...

Mister Lightbulb by Wojtek Wawszczyk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones [in Booklist]

15 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Polish, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning animator Wojtek Wawszczyk’s graphic debut, which won the Polish Comics Association’s 2019 Best Graphic Novel award, is available now for English-language readers thanks to this translation by the lauded Antonia Lloyd-Jones. A decade-plus in the making, this epic bildungsroman superbly imbues the surreal...

Yonder by Jabari Asim [in Booklist]

14 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Chameleonic writer Jabari Asim’s second novel after Only the Strong (2015) gets historical with a cast of enslaved Black characters – searingly called the Stolen, their white enslavers rightfully are Thieves – who attempt to survive the atrocities of the antebellum South. “All of...

Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth [in Booklist]

13 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Jokha Alharthi’s third novel is her second to arrive in the U.S., again gorgeously rendered by Oxford professor Marilyn Booth. Their auspicious earlier pairing produced Celestial Bodies (2019), making Alharthi the first female Omani author to be translated into English; the novel became the first...

Are We Ever Our Own by Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Short Stories

The BOA Short Fiction Prize promises "collections [that] are more concerned with the artfulness of writing than the twists and turns of plot." Cuban Irish American author Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes (The Sleeping World) effortlessly displays both craft and narrative in the 11 loosely interlinked stories...

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