Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2023 - Books Written by Asian Authors
- Ariel H.
- Saturday, January 28, 2023
Collection
Fulfill the "Read a book written by an author of Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese descent" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
A Thousand Steps into Night
Published in 2022
"When a girl who's never longed for adventure is hit with a curse that begins to transform her into a demon, she embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her normal life, but along the way is forced to confront her true power within"--Publisher.
Counterfeit
A Novel
Published in 2022
Ava Wong, a strait-laced Chinese American lawyer, and Winnie Fang, her former college roommate from mainland China, who dropped out under mysterious circumstances, join forces in an ingenious counterfeit operation selling replica luxury handbags.
Peach Blossom Spring
Published in 2022
Settling in America years after his turbulent childhood in China, Renshu, now Henry Dao, refuses to talk to his daughter about her heritage, determined to keep her safe in this new land despite being weighed down by his history.
Foul Lady Fortune
Published in 2022
In 1931 Shanghai, two Nationalist spies pose as a married couple to investigate a series of brutal murders causing unrest in the city.
The Silence That Binds Us
Published in 2022
In the year following their son's death, May Chen's parents face racist accusations of putting too much pressure on their son and causing his death by suicide, and May attempts to challenge the racism and ugly stereotypes through her writing, only to realize that she still has a lot to learn and that her actions have consequences for her family as well as herself.
Babel
Or, the Necessity of Violence
Published in 2022
A Chinese boy orphaned by cholera and raised in Britain is trained to work at Oxford's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, the world's center for translation and magic through silver-working, where he must choose between competing loyalties.
Seoulmates
Published in 2022
Hannah Cho had the next year all planned out--the perfect summer with her boyfriend, Nate, and then a fun senior year with their friends. But then Nate does what everyone else in Hannah's life seems to do--he leaves her, claiming they have nothing in common. He and all her friends are newly obsessed with K-pop and K-dramas, and Hannah is not. After years of trying to embrace the American part and shunning the Korean side of her Korean American identity to fit in, Hannah finds that's exactly what now has her on the outs. But someone who does know K-dramas--so well that he's actually starring in one--is Jacob Kim, Hannah's former best friend, whom she hasn't seen in years. He's desperate for a break from the fame, so a family trip back to San Diego might be just what he need that is, if he and Hannah can figure out what went wrong when they last parted and navigate the new feelings developing between them. -- Publisher's description.
Only a Monster
Published in 2022
"Joan has just learned the truth: her family are monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And the cute boy at work isn't just a boy: he's a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to destroy her family. To save herself and her family, Joan will have to do what she fears most: embrace her own monstrousness. Because in this story ... she is not the hero"-- Provided by publisher
Portrait of a Thief
A Novel
Published in 2022
"Ocean's Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity"-- Provided by publisher.
Six Crimson Cranes
Published in 2021
The exiled Princess Shiori must unravel the curse that turned her six brothers into cranes, and she is assisted by her spurned betrothed, a capricious dragon, and a paper bird brought to life by her own magic.
A Magic Steeped in Poison
Published in 2022
Ning enters a cutthroat magical competition to find the kingdom's greatest master of the art of brewing tea, but political schemes and secrets make her goal of gaining access to royal physicians to cure her dying sister far more dangerous than she imagined.
We Were Dreamers
An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story
Published in 2022
"We Were Dreamers is the superhero origin story of Simu Liu, Marvel Cinematic Universe's first leading Asian superhero, who grew up torn between China and Canada, until he found the courage to dream like his parents before him. Witty, honest, inspiring and relatable, We Were Dreamers weaves together the narratives of two generations in a Chinese immigrant family who are inextricably tied to one another even as they are torn apart by deep cultural misunderstanding. Let's just say, it's really hard to be seen as cool amongst your peers when your parents assign you hours of extra homework every night. And it's similarly hard to admit to those parents, years later, not only that you've lost your respectable accounting job--the one they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in to prepare you for--but also that you kinda want to be an actor. Going beyond his own experiences, Simu tells the story of his parents' decision to leave him behind to be raised by his grandparents while they sought a future in North America, and of the shock and loss he experienced when the father he hardly even remembered showed up one day to take him away from the only home he had ever known. He offers a no-holds-barred look at the struggles he and his parents experienced as they tried to become a family while dealing with culture gaps, racism and wildly conflicting definitions of success. And he shares many entertaining stories of his own incredible path to success, from the acting gigs he landed through Craigslist ads to dressing up as Spider-Man at kids' birthday parties and serving as Pete Wentz's stunt double on a Fall Out Boy music video. Ultimately, it is Simu's singular determination to make his dreams come true that not only leads him to succeed as an actor but also opens the door to reconciliation with his parents. For by the time he is thirty--the same age his parents were when they immigrated--he recognizes that he and his parents have much in common, most notably their courage to dream, and to dream big. We Were Dreamers is a story about growing up as a third-culture kid, about losing and finding family, and about making your own luck. More than one family's story, it is part of a larger narrative about Asian Canadian culture--a colorful and nuanced tale that is worthy of being told and deserving of a wide readership."-- Provided by publisher.
