May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Hannon Library’s faculty and staff members have curated books and e-books written by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders covering various genres and topics, including titles written specifically about Asian Americans’ and Pacific Islanders’ heritages and experiences.
We’ve highlighted 20 books below, but you can check out our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages for more recommendations all month long.
1. Asianfail: Narratives of Disenchantment and the Model Minority by Eleanor Ty
According to the Journal of Asian American Studies, “Eleanor Ty’s book Asianfail is a valuable and timely contribution to Asian American and Asian Canadian studies, providing a novel way of understanding the new generation of Asian North Americans through their narratives.”
Hannon Library provides access to the e-book version of Asianfail. Check it out here.
2. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Avni Doshi’s debut novel, Burnt Sugar, was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize and has recently been added to the longlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Check out the print version here.
3. Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
According to The Washington Post, Alexandra Chang’s debut novel “brims with the predicaments of our current moment: institutional racism, xenophobia, white privilege, microaggressions, institutional sexism, the tech gender gap, social media activism, neoliberal hypocrisy, coastal myopia and millennial resentment, to name a few.”
Check out the print version here.
4. DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
Don Mee Choi’s DMZ Colony recently won the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry.
Check out the print version here.
5. Experiences of Japanese American Women During and After World War II: Living in Internment Camps and Rebuilding Life Afterwards by Precious Yamaguchi
Published by Lexington Books in 2015 and written by SOU’s very own Dr. Precious Yamaguchi, you can find this title on the second floor of Hannon Library.
Check out the print version here.
6. Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
In 2019, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations was named one of the year’s best books by The New York Times Book Review.
Check out the print version here.
7. How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
How Much of These Hill Is Gold was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It also won the 2020-2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in the Adult Fiction category.
Check out the print version here.
8. How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Find How to Pronounce Knife in the Featured Fiction section of Hannon Library. This novel by Souvankham Thammavongsa was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pen Open Book Award. In addition, it won the 2020 Giller Prize.
Check out the print version here.
9. Inscrutable Belongings: Queer Asian North American Fiction by Stephen Hong Sohn
Inscrutable Belongings won the 2020 Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities and Cultural Studies: Literary Studies.
Hannon Library provides access to the e-book version of Inscrutable Belongings: Queer Asian North American Fiction. Check it out here.
10. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Charles Yu’s second novel, Interior Chinatown, won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. You can find it in Hannon Library’s Featured Fiction section.
Check out the print version here.
11. Interpreter of Maladies: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: Stories won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000. Our web & discovery librarian, Thomas Dodson, said, “This collection of stories contains one of my favorites, ‘A Temporary Matter,’ about a couple falling out of love in the midst of a power outage.”
Check out the print version here.
12. Kanaka ʻōiwi Methodologies: Moʻolelo and Metaphor edited by Katrina-Ann R. Kapāʻanaokalāokeola Nākoa Oliveira and Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright
According to the University of Hawaii Press, Kanaka ‘Ōiwi Methodologies: Mo’olelo and Metaphor examines “Native Hawaiian Critical Race Theory, Hawaiian traditions and protocol in environmental research, using mele(song) for program evaluation, and more.”
Check out the print version here.
13. Leave the World Behind: A Novel by Rumaan Alam
This novel by Rumaan Alam was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020.
Place a hold on the print version here.
14. The Leavers by Lisa Ko
The Leavers was the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction.
Check out the print version here.
15. My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee
According to The New York Times Book Review, Chang-Rae Lee’s novel, My Year Abroad, is “a manifesto to happiness—the one found when you stop running from who you are.”
Check out the print version here.
16. No-No Boy by John Okada
According to The Atlantic, John Okada’s only published novel, No-No Boy, “may be read as a test of character, questioning the rigid binary of loyalty—yes or no—and teaching us that what makes us human and complex, what constitutes character, are all the questions and cares that exist between yes and no: ethical and political choices, our best intentions, our social and cultural being, beliefs, courage, fears, failures, and compassion.”
Hannon Library provides access to both the e-book and print versions of No-No Boy. Access it online here, or check out the print version here.
17. Obit: Poems by Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang’s Obit: Poems was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry.
Hannon Library provides access the e-book version of Obit: Poems. Check it out here.
18. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko was considered by The New York Times to be one of the 10 Best Books of 2017. In addition, this novel by Min Jin Lee was recommended by our campus engagement & research services librarian, Melissa Anderson.
Check out the print version here.
19. The Politics of Privacy in Contemporary Native, Latinx, and Asian American Metafictions by Colleen G. Eils
The Politics of Privacy in Contemporary Native, Latinx, and Asian American Metafictions, was recommended by our collection development librarian, Emily Miller-Francisco.
Check out the print version here.
20. Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel
Where We Once Belonged, the debut novel by Samoan poet and novelist Sia Figiel, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Best First Book Prize for the Southeast Asia/South Pacific region.
Check out the print version here.