The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov

September 30, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 2011. 128 pgs. Library copy. In a remote part of Kazakhstan, Soviet scientists and military personnel test atomic weapons as they race to catch up to the Americans. A young boy named Yerzhan lives near the test site with his mute mother, grandparents, and the daughter of their only neighbors. His grandfather discovers he is a child prodigy with instruments, including the violin, and […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Fiction, Peirene Press, Russian, Translated • Tags: Hamid Ismailov

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

September 2, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Francois Chau. Audible Studios, 2015. 13 hours, 53 minutes. Purchased. The narrator in Nguyen’s novel is a man serving in the South Vietnamese army as a caption and watching the collapse of his country in April 1975. He has grown increasingly disillusioned with the Vietnam War and the role of the Americans, whom he refers to as drug dealers now cutting off the supply. This disillusionment is further fostered by the fact the unnamed narrator […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, Pulitzer Prize, United States, Vietnam • Tags: Francois Chau, Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

April 18, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Jeff Cummings. Brilliance Audio, 2015. Originally published 1962. 9 hours, 58 minutes. Purchased.  In 1962, fifteen years after the end of World War II, a defeated America has been split into three zones — the Pacific States ruled by Japan, the East Coast colonized by Nazi Germany, and a demilitarized zone comprised of the Rocky Mountain states. In Colorado and Wyoming, individuals who once (and still) identified as Americans live far freer than those on either […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Dystopia, Europe, Fiction, Germany, Hugo Award, Japan, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Philip K. Dick

Southeast Asia Guidebooks

April 11, 2018 by Christina

‘Bangkok City Guide’ by Andrew Burke and Austin Bush. Nonfiction — print. Lonely Planet, 2010. 304 pgs. Library copy. ‘Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos’ by David W. Lloyd with Andrew Spooner. Nonfiction — print. Footprint Handbooks, 2015. 576 pgs. Library copy. The first leg of my upcoming trip to southeast Asia — or second, if you count a twelve hour layover in Hong Kong — will be centered around the capital of Thailand, Bangkok. Burke and Bush’s guidebook — written under the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Chunkster, Nonfiction, Travel, Vietnam • Tags: Andrew Burke, Andrew Spooner, Austin Bush, David W. Lloyd

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

March 21, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. W.W. Norton, 2010. 334 pgs. Library copy.   Subtitled “The Curious Science of Life in the Void”, Roach’s book questions the efficacy of a plan by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to send a manned craft to Mars by 2030. At the time of the book’s publication in 2010, (wo)man has landed on the Moon and spent months orbiting over Earth in the International Space Station. Yet questions remain about the effect of zero gravity on the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Book Club, Europe, Japan, Nonfiction, North America, Russia, United States • Tags: Mary Roach

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

March 7, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Georgia Maguire. Macmillian Audio, 2016. 8 hours, 23 minutes. Library copy. To outsiders, Grace Angel has the perfect marriage. Her husband, Jack, is a lawyer representing victims of domestic violence, and he absolutely dotes on his wife. He takes her on spur of the moment holidays to Thailand, provides a comfortable home so that Grace does not have to work, and is committed to Grace’s promise to bring her sister Millie, who has Downs Syndrome, […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Thailand, United Kingdom • Tags: B.A. Paris, Georgia Maguire

The Voice of Asia by James A. Michener

February 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Random House, 1951. 338 pgs. Purchased.  Before embarking on any trip — around the world or within the United States — I always look to see if James A. Michener wrote about the particular place I’m set to visit. I find his multi-generational, fictional stories make the nonfictional history of a particular geography accessible and intriguing in a way that guidebooks cannot. As I will be traveling throughout southeast Asia in April, I looked into Michener’s back […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, India, Japan, Nonfiction, Thailand, Travel, Vietnam • Tags: James A. Michener

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

January 10, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Vintage, 2014. 415 pgs. Purchased. In the 1960s, two brothers born roughly fifteen months apart explore the lowlands of Calcutta with a particular fascination for the Tolly Club, a golf course established for whites only by the British during the colonization of India. Their exploratory exploits are interrupted first by a policemen tasked with enforcing the club’s exclusivity and, later, by their pursuit of higher education. Udayan, the younger brother, went to the Presidency to study physics; […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Awards and Prizes, Booker Prize, Fiction, India, National Book Award, ReadDiverse • Tags: Jhumpa Lahiri

A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori (Volume Seven)

February 22, 2016 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Japanese by William Flanagan. Yen Press, 2015. 191 pgs. Library copy. On his journey from present-day Mongola to India, the British wannabe anthropologist Mr. Smith stays for a period of time with a wealthy trader and his beautiful, young wife named Anis. As a Muslim woman, Anis is required to remain hidden from Mr. Smith and other male, non-family visitors to the home. Therefore, she often passes her days in complete solitude save for the […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Asia, Comics, Fiction, Japanese, ReadDiverse, Translated • Tags: Kaoru Mori

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

February 19, 2016 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Matilda Novak. HighBridge, 2005. Originally published 1999. 6 hours, 15 minutes. Library copy. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, Lahiri’s collection of nine short stories address the conflict between one’s identity as an Indian and the America in which the individual now lives. This common theme connects all nine of the stories irregardless of the exact identity of the central character (male or female, Indian or Indian-American or white American) or the location (Boston, […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Fiction, India, New England, North America, Pulitzer Prize, ReadDiverse, Short Stories, United States • Tags: Jhumpa Lahiri, Matilda Novak

Vietnamerica by G.B. Tran

April 10, 2015 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Villard, 2011. 288 pgs. Library copy. As the only member of his family born in the United States, Tran grew up largely indifferent to the experience of his immigrant family in Vietnam and how they came to the United States following the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Tran decides to return to Vietnam in April 2008 with his parents after much prodding on the part of the his mother and a decisive edict from his stereotypically […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Asia, Comics, Nonfiction, Vietnam • Tags: G.B. Tran

The Upstairs Wife by Rafia Zakaria

March 6, 2015 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Beacon Press, 2015. 251 pgs. Review copy courtesy of LibraryThing. Subtitled “An Intimate History of Pakistan”, Zakaria’s book opens with the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, which occurred while her own family was anxiously awaiting news about the health status of her uncle by marriage, Sohail. This moment of inner conflict – how do you offer praise for the health of a relative whilst simultaneously mourning the loss of a leader and political stability? – demonstrates how […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Asia, Nonfiction • Tags: Rafia Zakaria