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Vaddey Ratner — In the Shadow of the Banyan (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 17, 2022 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner is about a gentle girl in a brutal country. While the book is fictional, its roots exist in the author’s own life. This enhances the intimacy of the tale. Young Raami is only seven when civil war overwhelms Cambodia. As a...

Wendy Pearlman — We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 19, 2021 | RESIST: Politics

Wendy Pearlman gathers an oral history in We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria. This focuses on the time period around Arab Spring when in 2011 the Syrian people rose up and protested. As a result, many individuals and families suffered greatly. And...

Hyeonseo Lee — The Girl with Seven Names (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 12, 2021 | RESIST: Politics

Hyeonseo Lee tells her harrowing story in The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story. Growing up in the Northern region of her country, the Chinese border was quite close. Her mother had connections there, and her father had some family. One day, Lee...

Azedah Moaveni — Lipstick Jihad (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 27, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir, RESIST: Politics

Azedah Moaveni writes part memoir and part political discussion in her 2005 book, Lipstick Jihad: Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran. Although the events in this book are over 20 years old, as I read it in 2021 the topics and issues felt relevant....

Tan Twan Eng — The Garden of Evening Mists (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 14, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Early in The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng writes, “I felt I was about to enter a place that existed only in the overlapping of air and water, light and time.” This is an accurate description of a book that layers topics of Japanese garden design, Buddhist...

Etaf Rum — A Woman is No Man (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 13, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

Etaf Rum writes an affecting debut novel in A Woman is No Man. This broke my heart like someone was sitting on my chest in every chapter. The oppressive cultural aspects of this Palestinian-American family make even the most conservative households seem progressive....

Mariam Petrosyan — The Gray House (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 27, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Mariam Petrosyan is an Armenian-born author living in Russia. The Gray House is her debut novel, and she says her only novel. Although it’s a prize winner in Russia, I found it confusing and often amateurish. My main feeling at the end is, “thank goodness that’s...

Anne Fadiman — The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 11, 2021 | LEARN: Chronic Illness, RESIST: Social Justice

Author Anne Fadiman combines multiple narratives in her fabulous ethnography The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Most importantly, it’s both an immigration and a medical story of one Hmong...

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai — The Mountains Sing (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 20, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is a celebrated Vietnamese poet. With the release of her 2020 book, The Mountains Sing she’s also a novelist. The book is an intimate view of the Tran family and their struggles across decades and generations. Nguyễn uses two story lines to shape...

Amy Stanley — Travel to 1800s Japan in Stranger in the Shogun’s City (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 8, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else

Amy Stanley is a professor and social historian who specializes in early modern Japan. In her 2020 book, Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, Stanley explores the story of a rebellious woman in a strict time. Her subject is Tsuneno, the...

Julie Wu — The Third Son: Coming-of-Age in 1950s Taiwan (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 1, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

As a first-time author, Julie Wu draws on family history in her historical fiction novel, The Third Son. Set initially in 1940s Japanese-occupied Taiwan, it follows the life of Saburo. He’s not a favored son. In fact, his mother only occasionally deigns to give him...

The Glass Palace — Historical Fiction from Amitav Ghosh (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 28, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Amitav Ghosh creates a compelling multi-generational narrative in his historical fiction, The Glass Palace. As the book opens, Rajkumar is an 11-year-old boy from India stranded in Mandalay, Burma (now Myanmar). He finds himself in King Thibaw’s Glass Palace in 1885...

Alka Joshi — The Henna Artist: A Businesswoman in 1950s Jaipur, India (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 17, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Alka Joshi is a debut novelist who used her mother’s life and her imagination to create The Henna Artist. It’s a very strong story that entranced me from moment one. In a nutshell, our heroine is Lakshmi and the time is 1950s India. Women still aren’t treated like...

Elizabeth M. Norman — We Band of Angels (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 12, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else

Elizabeth Norman delivers everything I want from narrative nonfiction in her 2000 book We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese. It’s engaging and obviously well-researched, including many interviews with the women...

Ukmina Manoori — I am a Bacha Posh (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 3, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir

Afghani author and warrior Ukmina Manoori tells their unique story in I am a Bacha Posh: My Life as a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan. When they were a child, Manoori’s parents decided they needed another son. But whether due to genetics or medical situations,...

Ayşe Kulin — Last Train to Istanbul: Dramatic WWII Story (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 22, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Well-loved Turkish author Ayşe Kulin illustrates another angle on the early years of World War II in her 2002 book Last Train to Istanbul. (Translated to English in 2013.) The story is set partly in Turkey and partly in the Nazi-occupied French cities of Paris and...
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