No sooner did I come upon a book I really need to read (Marinaomi’s Kiss & Tell), the Toronto Public Library workers were one day away from going on strike. Since then, I’ve been building my reading list and if I get through it during long summer days, it will make for a good year. Hearkening back to my Asian American Literature Summer of 2010, I want to do it again. Sure, I’m pigeon-holing myself but reading got done. I constantly stumble upon books that interest me (same goes with movies) from so many sources that I need to centralize my reading list… like here!
Here is my annotated Asian American Literature Reading Wishlist for 2012:
- Marinaomi’s Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22: I have a hunch that the author saw in passing the book title and tagline from another website of mine; therefore, I need to read this novel to investigate
- Ai Mi’s Under the Hawthorn Tree: it was released as a feature film in 2010
- Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For, chosen by Globe and Mail in 2005 as Best Book
- Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, a Japanese dystopian novel?
- Kim Thuy’s Ru, winner of the 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award
- Cami Tang’s Sushi Series starting with Sushi for One?, Christian Asian American literature? and I might have to buy it, it not being at the library
- Grace Lin’s Pacy Lin series starting with Year of the Dog, a YA novel I want to give a try
- Paul Yee’s Money Boy, a bit of a YA novel, set in Vancouver that should explore themes I would never have access to
- Paul Yee’s Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver, I have my theories about Vancouver Chinese community being different just about everyone else and wonder if this book will help me solve it
- Paul Yee’s Chinatown: An illustrated history of the Chinese Communities of Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax, I am totally intrigued this book exists
- Bonnie Tsui’s American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods, the American version about five US Chinatowns
- Erin Khue Ninh’s Ingratitude: the debt-bound daughter in Asian-American Literature, has been on my reading list for a long time but it’s hard to find and I might have to buy it since it is only available at the library in the reference section
- Ying Chen’s Ingratitude keeps showing up in my search for the above volume and I finally read the description (and spoiled myself a little) and I’m a little intrigued now
- Christine Yano’s Airborne Dreams, started this last year and must finish it before proceeding to other (may require a restart, ugh)
- John Jung’s Sweet and Sour, started this last year about Chinese restaurants in America, also need to finish this before starting others
- My Tiger Mom & Me, an anthology of the stories by contest winners and honourable mentions that I considered entering last year; includes the winning story by my bloggie friend, Angela Tung
- Babe Walker White Girl Problems, penned by blogger turned author
- Maggie Helwig’s Girls Fall Down, this year’s One Book (Toronto’s city-wide book club)
Then there are novels that I would never pick up and read, but they are intriguing and/or part of popular culture enough that I could be captivated while listening to them in audio book form. It works out well since I will be spending endless hours on treadmills, ellipticals, Stairmasters, and steppers this spring and summer. While it’s brain junk food for me to tune into the reliable Star Trek: Voyager (only on weeknights), some of the storylines in combination with a lame workout can make me feel like I’ve really wasted my time.
I am listening to these books on audio:
- Stephen King’s UR, interestingly penned for Kindle users and then released as an audiobook; this is a cute and geeky literature fantasy novel that I think is appropriate for my first Stephen King novel
- Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, got this as I was browsing audiobooks; I haven’t read a single Stephen King novel but this is format will make the memoir go down
- Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, definitely not my style of novel but it’s so wildlly popular I’ll get it in this format
- Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek, I would read this book but it’s fun to hear him read his own memoir
- Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, junk food for the brain to get me through a workout
- Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, even junkier food for the brain to get me through a workout