Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter [in Booklist]
01 May, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation
Death brings “excitement ...
BookDragon Parent/child relationship Tag
A Palestine Reader, Part I: Books for Youth [in The Booklist Reader]
28 Apr, by in Arab, Arab American, British, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers
The unrelenting conflict between Palestine and Israel keeps the Middle East in the news. But for a fuller picture of the Palestinian and Palestinian American experience than what the media can provide, here's a starter reading list for young people. Stay tuned for our list of titles about...
Grendel’s Guide to Love and War: A Tale of Rivalry, Romance, and Existential Angst by A.E. Kaplan [in Shelf Awareness]
26 Apr, by in Fiction, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers
Tom Grendel can divide his 17-year-old life in "exactly three phases: before Mom, after Mom but before Dad/Iraq, and my current post-Dad/Iraq period." Tom's mother died suddenly when he was 9. His father deployed to Iraq, leaving Tom and his sister, Zipora, with their grandmother....
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins, foreword by Elizabeth Alexander [in Library Journal]
21 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Short Stories
*STARRED REVIEW Filmmaker/playwright/writer/activist Kathleen Collins was a multi-faceted, multi-talented pioneer who died at just 46. In 2014, indie distributor Milestone Films reintroduced her groundbreaking 1982 film, Losing Ground, one of the first movies directed by an African American woman. Beyond the celluloid, this posthumously published 16-story...
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran [in Library Journal]
20 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Repost, South Asian American
*STARRED REVIEW Soli is still a teenager when she becomes pregnant during her journey from her native Mexican village to northern California. Partly joyous because she's love-struck, mostly nightmarish for what she must endure to survive, Soli enters the United States illegally and eventually finds a...
You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris, translated by Sam Taylor [in Library Journal]
19 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, European, French, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost
*STARRED REVIEW With elegant control, narrator Gildart Jackson embodies the words of French journalist Antoine Leiris, who bears witness to the murder of his wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, one of the victims of the November 13, 2015, terrorist attack at Paris's Bataclan Theatre. Three days later, Leiris...
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal [in Booklist]
18 Apr, by in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction, Repost
Nikki’s begrudging agreement to help her sister, Mindi, “find a husband the traditional way” takes her to Southall, a predominately South Asian immigrant neighborhood in west London, to post a discreet marriage advert at the gurdwara (Sikh temple). Unlike Mindi, Nikki considers herself modern and...
The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian [in Library Journal]
14 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Armenian American, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost
Annalee Ahlberg is missing, but given her history of sleepwalking, her loved ones hold fast to the possibility of her return. While the investigation remains ongoing, the family adheres to some semblance of normalcy: husband Warren retreats to his work as a professor, 21-year-old daughter...
No Other World by Rahul Mehta [in Library Journal]
06 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American
In this debut novel (following Quarantine), western New York in 1985 and western India in 1998 are introduced as prologue, with both time and place connected by the 12-going-on-13-year-old and 26-year-old versions of Kiran Shah, whose coming-of-age as a bicultural gay Indian American is...
City Gate, Open Up by Bei Dao, translated by Jeffrey Yang [in Booklist]
04 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation
Bei Dao is considered the most prominent of China’s “Misty Poets,” named for the abstract, opaque nature of their compositions written predominantly during the oppressive Cultural Revolution. In contrast, the language of Bei Dao’s memoir, seamlessly translated by fellow poet Yang, is elegantly simple and...
The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex by Gabrielle Williams [in Shelf Awareness]
31 Mar, by in Australian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers
The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex opens with a real-life unsolved mystery: "On August 2, 1986, a group calling itself the Australian Cultural Terrorists stole one of the world's most iconic paintings – Picasso's Weeping Woman – off the walls of the...
Meeting with My Brother by Yi Mun-yol, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl and Yoosup Chang [in Booklist]
30 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, North Korean, Repost, Translation
*STARRED REVIEW “The Korean War displaced and fragmented more than ten million families,” writes Heinz Insu Fenkl in his introduction to his new translation of Yi’s novella about the first meeting between two adult brothers. Yi, one of Korea’s most prominent literary figures, and his family were...
A Trans* and Gender Nonconforming Reading List for All Ages [in The Booklist Reader]
28 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers
News about the transgender community – including banned books, bathroom laws, hockey, wrestlers, models, parades, Jackie and Juliet Evancho, and, most tragically, a horrifying murder caught on cellphone video – have all made recent headlines. Books can be helpful, entertaining, illuminating portals into the trans*/gender nonconforming (GNC)...
Author Interview: Min Jin Lee [in Bloom]
21 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Repost
On History, Survival & Intimacy Becoming a bestselling author took Min Jin Lee 11 years – and so much more of her life. She quit lawyering, but without that income, tuition for an MFA proved impossible. So she found every bargain opportunity in New York City to...
Augustown by Kei Miller [in Booklist]
16 Mar, by in Adult Readers, British, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Repost
*STARRED REVIEW As both the introductory note and epithet doubly insist, August Town, divided into two words, is a real town in Jamaica, made (in)famous for being the founding home of Bedwardism, a short-lived, early twentieth-century religion. Fast-forward to 1982 when teary Kaia comes home to his...
Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan [in Christian Science Monitor]
14 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American
'Temporary People' depicts the lives of guest workers in the UAE The sense of displacement, of disconnect begins on the cover: The words “A Novel” written sideways, unobtrusively stamped along the left side under the title Temporary People, might be considered misleading. Made up of three...
Secret Coders: Paths & Portals (Volume 2) by Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes
10 Mar, by in Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific
Seventh graders Hopper, Eni, and Josh have managed to "get with the program" since Volume 1, but they still haven't learned how not to get stuck in places they shouldn't be. Volume 2 opens with a test of their burgeoning skills, which – failed attempts notwithstanding...
Frontier by Can Xue, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping [in Booklist]
07 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation
“It will be interesting what people make of this one,” novelist-essayist Porochista Khakpour (The Last Illusion, 2014) reveals in her introduction, something she admiringly says about every Can Xue (The Last Lover, 2014) title. “Can Xue,” Khakpour explains, is both pseudonymous disguise and “synonymous with...
what did you eat yesterday? (vol. 11) by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Jocelyne Allen
03 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers
Oh, how I've missed my favorite Tokyo lovebirds! Not to mention the chance to salivate over their too-toothsome meals. If only they'd invite me over! If you're just tuning in to this tasty domestic drama, make sure to click here to catch up. Shiro's already well-stocked...
The Harlem Charade by Natasha Tarpley [in Shelf Awareness]
28 Feb, by in Black/African American, Fiction, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost
Twelve-year-old Jin Yi records "interesting moments and details" in her memory notebook while watching customers shop in her Korean American family's Harlem bodega: "[P]eople will tell you their stories in the way that they move, how their faces look, how they speak." Observing turns to...