In celebration of Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl’s birthday, today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is 10 bookish wishes.
10 Books on My Wishlist
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.
But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
Why I want to read it: I love what I’ve read from Nghi Vo, and this book sounds magical.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas, translated by Anne Birrell
This major source of Chinese mythology (third century BC to second century AD) contains a treasure trove of rare data and colorful fiction about the mythical figures, rituals, medicine, natural history, and ethnic peoples of the ancient world.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas explores 204 mythical figures such as the gods Foremost, Fond Care, and Yellow, and goddesses Queen Mother of the West and Girl Lovely, as well as many other figures unknown outside this text. This eclectic Classic also contains crucial information on early medicine (with cures for impotence and infertility), omens to avert catastrophe, and rites of sacrifice, and familiar and unidentified plants and animals. It offers a guided tour of the known world in antiquity, moving outwards from the famous mountains of central China to the lands beyond the seas.
Why I want to read it: I want to read more Chinese mythology.
Descendant of the Crane by Joan He
Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, but when her beloved father is murdered, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father’s killer, Hesina does something desperate: she engages the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death… because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago.
Using the information illicitly provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust even her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of her kingdom at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?
Why I want to read it: I loved the author’s sophomore book, The Ones We’re Meant to Find, and I’ve heard great things about her debut novel.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
The Singing Hills Cycles #1
A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.
Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.
Why I want to read it: I love this book and would love a hardcopy to read and reread.
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here too. . . but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the highest aspiration he can imagine for a Chinatown denizen. Or is it?
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him, in today’s America.
Why I want to read it: I’ve heard great things about this book.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience, The Only Good Indians follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
Why I want to read it: This book recently won the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for horror.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?
Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.
Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.
Why I want to read it: I love Louise Erdrich’s work.
Seasonal Velocities by Ryka Aoki
Seasonal Velocities invites the reader on a fragile and furious journey along the highways and skyways of discovery, retribution, and resolve. Through her poetry, essays, stories, and performances, Ryka Aoki has challenged, informed, and shared with queer audiences across the United States.
Why I want to read it: I’ve heard great things about this collection, and I enjoyed what I’ve read out of it.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.
Why I want to read it: I recently watched Asian Americans (PBS), in which the author and this book was featured.
Yellow: Stories by Don Lee
Set in the fictional California coastal town of Rosarita Bay, a collection of stories features such characters as Annie Yun, whose passion for country music has her longing for a cowboy, ex-fisherman Alan Fujitani, stuck in romantic widowerhood, and the competitive “Oriental Hair Poets,” whose handcrafted chairs are museum pieces.
Why I want to read it: I’ve been reading more short stories, and I love that all of the stories in this collection are set in the same fictional town.
If you like my posts and would like to support my blog, please consider buying a book off my bookish wish list. I will be forever grateful, and I will make the book a priority to read and to review.
Let’s Chat
Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts?
What is on your bookish wishlist?
This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Girl.
Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight says
Hope you get some of your wishes! I just bought The Chosen and the Beautiful, for the same reason you want to- Nghi Vo is fabulous! And now I want those novellas in hardcover too hahah. I grabbed Only Good Indians when it was a Kindle daily deal and am about halfway through, it is definitely unsettling!
Crystal says
I checked The Chosen and the Beautiful out from the library and am reading it right now. Nghi Vo’s writing is beautiful 🙂 I’ll need to pick up The Only Good Indians soon!
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create! says
May your wishes be granted!
Here is my post: https://readbakecreate.com/?p=426
Crystal says
Thanks, Pam 🙂
Susan (Bloggin' 'bout Books) says
THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL sounds awesome! It’s on my TBR list as well.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Crystal says
Yes!! Can’t wait to read The Chosen and the Beautiful! 🙂
ShootingStarsMag says
I also want to read Interior Chinatown!
Crystal says
It looks so good! I hope you enjoy it!
Lydia says
The Chosen and the Beautiful sounds so good.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-bookish-wishes/
Crystal says
It does! I loved Empress of Salt and Fortune by the same author, and I’m really looking forward to The Chosen and the Beautiful!