The Conversation
- Scapegoating our own (13)
- King: ^Yeah, but so did Obama 4 years ago. It’s inconsistent to think that Obama can have an arch of decision...
- Frank Chow: @King He definitely said he opposed “same-sex marriage”, that didn’t change....
- King: @ Frank But Manny didn’t even say what he’s been accused of.
- Facebook co-founder renounces U.S. citizenship prior to IPO (13)
- Raguel: This is a storm in a tea cup, a new five minutes of hate. This is because despite the outrage, people will...
- Frank Chow: “The country is not over-taxed; in fact, tax rates are near 60 year lows.” -source,...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Mark Cuban is rich (richer than me anyway), and he’s just as horrified as I am. I don’t...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (428)
- LadyBlack: Hello, you who believe that some races are inferior and that some are superior. As a Black (in particular...
- bigWOWO: Thanks, Grover!
- Grover Porquel: Excellent roundup. I have taken on these “biodiversity” types myself over the years and...
- Higher education: the next subprime bubble (5)
- bigWOWO: Let’s think hypothetically. Let’s say they had quotas, such as a company of X number of...
- kobukson: In the past, a high school diploma was sufficient for getting a job. Things changed and a HS diploma...
- bigWOWO: I do agree with you, Ei, to a certain point. I have heard that some lawyers and engineers are having...
- Americans Eat the World’s Cheapest Food (36)
- bigWOWO: A week in, and: I liked the mock chicken, but the family didn’t like it. I don’t know if...
- King: ^ But isn’t Anthony Bourdain the same guy who recently called Paula Deen the “Worst Unhealthy Cook” for...
- kobukson: I like Anthony Bourdain’s take on vegetarians and vegans: “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like...
- Why Do Asian People Have Bad Eyesight? (37)
- Suing the Bachelor for racial discrimination (34)
- George: The problem with the entertainment industry is that they have already stated that blacks are not on the show...
- George: “Oh and prediction, you know the first female non white bachelorette will be Asian, and it will be...
- Chen: i’ve been reading about BFOQ cases, and it seems as if the entertainment industry wins unless they do...
- Reasons to eliminate black studies (23)
- Asian Men, Black Men, and the Competition for White Women (569)
- Raguel: Actually, white people may laugh at him even more, and that may be why they like him so much.
- Raguel: How does this nihilistic dog so filled with ressentiment and love of the slave morality even dare to mention...
- ChineseMom: (continued) Criticism of contemporary Chinese literature and Marxism Q: After the publication of your...
- Immigration records of Asian immigrants to be made available to public (2)
- American woman becomes hero to abused women in China (39)
- Chen: thats it. This woman got beat up, and that is wrong. I’m sure some assholes are going to use that and run...
- Eurasian Sensation: Patriarchal practices are incredibly ingrained in some countries and are extremely hard to shift....
- Raguel: Wasn’t it reported in one of the major american magazines like life, time etc that travelling ulamas...
- San Diego student left alone in cell for five days (3)
- bigWOWO: Haha…I know, Zach! This is the absolute worse kind of invisibility that there is!
- Zach Katagiri: Man — talk about asian american males being invisible!!
- Linda: this will be the next episode of “I survived….” I am surprised they don’t have video...
- Adventures of the Karaoke King by Harold Taw (Review and Question) (4)
- bigWOWO: Alpha, Glad that you see the precious metals rather than the ranking! Although I guess I should consider...
- Raguel: Why not make contact with other blogs and Asian American websites to feature your reviews? This way,...
- Alpha Asian: B, I know what you mean. A lot of reviewers just give very bland reviews and they don’t really...
- Asian women fetch high prices for egg donation (5)
- Dman: I don’t get the article Asian women in demand for donating her eggs. I did not see anything mentioned...
- bigWOWO: I think that buying an egg is financially easier these days than adoption from China. I know people trying...
- Linda: Also regarding about adoption. I think a lot of Americanized Asians are open to adoption in the US. (unlike...
- Re-Programming Your Mind (74)
- Chr..: I’m not making this up! I saw this guy in front of a Trader Joe’s here in NYC not too long ago as...
- Asian Women and the Invisible Chain (187)
- Chr..: @ King Yes, and what can the general masses do to stop with what’s going on right now? Not much I would...
- King: @ Chr Because the money, more than anything else, is ‘the system’ that affects everything else.
- Chr..: “The whole thing looks like a very twisted version of musical chairs, doesn’t it?” Why does this...
- Creative Monopolists (3)
- Asian husband-wife team on Shark Tank (3)
- Artists Who Refuse to Work for Free (5)
- Courtney: I have been drawing for 22 years. I think it’s really inconsiderate to ask an artist to sit down for...
- More Asian Americans Marrying Within Their Race (106)
- Chr..: “Look at some of the fatcats on Wall Street–a guy who can drop $800 on a single night out isn’t...
- The Richer Sex by Liza Mundy (Review) (12)
- Chr..: “dystopian mating marketplace where, like income inequality, the rewards of female sexuality will go...
- Whiteness and American TV (9)
- Linda: @hadoken – I don’t know why korean dramas are like crack. I go thru phases. since it’s a...
