Tell me of books!

[sholio]

After writing my last (f'locked) post and then feeling kind of useless and whingey and basically like I was just derailing things onto my own whining, I thought: For pete's sake, I could do something useful instead.

So! What have you read lately by PoC creators that was cool or fun or interesting or otherwise worthy of a rec? Books? Comics? Manga? (I'm sure some of you can chime in on that one. :D)

I am currently reading a book called Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang, about the exodus from village to factory towns in China, and the young women who make up the bulk of the work force. There is a more personal tone to this book than you tend to get with a lot of news-reporting-type nonfiction; the author, who is an American of Chinese descent, is also exploring her own history and telling her own story as much as that of the girls that she is interviewing.

(And, damn it, I *will* finish that Kindred write-up when I get a chance!)

What have you read lately? What do you recommend? coffeeandink asked for people to leave recommendations for books by PoC authors here in the comments to her post explaining the fail -- I'm not trying to trump her, and I do recommend looking through her comments for cool stuff to read, also. Things that you recommend here, you can also recommend there if you are comfortable doing so. Or vice versa.

Basically I just want to talk about books rather than fail for a while, damn it.

Edits: livrelibre has lotsa linkies here and rydra_wong reminded me of 50books_poc, which is an awesome resource for book reviews and recs.

Comments

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I'll read pretty much anything, actually! And that does sound interesting (although, blech, it's too bad that people couldn't discuss it reasonably; that must have been uncomfortable).

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

That was the worst part; they were trying to discuss it reasonably, but they kept on getting caught up on how "Not all Americans are like that!" (this part will make sense as soon as you start reading) and how they felt uncomfortable and unable to "connect" to the protag. I kept on trying to explain that they're supposed to be made uncomfortable with it, and that you don't necessarily have to be just like the character to feel like the character and sympathize and follow - this last part especially I feel is connected to the whole white male thing - you get pretty good at connecting with characters you aren't anything like when there aren't any other choices.

Wow, that's been on my chest since last fall. Sorry. It's a good book.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

*blinks* THAT'S what their problem was? I ... just ... dude. Don't get out much, do they?

And I have no idea what the situation in the book was, but I've run into plenty of uncomplimentary outsider depictions of Americans/Westerners in media and books, usually pretty spot-on; what an utterly silly thing to get worked up over.

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

(Boarding school. The bubble's walls are astonishing sometimes.)

And the depiction isn't even uncomplimentary! The whole experience was just so... frustrating! *flail flail flail*

(okay, I'm done. THAT GRUDGE IS GONE. srly.)