Here's a rather unique literary coincidence: Julia Alvarez's Finding Miracles ends with an uncle missing the grandmother's wedding because of hemorrhoid surgery. Return to Sender begins with the mention of another uncle (in a totally unrelated story) suffering through a hemorrhoid operation. Try and find two...
I've been working through numerous 'should-have-read-earlier'-titles lately, and Salman Rushdie's books always loom large as objects of fascination. After four attempts to read his The Enchantress of Florence (twice on the page, twice stuck in the ears narrated by Firdous Bamji whose recordings can make me choose a book...
After two books on the horrors of North Korea, two memoirs about the Palestinian occupation, another about a Lost Boy of Sudan, still another highlighting Hindu/Muslim massacres in Kashmir – all one after the other (what was I thinking??!!) – I picked up Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief,...
Culling together every spare moment I had over a single day (amazing how much more enlightening mindless chores, endless driving, and running can be with a book stuck in your ears!), I managed to listen to all 9.5 hours of Lorraine Toussaint's honeyed narration of...
This is a book I bought twice: first to stick in my ears on long runs (chillingly read by a Korean American triumvirate of Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, and James Kyson Lee), and when I couldn't soak in the story quickly enough, I ordered...
Oh, what a plethora of choices for accessing this swashbuckling series by the godfather of manga: you could go with the original 1960s manga series in Japanese, watch the 26-part anime from 1969 or the live-action film (available dubbed in English even!) from 2007, play the video...
The latest from Studio Ghibli, powered by the creative genius of legendary Hayao Miyazaki, introduces brave Arrietty, her auburn tresses pulled up by a tiny orange clothespin, ready to explore and conquer the "bean" world. Released by Disney in the U.S. last month, the animated...
Flesh, a turn-of-the-20th-century debut novel set mostly in Hanoi, begins and ends with gruesome beheadings. Bearing witness to both executions is Tài, a poor teenage village boy quickly forced into manhood. In an effort to reclaim his father’s severed head and finance an auspicious burial, Tài...
The body count quickly mounts in this engrossing sequel to the thrilling faux Victorian confessional novel, The Meaning of Night. Another well-deserved WOW is in order, even more so because careful readers will undoubtedly solve several (many, even?) of the whodunit-who's-really-who clues early on, but that...
If, like me, you're in the throes of Downton Abbey withdrawal, might I highly recommend the late Michael Cox's only two novels [sadly the noted expert on the Victorian ghost story passed away two years ago at just age 60]. Yes, the British monarchs are different...
"The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons." When you know something like that about a book – that lives were willing to be risked to get a story out – how could you possibly not read it? In the case of Zahra's Paradise, I...
At school, 12-year-old Mimi Lu is better known as Smelly-Loo because "[h]er parents forced her to drink all sorts of smelly brews" – concocted by her herbalist doctor father – that lingered on her clothes, pigtails, skin, and even her breath. "[Y]ou are Chinese. Be...
Somewhere buried in these almost 300 pages (or just over nine hours if you're listening to the husky voice of actress Daphne Rubin-Vega) is a really good book about the quinceañera – the 15th birthday celebration of a Latina which marks her maturity from little girl...
"Life's pretty good," Sonia thinks to herself. Her whole class is making biryani together as part of their study of India: "Getting to know the food," says her favorite teacher, "...
"On a continent of many songs, in a country shaped like the arm of a guitarrista, the rain drummed down on the town of Temuco [Chile]," the invitingly dreamy Dreamer begins. Neftalí Reyes, the eponymous dreamer, is most content to live in a world of stories,...
On the kitchen wall is taped a large sign: "My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me." What else should you know without telling you...
This interlinked story collection by Uganda-born, Stateside MFA-ed Doreen Baingana is a family affair that explores the lives of three sisters, their diverse paths, and their eventual return home. The two bookended stories introduce the family in the opening "Green Stones," only to end with...
Still a young teenager, Alinda knows only too well the potential horrors of war ...
Ever since the fabulous audible version of No More Dead Dogs kept my then-backseated young 'uns highly entertained through many a traffic jam, Gordon Korman holds special favor on the contraptions that have taken over their now-teenage ears. [Pop, by the way, earned a double rave.] Oldster me is still laughing along...
As Janie weeps over her first-ever separation from her mother, who is about to give birth, her grandmother admonishes her with the grave responsibility Janie must bear for her new sibling. "In our family ...