- Scapegoating our own (13)
Category Archives: books
Strangers by Taichi Yamada (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Literary Fiction Gold
I saw this book at the library and picked it up on a whim. If you’re looking for a suspenseful literary story with metaphysical themes of family and love, check out Strangers by Taichi Yamada. The story is about Harada, a middle-aged, working TV screenwriter in Japan who is coming off of a bitter divorce. He descends into loneliness but finds two outlets that seem to be helping him escape–a beautiful younger woman who lives upstairs in his apartment building, and a man from his hometown who bears a striking resemblance to his dead father.
Chinhominey’s Secret by Nancy Kim (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Popular Fiction Silver
I needed an Asian American literature fix, and so I saw this one at the library: Chinhominey’s Secret by Nancy Kim It was written in 1999, before the big AA internet explosion. It was a story about the Choi family, a man and a woman who immigrated from Korea with one daughter and gave birth to another in the States. The story focuses on Chinhominey, the man’s mother, who comes from Korea to the United States to visit the family because she wants to make peace with the youngest daughter, whom a fortune teller once told her was cursed. The first daughter is a beautiful young 24 year old teacher who is in an abusive relationship with a White dude, while the younger daughter is a chunky and rebellious college student who has a crush on a White dude. The mother is dissatisfied with her marriage, and the father contemplates having an affair with one of his office workers. The story is about how Chinhominey brings the family together and chooses life over superstition.
Ghostwriters and Celebrity Novelists
Snooki’s a bestselling novelist, and the Kardashian sisters are releasing their novels soon. Michael Bloomberg’s daughter also just wrote a novel, based on her life and his. But one of the not-so-secret secrets in the industry is that celebrity novelists almost always have ghostwriters. It’s a good payoff for everyone–the celebrity extends her own footprint in the public dialogue, and the book publishers make lots of money. Everyone wins–except for maybe the ghostwriter. But hey, the ghostwriter can always say, “I wrote that…and nobody knows it but me.”
Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life by Annette Lareau (Review)
Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life by Annette Lareau is one of those must-read books that describes society while focusing on only one aspect of society: parenting among different social classes. Lareau’s book focuses on parenting and how social class affects parenting philosophies and parenting styles. I got the recommendation from commenter Cassie J.
Non-White Heroes in the Commercial Literary Marketplace
Thanks, NH, for sending this link: Non-White Heroes; the Kiss of Death in the Marketplace. In the article, Tess Gerristen, who is perhaps the most widely read Asian American fiction writer in the country today, writes about her experiences with racism in life and in publishing. She tells why she has never had an Asian American main character :
So why have I never written one? My three-word answer: fear of failure.
Posted in Asian American, books, media
Tagged Asian American literature, Tess Gerritsen
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The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Literary Fiction GOLD
I need to begin by apologizing the Christos Tsiolkas, the Australian author of The Slap. Although I didn’t mention him or his book by name, a few posts ago I described his book as a great book but one not written in literary style, even though it was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. I made that evaluation while being less than halfway through the book, and my reason for making that evaluation was that the language was straight-forward, there were lots of pop culture references, and I couldn’t yet see any deeper meaning. I said that I loved his book, and compared it to Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, another book that I love. Let that be a lesson–never judge a book by its first 200 pages (and I say this even though I LOVED the first 200 pages).
Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy
A week ago, I picked up a novel from the library that had been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. I picked the book because of the plot–it sounded like a novel that dealt with modern themes of suburban modern living, and because I’m a modern person who lives in a suburb, I thought it might appeal to me.
Posted in books, Education, Knowledge
Tagged genre fiction, Jodi Picoult, literary fiction, realistic fiction
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Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida (Review)
I just got around to reading Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida, a book that I bought five years ago.
The book infuriated the hell out of me. Florida makes lots of fuzzy definitions, says a lot of really strange things about race and diversity, totally misconstrued (in my opinion) the points that Robert Putnam was trying to make in Bowling Alone, and surprised me with his views on the so-called service class and working class. However, I can’t deny that Florida is probably correct in the general direction of his predictions about the economic future of this country. I was also highly, highly impressed by the amount of research that went into this book. I not only recommend this book; I think it’s a must-read.
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (Review)
bigWOWO rating: Non-Fiction Gold
On your recommendations, I just finished reading Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. It’s a business/life book written by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, and it focuses on Hsieh’s growth as a businessman and a corporate builder of culture. It’s a fascinating story of how he built Zappos from a company making almost nothing to $1 billion in annual sales within ten years. It’s also about his growth as a businessman, as a person, and as a leader.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Discussion)
[Many thanks to Catwalq for writing this awesome discussion opener! I think she asks the right questions, and hopefully we all have something to learn from the book and from each other. I hope you will all chime in and share your thoughts!]
Junot Diaz’s “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” follows Oscar, a young Dominican whose life revolves around science fiction literature and his unsuccessful attempts at finding love. He lives with his single mother Belicia Cabral— a caustic but strong woman, whose history tells like a fantastic soap opera set in the dictator-ruled years of the Dominican Republic—and older sister, Lola, whose life exploits are so starkly and brightly opposite to her brother’s angst filled one .
