Saturday, February 27, 2021

Lower tolerance for racial slurs in books and movies

 I just realized that it has been months since I've shared a review or an opinion.  We're getting ready to move homes and I've been sorting through my books. There are so many that I collected but hadn't finished, many of which I'd been drawn to because of the author or the blurb.  

As I winnow down my collection, I've decided that even if I enjoy the writing or the book, I'm not keeping the book if the author chose to include a racial slur or belittling description of an "Oriental" or Asian character.  This helps me reduce the number of books in our new home. It took me a while to decide to do this but I figure that there is only so much space in a NYC home and there are so many other books and authors that can take up space in my head.


Here are a few of the books that I'm leaving on the curb:

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue - Chapter 1, p33 "Hoodlums roaming the countryside, or them slit-eyed gurriers from Chinatown for all we know, and I amn'y supposed to turn a hair"  


Here are some books and authors that I'd love to share with you. I'll continue to update this list.

Vivien Chien - A Noodle Shop mystery series - the newest is  Fatal Fried Rice.  

Blurb: Lana Lee returns for another delectable cozy set in a Chinese restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio in Vivien Chien's Fatal Fried Rice


Lana Lee runs her family’s Chinese restaurant in Cleveland’s Asia Village like nobody’s business. When it comes to actual cooking, however, she’s known to be about a step up from boiling rice. So Lana decides to go to culinary school on the sly—and prove that she has what it takes in the kitchen after all. But when course instructor Margo Chan turns up dead after class, Lana suddenly finds herself on the case, frying pan in hand.

Since she was the one who discovered the body, Lana must do double duty in finding the killer and clearing her name. Now, with or without the help of her boyfriend Detective Adam Trudeau, Lana launches her own investigation into Margo’s life and mysterious death. Doing so leads her on a wild goose chase to and from the culinary school—and all the way back to the Ho-Lee noodle shop, where the guilty party may be closer than Lana thinks.

Ovidia Yu - her Auntie Lee series is set in Singapore and is a true delight!

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin by Harald Gilbers

 
Germania by Harald Gilbers










Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin by Harald Gilbers
ISBN-10 : 1250246938 - Hardcover $28.99  
Publisher : Thomas Dunne Books (December 1, 2020).
Review copy courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley.

The blurb:  Berlin 1944: a serial killer stalks the bombed-out capital of the Reich, preying on women and laying their mutilated bodies in front of war memorials. All of the victims are linked to the Nazi party. But according to one eyewitness account, the perpetrator is not an opponent of Hitler's regime, but rather a loyal Nazi.
Jewish detective Richard Oppenheimer, once a successful investigator for the Berlin police, is reactivated by the Gestapo and forced onto the case. Oppenheimer is not just concerned with catching the killer and helping others survive, but also his own survival. Worst of all, solving this case is what will certainly put him in the most jeopardy. With no other choice but to further his investigation, he feverishly searches for answers, and a way out of this dangerous game.

My review: Germania by Harald Gilbers is a gripping detective novel set during the 1940s in Nazi Germany.  When the novel takes place, Richard Oppenheimer lives in a designated "Jewish House" and is surviving on bare scraps.  His wife is a German but is excluded from her community and penalized because she married Jewish Oppenheimer.  As for Oppenheimer, he had won the Iron Cross during World War I and had been a highly respected homicide detective but has been forced out of his job.  

Oppenheimer wakes up in the middle of the night to find SS officer Volger in his bedroom. Volger takes Oppenheimer to a crime scene and requires Volger to assist in the homicide investigation.

Oppenheimer's situation and the dangers that he faces as a Jew in Nazi Germany are made apparent during the investigation.  Even as Oppenheimer is granted privileges in order that he can investigate unimpeded, he is aware of precarious position.  I was drawn into the story almost immediately.  Gilbers created a sympathetic character who faces terrifying odds and repeatedly proves his character and skill.   Germania is a detective mystery with an unusual premise told by a talented storyteller.  I'm looking forward to reading Harald Gilbers' next novel!

About the Author:  Harald Gilbers studied English and history in Augsburg and Munich. He is the recipient of the Glauser Prize for the best crime debut and the French Prix Historia for Odins Söhne (Odin’s Sons) for his first novel, Germania.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Big Kibble: The Hidden Dangers of the Pet Food Industry and How to Do Better by Our Dogs by Shawn Buckley & Dr. Oscar Chavez

 49127364


Big Kibble: The Hidden Dangers of the Pet Food Industry and How to Do Better 
by Our Dogs by Shawn Buckley & Dr. Oscar Chavez
ISBN-10 : 1250260051- Hardcover $27.99
Publisher : St. Martin's Press (December 1, 2020), 320 pages.
Review copy courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley.

