Central Kansas Library System

Thirty-two-year-old Kang is a new immigrant in Toronto. Having an older sister who was raped and suffers from the ensuing stigma in China, Kang is determined to remain a spinster, which has its own stigma in China, and she struggles with her fear and distrust of men. But Kang's story is not a hard luck story. She is an intelligent woman and a successful immigrant. Kang deals with the perplexities of a different culture by maintaining a sense of curiosity,...

Watanabe Yuichi, a young guard with a passion for reading, is ordered to investigate. The victim, Sugiyama, also a guard, was feared and despised throughout the prison and inquiries have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanbe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the suspect and Yun Dong-ju, a talented Korean poet, he starts to realize that the fearsome guard was not all he appeared to be....As Watanbe unravels Sugiyama's...

In The Children of this Madness, Gemini Wahhaj pens a complex tale of modern Bengalis, one that illuminates the recent histories not only of Bangladesh, but America and Iraq. Told in multiple voices over successive eras, this is the story of Nasir Uddin and his daughter Beena, and the intersection of their distant, vastly different lives. As the US war in Iraq plays out a world away, and Beena struggles to belong to Houston's tony Bengali American...

A return to Vietnam after serving his tour brings together an American civilian and a young Vietnamese woman. Cultural differences and family commitment collide to create what appear to be insurmountable problems as he prepares to go to Saigon to look for work. Misunderstandings by each causes immense grief for the other as the story moves to its unpredictable conclusion. Experience the country as it was in 1970--the people, the places, the hardships....

The American Letters of a Japanese Parlor Maid (1905) is a novel by Yone Noguchi. Styled as a fascinating tell-all written by a young Japanese tourist, Noguchi's novel is the sequel to The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1901). Composed with the assistance of Léonie Gilmour and Blanche Partington, The American Letters of a Japanese Parlor Maid was Noguchi's second novel and a major departure from his poetry at the time. An 18-year-old Japanese...

Kathleen Cheng has gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she's back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what's next. She finds her mother has been transformed by love: the new Marissa Cheng is sporty, perky, and planning a wedding to a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur. Kathleen takes a job at a start-up that specializes in an unconventional form of therapy based on touch. An...

Vashti believes that she cannot draw, but her art teacher's encouragement leads her to change her mind and she goes on to encourage another student who feels the same as she had.

San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city center. Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life-painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure. She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of 1990s South Korea. Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash coworker, quiet farmers, and aggressive...

A "smart, compassionate and elegant" debut novel about an Asian-Indian immigrant family from Nairobi and the secrets they keep from each other (Lauren Groff, author of Florida). The Chandaria family-emigrants from the Asian-Indian enclave of Nairobi-has managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan...

"[A] suspense-filled page-turner." -Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer "A touching portrait of two families bound together by a split-second decision." -Attica Locke, Edgar-Award winning author of Bluebird, Bluebird A Best Book of the Year Wall Street Journal / Chicago Tribune / Buzzfeed / South Florida Sun-Sentinel / Book Riot / LitHub / BOLO Books A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in Los Angeles,...