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Heirlooms: Letters From a Peach Farmer by David Mas Masumoto
As I write, I’m into the ninth of 16 hours that make up the audio version of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Learning about the degrading industrialization of...
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World Ball Notebook by Sesshu Foster
The cover of Sesshu Foster‘s latest title, World Ball Notebook – with its leering skeleton partially superimposed on a photograph of children playing soccer on a city street flanked by abandoned...
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The Angel Maker by Stefan Brijs, translated by Hester Velmans
Belgian-born Stefan Brijs’ novel The Angel Maker seemingly has all the necessary elements to be a success with U.S. readers. It’s already an international bestseller, with 80,000 copies sold in Holland...
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China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation by Xinran, translated by Nicky...
Since the 2002 best-seller The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, Beijing-born London journalist Xinran has emerged as an international dynamo reclaiming the voices of neglected citizens throughout...
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Riverbig: A Novel by Aris Janigian
Far too many immigration stories begin with an escape from tragedy – everything from economic hardship to devastating wars. The Armenian American experience is tragically rooted in the Armenian...
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Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
Geoff Dyer’s latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here’s the initial setup: two distinct parts with a...
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Once the Shore: Stories by Paul Yoon
I have to say it: ‘Yoon’ rhymes with ‘swoon’ for a reason! … and now on with the published review … In the author interview that arrived with the galley for Paul Yoon’s first book, Once the Shore, he...
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I Loves Yous Are for White People: A Memoir by Lac Su
Lac Su is a survivor of things so harrowing that just recounting some of those experiences, even from the distance of a keyboard tapping out a review of his memoir, I Love Yous Are for White People,...
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Delhi Noir edited by Hirsh Sawhney
Whenever my kids start singing “Crazy Kiya Re,” still one of their favorite songs after multiple trips to India, I find myself having to leave the room. Since reading the 14-story anthology Delhi Noir,...
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Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie
If you see a book cover with the name Dai Sijie on it, read the book. Dai’s delightful 2001 debut, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, about two young boys who discover a love for literature...
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The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West by Christopher Corbett
The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West, by Christopher Corbett, is an oddly disturbing read, not so much for its content but for its publication as a historical text about Asian American...
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Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa
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...
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Quiet As They Come by Angie Chau
Through 11 dovetailing stories that begin in the 1980s and move toward today, Angie Chau‘s absorbing debut collection, Quiet As They Come, follows three branches of an extended family that has...
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This Is All I Choose to Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American...
What’s wrong with this scenario? Robert Olen Butler’s A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain wins the Pulitzer Prize despite “his portrayal of sweet and off-beat Vietnamese American caricatures,” as San...
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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother did more than speak to me. It screamed, shouted and lectured me. It made me simultaneously laugh with empathy and cringe with embarrassment and exasperation....
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