The blurb:  What's really going into commercial dog food? The answer is horrifying.

Big Kibble is big business: $75 billion globally. A handful of multi-national corporations dominate the industry and together own as many as 80% of all brands. This comes as a surprise to most people, but what’s even more shocking is how lax the regulations and guidelines are around these products. The guidelines—or lack thereof—for pet food allow producers to include ever-cheaper ingredients, and create ever-larger earnings. For example, “legal” ingredients in kibble include poultry feces, saw dust, expired food, and diseased meat, among other horrors. Many vets still don’t know that kibble is not the best food for dogs because Big Kibble funds the nutrition research. So far, these corporations have been able to cut corners and still market and promote feed-grade food as if it were healthful and beneficial—until now.

Just as you are what you eat, so is your dog. Once you stop feeding your dog the junk that’s in kibble or cans, you have taken the first steps to improving your dog’s health, behavior and happiness.

You know the unsavory side of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. Now Shawn Buckley and Dr. Oscar Chavez (founder and owners of Just Food for Dogs) and Wendy Paris explain all you need to know about unsavory Big Kibble--and offer a brighter path forward for you and your pet.

Review:  If you have a pet or plan to have a pet, I recommend reading Big Kibble.  The authors are not unbiased - they have created their own dog food company that uses whole foods fit for human consumption.  However, their interests in drawing attention to the problems in the dog food by Big Kibble are aligned with the interests of regular dog owners. They  raise important points and draw our attention to facts that are easy to gloss over.

There are currently a small group large food and agricultural companies that produce most of the dog food. Feed is not subject to the same level of regulation or supervision as human food and the ingredients and processing of dog food as described in Big Kibble is horrifying.  Reading it reminded me of reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle about the early days of canned meat production.  

Big Kibble also contains recipes for dog food so as you try to figure out what to feed your pet, you're able to make healthier food from home.  

About the Author:  Entrepreneur and founder SHAWN BUCKLEY and veterinarian and professor in clinical pet nutrition DR. OSCAR CHAVEZ are the owners of Just Food for Dogs, a pioneer and disrupter in the dog food industry, and the leading brand of dog food made with USDA approved whole foods, fit for human consumption.

Sunday, November 1, 2020

The Mermaid from Jeju by Sumi Hahn

ISBN-13 : 978-1643854403 - Hardcover $26.99
Publisher : Alcove Press (December 8, 2020).
Review copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley.

About the book: In the aftermath of World War II, Goh Junja is a girl just coming into her own. She is the latest successful deep sea diver in a family of strong haenyeo. Confident she is a woman now, Junja urges her mother to allow her to make the Goh family's annual trip to Mt. Halla, where they trade abalone and other sea delicacies for pork. Junja, a sea village girl, has never been to the mountains, where it smells like mushrooms and earth. While there, she falls in love with a mountain boy Yang Suwol, who rescues her after a particularly harrowing journey. But when Junja returns one day later, it is just in time to see her mother take her last breath, beaten by the waves during a dive she was taking in Junja's place.

Spiraling in grief, Junja sees her younger siblings sent to live with their estranged father. Everywhere she turns, Junja is haunted by the loss of her mother, from the meticulously tended herb garden that has now begun to sprout weeds, to the field where their bed sheets are beaten. She has only her grandmother and herself. But the world moves on without Junja.

The political climate is perilous. Still reeling from Japan's forced withdrawal from the peninsula, Korea is forced to accommodate the rapid establishment of US troops. Junja's canny grandmother, who lived through the Japanese invasion that led to Korea's occupation understands the signs of danger all too well. When Suwol is arrested for working with and harboring communists, and the perils of post-WWII overtake her homelands, Junja must learn to navigate a tumultuous world unlike anything she's ever known.

My review: Sumi Hahn's The Mermaid from Jeju captivated me from the start. I didn't know much about the Japanese invasion of Korea or the Korean war before reading this book. In The Mermaid of Jeju, we learn the story of Junja Goh at the end of her life in America. Her husband and two daughters are mourning her, preparing her funeral. Her husband has started to dream of ghosts and as he tries to calm his life, he decides to return to South Korea and Jeju Island.

The novel switches from the present to the past and we learn Junja's story as a young girl. She is the eldest daughter and a powerful swimmer, one of the famous divers of Jeju Island. She learned this skill from her grandmother and mother - women equally famous and well respected for their strength and skill. Junja has been sent on an errand to deliver live abalone to a family in the mountains. The trip is long, difficult and exhausting and Junja travels on foot with the burden on her back. She meets Suwol, the firstborn son of the house, during this trip and he becomes an important part of her story.

