Thursday, May 26, 2022

Lit: Uniquely Portable Magic

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I'm coming to you (albeit late), with some reading recommendations for you about the Asian, Pacific Islander and Asian Pacific American experience. 

First up is a list from Oprahdaily.com of 10 Must Read Books for AAPI Heritage Month. A little embarrassed to admit that not only have I never read any of these, but I also haven't even heard of most of them. 

I didn't fare much better with this list from the New York Public Library, or this list from the Los Angeles Public Library, or this list from NPR. I did slightly better with this list from Lithub, having read four of the books. 

Over the past few years, I've been trying to make a conscious effort to read more diversely; I've read books about Native Americans, books set in the Middle East and Africa, read a lot about the African American experience. I thought I was doing a similarly decent job at reading Asian works but I began to worry that I haven't read very many. So I came here to look over the books I've actually read and I felt a little better. 

I've read four of Jamie Ford's books, one set in Burma, three set in Vietnam, two set in Korea, three in Japan, and eight in China. Not as many as I maybe should have but that's only the Pacific side of Asia. I've read quite a lot more set in or about the immigrants of the western Asian countries. Still...

To make sure I'm including Asian work in my diverse reading, I've begun going through my books (physical and electronic) to see what I already own. As it turns out, I have a few and my plan is to begin to work them into my regular reading. It shouldn't be too tough - there are humorous books, graphic novels, fiction, essays - something for every mood. First up, I think, will be rachel Khong's Goodbye, Vitamin

How about you? Have you read many of these? 


1 comment:

  1. I hope to read more of Jamie Ford and I'm reading several rom coms written by diverse Asian authors. Loving it.

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