Jane Jeong Trenka's follow-up to her phenomenal debut memoir, The Language of Blood, is a searing, disturbing account of why transracial adoption does not work. Newly divorced, having severed her relationship with her adoptive parents, escaping from a violent stalker now in jail, Trenka arrives in Korea having...
Holy moly! This manga is older than I am! No snickering, please! First published in Japan in 1956 by a then very young Yoshihiro Tatsumi (who memorialized his own artist-as-a-young-man development in his autobiographical graphic memoir A Drifting Life – in which you can also read more...
The first reaction to finishing Lucky Girl is 'lucky readers.' Definitely of the 'you can't make this stuff up'-genre, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood's debut memoir is one lucky surprise after another. Paced just right to keep you reading, the Taiwanese-born Hopgood reveals a remarkable story of her Midwest...
As the new boy in town, living in a motel with his near-silent father, young Rob Horton literally hasn't unpacked. He keeps a virtual suitcase tightly locked with his deepest feelings and thoughts, most notably memories about his mother who passed away six months ago...
With the publication of her first memoir, Infidel (2007), Ayaan Hirsi Ali spent the better part of a year seeing her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Born in Somalia, at times neglected, abandoned, or abused by her parents, the strictly-raised Muslim child that...
If you're a parent (or a parental figure) to a girl (even if that girl is still an infant!), you MUST read this book. Which means you can stop reading this post here. Go get the book already ...
Six months after Nitish Roy’s death, his wife and two daughters gather in Calcutta, India where Bijou Roy as the oldest must send her father’s ashes down the holy river to eternal rest. The haphazard ceremony – made even more so because she is not...
The town of Musashigawa has a graffiti problem ...
Certain writers – Chang-rae Lee and Khaled Hosseini immediately come to mind – paralyze my reading capability. I say that with the utmost respect. I become so attached to an author's previous book (in the rare case, books), that I find myself unable to even...
For years, this 1996 National Book Award finalist in Children's Literature sat high on my night-table stack. But once I finally opened its pages – annoyingly marked with multiple intrusive stamps of "Discarded by the Yankton Community Library" as I ordered it used – the book...
At the rate I'm reading these, it's a good thing I only ordered the first three volumes to get me started ...
The mysterious doctor is back to do more good with another set of miraculous adventures. Jack's late mentor and savior lends his voice from beyond to remind him once again, "don't underestimate the human body," as Jack attempts to chase a needle tip gone missing...
So it's not officially the start of summer by calendar date, but when temperatures get this hot, my eyeballs turn to lighter reading to soothe the heat-addled brain. Given my later-in-life appreciation for manga, Osamu Tezuka always proves to be a reliable go-to choice. In...
As the mother of a teenage girl (and too-soon-to-be-teenage son, too, egads!), I vacillate constantly between nervous fear and proud elation. My daughter is a miracle in so many ways ...
Here's something else that APAs and Jewish Americans have in common: we share the same heritage month! Yup, as of April 2006, May is not only our Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, but May is also Jewish American Heritage Month! Various stereotypes have long linked...
If you're looking for the quirky, original Yoko Ogawa, her latest, Hotel Iris, is probably not for you. Go back to your bookstore or library and check out the delightfully inimitable The Housekeeper and the Professor (2009), about a genius math professor with only an 80-minute...
Sometimes it takes me years to read certain books. Oftentimes, fear is involved. Sometimes when I like a book so very much, I'm afraid the next book by that author just might disappoint. So I do the denial thing and move said title deeper down...
Every time I close a Mas Arai mystery (this is my third – I know, I need to catch up), and in spite of the sometimes gruesome body count, I have to admit I miss the crotchety old man with his Japanese phrases mixed in...
By the time I actually met Sonya Chung, debut novelist of Long for This World, which hit shelves in March, I was already a groupie. Long was one of those suddenly-surprising-out-of-nowhere books that make you gasp. A publicist sent it to me initially and it...
Even though "Uncle" calls her Rosa Garcia, Tzunun Chumil knows her real Mayan name, and that in Spanish, Tzunun is 'colibrí,' which means "hummingbird." She knows somewhere that she has a mother and father that once loved her very much, that she lived a happy...