We learn of the violence and cruelty of the different occupiers of Jeju Island - from the Japanese to the Americans and the Mainlanders. As we learn of the difficulties that Junja and her family have gone through, we get a sense of the difficulties the South Korean people had to endure. The Mermaid from Jeju is told with humor, sympathy and beautiful prose.

#MermaidfromJeju #NetGalley

About the Author:  Sumi Hahn was born in Korea and immigrated to the United States when she was a year old. A former English teacher, she got her Bachelor's in English literature from Harvard University and her Master's from UC Berkeley. She was a columnist for the Times Picayune in New Orleans and has written on food and music for various publications in Seattle. Sumi and her family now live in New Zealand but divide their time between Korea and New Zealand. The Mermaid from Jeju is her first novel.

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

In Her Tracks (#8 of 8 Tracy Crosswhite series) by Robert Dugoni


In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite, #8)

In Her Tracks by Robert Dugoni

ISBN-10 : 1542008379 Paperback $15
Publisher : Thomas & Mercer (April 27, 2021), 384 pages. 
Review copy courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley


The blurb:  What family secrets are behind two disappearances? Seattle detective Tracy Crosswhite is determined to uncover the truth in the latest installment of New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s heart-stopping series.
Returning from an extended leave in her hometown of Cedar Grove, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself reassigned to the Seattle PD’s cold case unit. As the protective mother of an infant daughter, Tracy is immediately drawn to her first file: the abduction of a five-year-old girl whose parents, embattled in a poisonous divorce, were once prime suspects.
While reconstructing the days leading up to the girl’s disappearance, Tracy is brought into an active investigation with former partner Kinsington Rowe. A young woman has vanished on an isolated jogging trail in North Seattle. Divided between two critical cases, Tracy has little to go on except the treacherous deceptions behind a broken marriage—and now, the secrets hiding behind the closed doors of a deceptively quiet middle-class neighborhood.
To find two missing persons, Tracy will have to follow more than clues, which are both long cold and unsettlingly fresh. Given her own traumatic past, Tracy must also follow her instincts—to whatever dark and dangerous places they may lead.

My review:  I am a huge fan of the Tracy Crosswhite series by Robert Dugoni. As In Her Tracks makes clear,  Detective Tracy Crosswhite worked hard for every promotion and award. No one smoothed her way but she's proven herself many times over and won the respect of her colleagues. She's not free from the intrigue and politics that permeates the workplace. Certainly, her police chief takes great pleasure in making her life difficult.  This latest time is particularly bad. Tracy  returns from a leave of absence to find another woman has been given her slot in Serious Crimes and been assigned to her partner.  Tracy can take a lateral move to Cold Cases where she would work alone and be subject to greater emotional distress or she can retire.  And she's given the day to decide. 
Cold Cases had been managed by one officer and he cared deeply about the victims. He appeals to Tracy's empathy with the victims and their families.  Though Tracy expects that Cold Cases will be difficult emotionally, she takes it on. 
Soon, her old partner asks for her help with an active case -- a young woman has been abducted and might still be alive.  Tracy investigates but under the cover of her cold cases.  As she zeroes in on a suspicious family, she searches for dark secrets and another young woman who went missing.  
Dugoni delivers another suspenseful and satisfying mystery in In Her Tracks. We are drawn into Tracy's struggle but even the antagonists are human.  In Her Tracks gives us a well developed, character driven mystery.  I read straight through the night and am looking forward to finding out what is next in Tracy Crosswhite's life. 
About the Author:  Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York TimesWall Street Journal, and Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series, which has sold more than six million books worldwide; the David Sloane series; the Charles Jenkins series; the stand-alone novels The 7th CanonDamage Control, and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, for which he won an AudioFile Earphones Award for narration; and the nonfiction exposé The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post best book of the year. He is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Book Award for fiction and has twice won the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award for best novel. He is a two-time finalist for the International Thriller Awards and a finalist for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Silver Falchion Award for mystery, and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. His books are sold in more than twenty-five countries and have been translated into more than two dozen languages. Visit his website at www.robertdugonibooks.com.

Prodigal Son (An Orphan X Novel #6 of 6) by Gregg Hurwitz

ISBN-10 : 1250252288  Hardcover $ 27.99
Publisher : Minotaur Books; 1st Edition (January 26, 2021), 432 pages.
Review copy courtesy of Minotaur Books and NetGalley. 

