How surprised was I to hear earlier this month that Oprah's latest Book Club 2.0 pick just happened to be on my iPod! I suppose the fact that I always have no fewer than a couple dozen books on my phone at all times makes...
Long before the latest translated-into-English title from award-winning transgender manga creator Inio Asano is due to hit shelves (fabulous Seattle-based publisher Fantagraphics lists an unspecified February pub date; Amazon lists March 19, 2014 and B&N March 5 for available shipping), the internet has been abuzz...
For readers familiar with Astro Boy, Buddha, or Black Jack – a few of 'godfather of manga' Osamu Tezuka's signature titles – Barbara might present quite the surprise. This is definitely not your kiddie fare: the front cover warns "explicit content"; the back cover is marked with...
Of the debut novels by non-Asian men writing about Asia and Asian characters that I've read thus far this year, three stand out: Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master’s Son, Brandon Jones' All Woman and Springtime, and most recently this title by Virginia attorney Corban Addison. The one...
Just as North Korea’s presence in news headlines has proliferated of late – thanks to the installation of the third-generation round-faced despot; nuclear tests; failed missiles; blatant threats – book shelves, too, have seen an increase in North Korea-themed titles, predominantly written by non-Korean authors. In...
The three-part manga adaptation of Dazai Osamu's classic semi-autobiographical novel of human disconnect concludes here with utter fear and loathing. To catch up to this point, click here for the first two volumes. Yozo Oba, now 22, is living so blissfully with his lovely young wife Yoshino...
What does it take to update a 60+-year-old story? In the case of Usamaru Furuya's 21st-century manga adaptation of the literary classic Ningen Shikkaku, a semi-autobiographical novel by Dazai Osamu (published in 1948 in Japan, translated into English as No Longer Human in 1958), an...
Four women, living together in a house in Antwerp, Belgium, are "[t]hrown together by a conspiracy of fate and a loud man called Dele." They have escaped their lives in Africa, but only at the cost of their freedom; Dele, who orchestrated their immigration, now...
In less than a week, you can be holding 1Q84, Haruki Murakami's long-awaited spectacular title finally available in English, which hits shelves on October 25. You might choose to hold out until November 8 when the audible version is scheduled for release. All 944 pages (on paper...
Before you open Somaly Mam's astonishing memoir, you need to be prepared to bear witness to some of the most horrific acts a human being can commit against another, especially helpless young girls. Once you begin, the frank, unmitigated writing will not allow you to...
*STARRED REVIEW At the core of 1Q84 is a spectacular love story about a girl and boy who briefly held hands when they were both 10. That said, with the fiercely imaginative Murakami as author, the story’s exposition is gloriously labyrinthine: Welcome “into this enigma-filled world...
In densely populated Seoul, a mysterious man makes a lucrative living by helping "clients" commit suicide. He’s not exactly Dr. Death Kevorkian offering physically depleted bodies reprieve; instead he has a special talent for finding lost, disconnected souls ready to leave behind their unfulfilling existence...
A major Japanese prize-winning book (Naoki, 1998) and film (Akame shijūya taki shinjū misui, 2003; in English, Akame 48 Waterfalls), Paradise is an unflinching meditation on late-20th-century disconnection. Middle-aged Ikushima, once again a self-described “corpse” in shoes and suit, recalls his drifting life 12 years ago: after...
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...
In 1848 American English, "wench" referred to "[a] colored woman of any age; a negress or mulattress, especially one in service." Among far too many southern (utterly misnamed) 'gentlemen' (as these men exhibited nothing 'gentle' in their behavior), a wench's expected service was sexual in...
Innocence lost: 17-year-old Ami is both schoolgirl and prostitute, pregnant by her mentally challenged older brother, brutally gang raped by a rock star and his groupies, but capable of restoring the dormant virility of...
If this 120-page novel rife with sex and violence were any longer, reading it would be unbearable. That it won Japan’s highest literary honor, the Akutagawa Prize, for its then 20-year-old author,...
A stark collection of 10 stories, mostly about a desperate young woman trapped in a life of prostitution, drugs, and sexual abuse.
Author Evelyn Lau, a teenage runaway who...