Life Ceremony
Stories
Published in 2022
"With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata, whose Convenience Store Woman has now sold more than a million copies worldwide, returns with a brilliant and wonderfully unsettling collection, her most recent fiction to be published in Japan. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror and turns the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. In "A First-Rate Material," Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can't stand the conventional use of deceased people's bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. "Lovers on the Breeze" is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child's bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. "Eating the City" explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while "Hatchling" closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in. In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks what it means to be a human in a world that often seems very strange, and offers answers that surprise and linger"-- Provided by publisher.
How High We Go in the Dark
A Novel
Published in 2022
"For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague-a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice. Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe"-- Provided by publisher.
Our Missing Hearts
A Novel
Published in 2022
"From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic--including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It's a story about the power-and limitations-of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact"-- Provided by publisher.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
Published in 2022
In this retelling of the Korean legend The tale of Shim Cheong, sixteen-year-old Mina is swept away to the Spirit Realm, where, assisted by a motley crew of demons, gods, and lesser spirits, she sets out to awaken the sleeping Sea God and save her homeland and family from deadly storms.
All My Rage
Published in 2022
A family extending from Pakistan to California, deals with generations of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess
A Novel
Published in 2022
Forced to flee her home on the moon after her magic flares up, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest to save her mother, in a new fantasy novel inspired by the legend of the Chinese moon goddess.
Time is a Mother
Published in 2022
"Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle - and rewards - of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, in concert with the themes of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented tragedies to find not a restoration, but the epicenter of the break"-- Provided by publisher.
Joan is Okay
A Novel
Published in 2022
"Joan is a thirtysomething ICU physician at a busy New York City hospital, the daughter of Chinese parents who moved to America to secure the American dream for Joan and her brother, Fang, then returned to China. Joan's whole life has been about study and work. She logs excessive hours at the hospital, exhibits little interest in having friends, let alone lovers, and her medical colleagues sometimes resent her, misreading dedication to work as ambition. Sometimes Joan looks up and wonders where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white doctor's coat makes her feel at home; or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own social and cultural expectations. But when Joan's father suddenly dies, her mother returns to America, now more determined than ever to connect with Joan while staying with Fang on his sprawling Greenwich estate. The hospital, and life on the Upper West Side of New York City, provide cover, and protection--for a while. But then a compelling new neighbor moves in to the apartment next door, and Joan is unwillingly drawn into the social lives of people she's been happily ignoring for years. And at the hospital, a new HR "wellness initiative" about work/life balance forces Joan to take a mandatory leave of absence; she's barred from the hospital and life as she knows it. When she decides to decamp to Fang's, and to her newly reconstituted family, her family tries to reorder her life, threatening the parameters she'd carefully calibrated--until the day she must return to the city to face a crisis larger than anything she's encountered"-- Provided by publisher.
Making a Scene
Published in 2022
"Through raw and relatable essays, Constance shares private memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, sexual assault and harassment, and how she "made it" in Hollywood. Her stories offer a behind-the-scenes look at being Asian American in the entertainment industry and the continuing evolution of her identity and influence in the public eye"-- Provided by publisher.
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor
Published in 2022
After his augmented reality gaming headset is possessed by the spirit of the First Emperor of China, twelve-year-old Chinese American Zack Ying is compelled to travel across China to steal an ancient artifact, fight figures from Chinese history and myth, and seal a portal to prevent malicious spirits from destroying the human realm.