The blurb:  As a boy, Evan Smoak was pulled out of a foster home and trained in an off-the-books operation known as the Orphan Program. He was a government assassin, perhaps the best, known to a few insiders as Orphan X. He eventually broke with the Program and adopted a new nameThe Nowhere Man—and a new mission, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. But the highest power in the country has made him a tempting offer—in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. Now Evan has to do the one thing he’s least equipped to do—live a normal life.
But then he gets a call for help from the one person he never expected. A woman claiming to have given him up for adoption, a woman he never knew—his mother. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran—a man whose life has gone off the rails, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother & sister assassination team are after him and with no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he’s fought for is on the line—including his own life.

My Review:  Even though I've read every Orphan X novel over the past few years,  it took reading Prodigal Son to remind me just how much I missed the character Evan Smoak.  I'm a bit of thriller/mystery fiend and these Orphan X novels are a bit like stepping into a righteous James Bond scenario.  Except in Prodigal Son you peek into just how awful things were for young Evan as an orphan growing up in the system.  When this is juxtaposed against his incredible physical and mental skills and his sense of justice, it is hard to stop reading. 

In this last installment, Evan has won a pardon which can be revoked if he undertakes to save another person as Nowhere man.  Evan has started to live a normal life - meeting people, relaxing, appreciating his gorgeous condo, etc. Just as he was starting to relax he gets a call for help from someone claiming to be his birth mother. She asks him to step back out as Nowhere Man and to save someone in a dire situation.  The victim has had all sorts of bad luck but has been trying to do right by his young daughter.  Incurred all sorts of debt but is up to date on his child support, etc. As Evan weighs the consequences of helping versus walking away, we can't help but be so upset at the unfairness of life and drawn into the story.

I should have been working on my taxes, tidying up our home, getting ready for our move, etc. but all I wanted to do was read Prodigal Son.  So, if you're looking for a satisfying escape - grab this book. If you have tons of things you need to get done ASAP, you'll be hard pressed to put this book down.

About the Author:  GREGG HURWITZ is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the #1 international bestseller Orphan X, the first in a series of thrillers featuring Evan Smoak. He has also written young adult novels: The Rains and its sequel, The Last Chance. Hurwitz's books have been shortlisted for numerous literary awards, graced top ten lists, and have been translated into twenty-eight languages.

Hurwitz is also a New York Times bestselling comic book writer, having penned stories for Marvel (WolverineThe Punisher) and DC (Batman). Additionally, he has written screenplays for many major studios and written, developed, and produced television for various networks.

Hurwitz resides in Los Angeles with two Rhodesian ridgebacks.


Saturday, October 3, 2020

The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park

ISBN-10 : 1728209390 - Paperback $10.99
Publisher : Sourcebooks Fire (April 7, 2020), 320 pages.
Review copy courtesy of Sourcebooks and NetGalley.

The blurb:  Nate Jae-Woo Kim wants to be rich. When one of his classmates offers Nate a ridiculous amount of money to commit grade fraud, he knows that taking the windfall would help support his prideful Korean family, but is compromising his integrity worth it?

Luck comes in the form of Kate Anderson, Nate's colleague at the zombie-themed escape room where he works. She approaches Nate with a plan: a local tech company is hosting a weekend-long survivalist competition with a huge cash prize. It could solve all of Nate's problems, and she needs the money too.

If the two of them team up, Nate has a real shot of winning the grand prize. But the real challenge? Making through the weekend with his heart intact…


My Review: If I could give Suzanne Park's debut novel  The Perfect Escape 10 stars instead of 5, I would! When I think of debut novel, I am excited but am willing to overlook holes in the plot or flatness in the characters.  The Perfect Escape doesn't feel like a debut novel because the characters of Nate Kim and Kate Anderson are so well crafted!  They come alive so clearly and their humor, foibles, generosity and kindness shine through.  

There are villains a plenty among the private school classmates that Nate deals with.  But Nate's closeness to his family and his relationship with his 5-year old sister are so real.  Suzanne Park captures the sacrifices that Nate's parents make and their frugality is treated with sympathy and humor.  Even a non-Korean American understands the relationship, the expectations, the difficulty and the pride that Nate must have in his parents' persistence in the face of poverty and no safety net.  

If  you are looking for a funny, heartwarming boy-meets-girl story, you'll be glad to find that The Perfect Escape also contains bullies, zombies, overstretched parents, helicopter parents, entrepreneurial zeal and a double dose of humor. 

#WeNeedDiverseBooks #SuzannePark #AsianAmericanLiterature #KoreanAmericanWriters #NetGalley

About the Author:  Suzanne Park is a Korean-American writer who was born and raised in Tennessee.   In her former life as a comedienne, she appeared on BET, was the winner of the Seattle Sierra Mist Comedy Competition, and placed as a semi-finalist in NBC's "Stand Up For Diversity" showcase in San Francisco.  

She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, female offspring, and a sneaky rat that creeps around on her back patio. In her spare time, she procrastinates.