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HUNGER

One of our recommended books is Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang

Explore the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of celebrated author Lan Samantha Chang’s searing debut, “a work of gorgeous, enduring prose” (Helen C. Wan, Washington Post).

A powerful exploration of the Asian American experience, Hunger weaves the forces of war and magic, food and desire, ghosts and family into haunting tales of love and loss. The characters who inhabit this extraordinary collection are caught between the burden of their past and the fragility of their unchartered future. Hunger illuminates the experiences of first-generation immigrants from China, culturally and emotionally uprooted from their homeland,

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Mr Katō Plays Family

One of our recommended books is Mr Katō Plays Family by Milena Michiko Flašar

Milena Michiko Flašar’s Mr Katō Plays Family is an eccentric second-lease-on-life novel for fans of Beautiful World, Where Are You, and Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

Mr Katō—a curmudgeon and recent retiree—finds his only solace during his daily walks, where he wonders how his life went wrong and daydreams about getting a dog (which his wife won’t allow). During one of these walks, he is approached by a young woman. She calls herself Mie and invites him to join her business Happy Family, where employees act as part-time relatives or acquaintances for clients in need,

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FOWL EULOGIES

One of our recommended books is Fowl Eulogies by Lucie Rico

A surreal novel about the all-consuming desire to render homage to a life

Upon her mother’s death, Paule Rojas, a vegetarian city-dweller, returns to the chicken farm where she grew up. Pressured to fulfil her mother’s last request, Paule rediscovers pleasure and meaning in running the old family business. Yet, eager to bring something of herself to a family tradition, Paule embarks on increasingly intricate ways of helping the chickens to self-actualize before their deaths. She records the chickens’ life stories, adding them to the labels that decorate the vacuum-packed meat sent off to market—an individual biography for every chicken.

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A HISTORY OF BURNING

One of our recommended books is A History of Burning by Janika Oza

In 1898, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor for the British on the East African Railway. Far from home, Pirbhai commits a brutal act in the name of survival that will haunt him and his family for years to come.

So begins Janika Oza’s masterful, richly told epic, where the embers of this desperate act are fanned into flame over four generations, four continents, throughout the twentieth century. Pirbhai’s children are born in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule, and as the country moves toward independence,

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IN THE COMPANY OF GRACE

One of our recommended books is In the Company of Grace by Jody Lulich

Rising to accept a prestigious award, Jody Lulich wondered what to say. Explain how he’d been attracted to veterinary medicine? Describe how caring for helpless, voiceless animals in his own shame and pain provided a lifeline, a chance to heal himself as well? Lulich tells his story in In the Company of Grace, a memoir about finding courage in compassion and strength in healing—and power in finally confronting the darkness of his youth.

Lulich’s white father and Black mother met at a civil rights rally, but love was no defense against their personal demons. His mother’s suicide,

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THE EYES AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

One of our recommended book is The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris

The Eyes and the Impossible is the story of a dog named Johannes. Johannes is a free dog, a fast dog—such a fast dog! He lives in an urban park by the sea, and every day, he runs through the park, seeing all, missing nothing, and reporting what he sees to the park’s three ancient Bison, the Keepers of the Equilibrium. But the Equilibrium has been disrupted.

Mysterious rectangles are hypnotizing Johannes, humans are erecting a strange new building, and an entirely new kind of animal has arrived in the park—and there are hundreds of them.

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