Books and Boba

On this episode we discuss our June 2023 book club pick, We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen. A Sci-Fi psychological thriller following Dr. Grace Park, a psychologist who hates people, serving on a spaceship that has been dispatched to the planet Eos for a colonization inspection, but as the members of her crew begin to succumb to a mysterious psychological contagion, Dr. Park has to step out of her comfort zone to figure out the dark secrets of the planet in order to get out alive.

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba July 2023 pick is The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke by Tina Makereti

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

On our mid-month check in for June 2023, we review the latest Asian American book and publishing announcements, while Reera catches Marvin up with the latest tea from Asian book twitter.

Upcoming books mentioned in our publishing news:

• The Night Ends with Fire by K.X. Song
• The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai
• Momo by Ranran Zhou
• If Lin Can by Richard Ho; illust. by Huỳnh Kim Liên and Phùng Nguyên Quan
• Wish I Was a Baller by Amar Shah; illust. Rashad Doucet
• This Is How You Fall in Love by Anika Hussain
• The Lotus Shoes by Jane Yang
• Last Chance Academy series by Debbi Michiko Florence
• My Olive Tree by Hazar Elbayya
• The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan
• A Sky for the Birds by Rina Singh; illust. by Barkha Lohia
• The Beasts Beneath the Winds edited by Hanna Alkaf
• Simone by Viet Thanh Nguyen; illust. Minne Phan
• Threads by Ashley Wong
• Sophia Lee Can Fly by Marie Tang; illust. by Lenny Wen

News stories covered on this episode:

• British Museum Removes Writer’s Translations of Chinese Poetry After Being Accused of Copyright Infringement

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba June 2023 pick is We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

For this author chat, we talk to Uzma Jalaluddin about her latest contemporary romance Much Ado about Nada, a contemporary adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion taking place in a Muslim convention in Toronto. We chat with Uzma about her love of Austen, her background as an English teacher, and more!

Follow Uzma on IG at @uzmajalaluddin and check out her novel, Much Ado about Nada, available now on the Books & Boba bookshop!

*Support the podcast by supporting our new Patreon*

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba June 2023 pick is We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

For this author chat, we sit down with Rita Chang-Eppig about her debut novel Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea, a historical fiction novel painting a portrait of legendary (and real life) Chinese pirate queen Shek Yeung who ruled the South China Seas in the early 19th century. We chat with Rita about her inspirations for the story as well as her own journey as an author.

Follow Rita on IG at @rche_types and check out her novel, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea, availaible now on the Books & Boba bookshop!

*Support the podcast by supporting our new Patreon*

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba June 2023 pick is We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

One of the cool parts of being in podcasting is taking part in a community of like-minded creators, this is especially true for those of us in the Asian American podcasting space. That's why we're always excited to find new shows that explore the Asian American experience through new and interesting lenses.

Ten Thousand Things is a podcast from KUOW Seattle about modern-day artifacts of Asian American life, hosted by award-winning poet and museologist Shin Yu Pai. We're excited to share their episode "Book" with Chinese American author and scholar Shawn Wong.

Listen to more episodes of Ten Thousand Things and follow the podcast!

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Shawn Wong discovered the first Japanese American novel, No-No Boy, at a used bookstore for 50 cents, after being told by his English professors that Asian American literature didn’t exist. 

He sought out the author, John Okada, and he fought to have the book republished and distributed far and wide, to unearth the legacy of Asian American writers. But all the mainstream publishers rejected it. So Shawn started to print, distribute, and sell the novel himself with friends,often from the trunk of his car. 

The Asian American community turned up, ordering books by mail, telling their friends, and sending checks with handwritten letters- a testament to a generation hungry for their own stories.

Correction, 10:30 a.m., 6/6/2023: The audio version of this story misstates the name of the protagonist in No-No Boy. The character's name is Ichiro Yamada.

Related Links: 

• Shawn Wong
• Book notes: A talk with UW English professor, author Shawn Wong about his UW Press book series for Asian American authors

Related reading:

• Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers by Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong
• Toshio Mori’s Yokohama California was Ahead of its Time via International Examiner
• Hisaye Yamamoto
• Wakako Yamauchi
• Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone
• Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu
• Janice Mirikitani
• Frontiers of Love by Diana Chang
• America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan
• Uncle Rico’s Encore: Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle by Peter Bacho
• Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid by Willyce Kim
• Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry edited by Walter Lew
• Pinoy Poetics: A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics edited by Nick Carbo
• The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith & Spirit edited by Leah Silvieus and Lee Herrick

We can only make Ten Thousand Things because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW.

And we want to hear from you! Leave us feedback online.

Ten Thousand Things is produced by KUOW in Seattle. Our host, writer, and creator is Shin Yu Pai. Whitney Henry-Lester produced this episode. Jim Gates is our editor. Tomo Nakayama wrote our theme music. Additional music in this episode by Taika. 

Search for Ten Thousand Things in your podcast app!

Partial funding of Ten Thousand Things was made possible by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture Hope Corps Grant, a recovery funded program of the National Endowment for the Arts, plus support from The Windrose Fund.

