It’s so important to me that I diversify my reading life and I make a concentrated effort to read books from diverse authors. Here’s a collection of favorite books written by AANHPI authors that I’m sure you’ll love.
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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Oh, this book. This book, this book, this book. I love reading books about books. And I especially love reading books about books with a deeper storyline, too. This book gave me both. In it, we meet A.J Fikry, a bookseller struggling with depression after his wife was tragically killed in an accident. Barely getting by, an unexpected package arrives at the bookstore and changes his life forever. Throughout the story, we see A.J. open his heart in more ways than one, move through his grief and reinvent the bookstore as a local community hub. Told in alternating chapters, the book includes short memos of the books that have touched A.J in some way, passing his bookish insight to someone very important…including every reader. I loved this book.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Admittedly, it took me a few pages to really get into this book and the world of gaming it invites you into. But once I became connected to the characters, which Zevin’s writing makes it incredibly easy to do, I could not put it down. In it, we meet Sadie, Sam and Marx: three friends that form a gaming company and ultimately, a life together. There are twists and turns, love and loss, pain and success and everything in between. Their tangled lives will inevitably become tangled in your own. And while this was set in the gaming world, I couldn’t help but bring the same spirit of possibility so prominent in the book to my own life and what I might create next. This is a must read.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
I think the best way to describe this book is to describe it as a journey. Zauner so beautifully describes her complicated relationship with her mother as she returns home to care for her in her final days of battling cancer. What I appreciated most was her raw honesty: the good, the bad and yes, the ugly. So often, memoirs and memories focus on the good we want to remember, as they should, but reading about Zauner’s struggles with her family, her cultural identity and even herself was refreshing and relatable. And since Zauner is creative, musical and well-traveled, all things that I am not, I felt like I was getting a glimpse into another way of living, but still felt so connected to the honest emotions she was portraying. This was a beautiful read.
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahari was a lovely little book. Small in size, it was big in information. Lahiri takes us through the magical complication of book covers: the good, the bad and the confusing. I’ve been fascinated by book covers and book jackets for a while and this little book was filled with bookish fun. Why book covers? Why not? How are they chosen? How are they rejected? How have they changed? And why do they matter so much to the reading AND writing experience? This book was great fun.
Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan
After thirty-six years of a dutiful but unhappy arranged marriage, recently divorced Suresh and Lata Raman find themselves starting new paths in life. Over the course of three weeks in August, the whole family will uncover one another’s secrets, confront the limits of love and loyalty, and explore life’s second chances.
Charming, funny, and moving, Late Bloomers introduces a delightful new voice in fiction with the story of four individuals trying to understand how to be happy in their own lives–and as a family.
Oh My Mother!: A Memoir in Nine Adventures by Connie Wang
In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the “oh my god” moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it–as well as against each other.
The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali
In Tehran, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts—a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on—to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England—until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.
So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.
