By Collection Management Librarian Dontaná McPherson-Joseph
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and this week we are celebrating by sharing stories written by South Asian authors.
South Asian creators & stories
The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti
Why you should try it: This intricately plotted novel reveals how Partition divided families and how that division reverberates through generations.
Description: When a pregnancy loss uproots her life, Shan begins the search for her estranged grandmother and, piecing together her family history shattered by the Partition of India, discovers how little she actually knows about the women in her family and what they endured.
Stream & download with: Hoopla (ebook, digital audiobook)
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Are You Enjoying? by Mira Sethi
Why you should try it: This is for you if you enjoying reading about strong women characters and books by Roxane Gay and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Description: Provocative, funny, disarmingly original stories that upend traditional notions of identity and family, and peer into the vulnerable workings of the human heart. From the high-stakes worlds of television and politics to the intimate corridors of home—including the bedroom—these wryly observed, deeply revealing stories look at life in Pakistan with humor, compassion, psychological acuity, and emotional immediacy. Every story bears witness to the all-too-universal desire to be loved and what happens when this longing gets pushed to its limits.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed Masood
Why you should try it: Dual narratives shine a light on what it's like to leave your homeland by choice vs. leaving because you have no choice. But with a lighthearted twist.
Description: A homesick Pakistani immigrant, chafing against the strictures of his family’s new devout Muslim life in California, and a young woman, who barely escaped war-torn Baghdad, upend their community in the aftermath of a fateful chance encounter.
Stream & download with: Media on Demand/Libby (ebook, digital audiobook)
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam
Why you should try it: This is a thought-provoking novel of love, longing, and intergenerational self-discovery.
Description: A Bangladesh orphan haunted by her parents' murders moves in with family members in Brooklyn until a fateful coming-of-age summer when her cousin, an Islamic runaway, and she confront painful family secrets.
Stream & download with: Hoopla (digital audiobook), Media on Demand/Libby (ebook)
Find all available formats in the catalog »
The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto
Why you should try it: This is a dramatic look at how young people become susceptible to radicalization.
Description: The lives of a poor girl from Kalrachi's largest slum, a wealthy, priviledged boy from Kalrachi, and a Pakistani boy, who emigrated to London with his family, will cross in the desert, a place where life and death walk hand in hand, and where their closely guarded secrets will force them to make a terrible choice.
Find all available formats in the catalog »
Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu
Why you should try it: Big Indian wedding? Check. Nosy, but divorced parents? Check. Recently single and ready to mingle, but a little bit homesick woman? Check.
Description: Escaping a personal and professional crossroads by attending a cousin’s lavish wedding in Delhi, Tina Das navigates her divorced parents’ dating lives and the reappearance of an ex before drama forces her to make the decisions she has been avoiding.
Stream & download with: Media on Demand/Libby (ebook)
Find all available formats in the catalog »
About Dontaná
Dontaná is a Collection Management Librarian who was born with an unending reading list. She is almost always reading two books simultaneously and is easily distracted by cool covers.