On this episode we are discussing our May 2023 book club pick, The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh. A story about a Vietnamese family dealing with the effects of a very petty curse that has resulted in generations of only daughters to be born to their family, and the modern decedents in America dealing with all the generational trauma that comes from being daughters to refugee mothers. To help us dive into all the Vietnamese American familial drama we've invited a special guest Hanh Nguyen, one of Marvin's co-hosts on the Good Pop Culture Club podcast and Senior Culture Editor at Salon.com!

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• Hanh Nguyen (@hanhonymous)

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
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The Books & Boba June 2023 pick is We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

To finish up APAHM, we're highlighting another one of our fellow Asian American podcasts from the Potluck Podcast Collective. This time we're dropping an episode of our fellow #PotluckPod QUARANTINED COMICS, a podcast where hosts Raman and Ryan discuss, debate, and nerd out on some of the comic's greatest, latest, and strangest works, about Gene Luen Yang's seminal graphic novel, AMERICAN BORN CHINESE, now a television series on Disney+.

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So with Asian American Heritage Month, we decided that G should be for Gene Luen Yang ...mostly as an excuse to read AMERICAN BORN CHINESE, Yang's Eisner Award-winning, seminal graphic novel soon to be released as a Disney+ streaming show with a bevvy of Oscar winners. American Born Chinese is Gene Luen Yang's was first released in 2006 - written and illustrated by Yang, and also colored by cartoonist Lark Pien. American Born Chinese consists of three seemingly disparate tales...

First, the legendary Chinese Monkey King from the classic 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West. However, blink and you might miss it, but Yang replaces the Buddha with a Christian influenced deity.The second storyline is the all-too-familiar Asian American coming of age story of a young American Born Chinese man Jin Wang, who befriends a new arrival from Taiwan, Wei Chen. As with any story of teen drama, romance is afoot with Jin's American crush Amelia Harris. And the third story depicts an American TV sitcom with All American boy Danny and his cousin visting from Chin-kee, who if you couldn't tell from the name alone, is meant to be an amalgam of racist stereotype, from the outlandish costume, heavy accent, buck teeth, and yes, predilection for putting pee pee in your coke. Eventually these three tales become come together into a poignant lesson of culture and self acceptance.

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*Support the podcast by purchasing books at our bookshop or by buying Books & Boba merch at our Bonfire store*

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• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

On this episode, we check out the latest book and publishing news in Asian American literature for our APAHM 2023 edition of our mid-month check-in and Reera teaches Marvin what a Bigolas Dickalas is.

Upcoming books mentioned in our publishing news:

• The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly
• Samina Goes to a Wedding by Farida Zaman
• The Pink Pajamas, by Charlene Chua
• Perfect Is Not Perfect by Laan Cham
• A City Full of Santas by Joanna Ho ; illust by Thai Phuong
• Stay Angry, Little Girl, illust by Michelle Jing Chan
• The Library Is Open by Kim Chi and Stephan Lee
• Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen
• Thea and the Mischief Makers by Tracy Badua
• Airbnboo by Tracy Badua
• The Cliff House by Guojing
• The ABCs of Queer History by Seema Yasmin
• Wolf Girl by Anh Do
• I Could Give You the Moon by Ann Liang
• K-Jane by Lydia Kang
• Some of Us: A Story of Citizenship and America by Newbery Rajani LaRocca; Illust by Huy Voun Lee
• Ping's Perfect Pot by Helen H. Wu; illust by Zihua Yang

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• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba May 2023 pick is The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

On this episode, we chat with Melissa de la Cruz, probably one of the most prolific Asian American authors in the industry, about her new YA thriller The Headmaster's List, about Spencer, a Filipina-American private high school student, who sets out to figure out the truth behind a fatal car crash that left one of her classmates dead, her ex-boyfriend under arrest, and herself without her memories of the night. Of course, we also chat with Melissa about her long storied career as an author.

Follow Melissa on IG at @authormelissadelacruz and check out her novel, The Headmaster's List, availaible now on the Books & Boba bookshop!

*Support the podcast by supporting our new Patreon*

Follow our hosts:

• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba May 2023 pick is The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

This APAHM, we wanted to highlight some of our fellow Asian American podcasts from the Potluck Podcast Collective, so we're dropping in an episode from our sister show, Asian Americana, a podcast about slices of distinctly Asian American culture and history hosted by veteran audio producer and journalist, Quincy Surasmith. Please enjoy, and we'll be back with our mid-month check-in for May later this week!

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Timothy Singratsomboune had a complicated relationship to country music. How did his own experiences bring him away from and eventually back to the genre? And how does country music connect Tim to both Lao culture and the Lao communities he grew up around?

In this episode, we explore the connections between Asian Americans, country music, and rural life.

You can find more about Timothy on his website, singhasonh.com.

Music from this episode included:

Idle Hours ft. BJ Cole - The Road

Good Luck Ola - I’m On Your Side

Nathan Ramos-Park - Gay Asian Country Love Song

Tai Orathai - วันที่บ่มีอ้าย (Wan Thii Bo Mii Ai)

Ko Viseth - Tai Dam Lam Phan

BettySoo - Who Knows; Next Big Thing

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*Support the podcast by purchasing books at our bookshop or by buying Books & Boba merch at our Bonfire store*

Follow our hosts:

• Reera Yoo (@reeraboo)
• Marvin Yueh (@marvinyueh)

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The Books & Boba February 2023 pick is The Charmed List by Julie Abe

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective