Lunar New Year Display
According to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, "Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. It is the most important holiday in China, and it is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam, and countries with a significant overseas Chinese population. While the official dates encompassing the holiday vary by culture, those celebrating consider it the time of the year to reunite with immediate and extended family." In the Chinese zodiac, 2025 is the year of the snake. This year, the 15 day festival began on January 29th, but there is still plenty of time to celebrate with a book written by Asian or Asian American writers and featuring Asian protagonists. Here are just a few options:
Ocean Vuong's debut novel "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" is described as "brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. This is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling."
"Land of Milk and Honey" by C. Pam Zhang is a climate novel at its heart. "A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef's boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate."
If you're looking for an amazing start to a science fiction series, check out "The Poppy War" by R. F. Kuang. Lauded as a "brilliantly imaginative epic fantasy debut, inspired by the bloody history of China's twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic", "The Poppy War" features main character Rin. When Rin aced the Keju - the test to find the most talented students in the Empire - it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn't believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin's guardians, who had hoped to get rich by marrying her off; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free from a life of servitude. That she got into Sinegard - the most elite military school in Nikan - was even more surprising. But surprises aren't always good. Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Fighting the prejudice of rival classmates, Rin discovers that she possesses a lethal, unearthly power - an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of psychoactive substances and a seemingly insane teacher, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive - and that mastering these powers could mean more than just surviving school. For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most people calmly go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away..." Kuang is also the other of the brilliant satire "Yellowface".
If you're looking for a little romance, check out "Lunar Love" by Lauren Kung Jessen. "Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother's matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has taken her Pó Po's traditional Chinese zodiac approach and made it about "animal attraction," her emotions skew more toward furious-slash-outraged. Especially when L.A.'s most-eligible bachelor Bennett O'Brien is behind the app that could destroy her family's legacy... Liv knows better than to fall for any guy, let alone an infuriatingly handsome one who believes that traditions are meant to be broken. As the two businesses go head to head, Bennett and Liv make a deal: they'll find a match for each other-and whoever falls in love loses. But Liv is dealing with someone who's already adept at stealing business ideas... so what's stopping him from stealing her heart, too?"
You'll find these and lots of other murder mysteries in our "Dreaming of the Tropics" display. For additional title suggestions, see the lists below:
