Books for August
Sep. 13th, 2007 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Hrm, since I usually write things up on my LJ, I figure I will try to do compilation posts here each month. Also, I'll link my manga write ups here as well, though I won't be counting those toward my own 50 books (partly out of embarrassment of my total manga tally each year...).
Manga
- Chu, Carl - Chinese Food Finder: The Bay Area and San Francisco
I am generally leery of English-language write-ups of Chinese food; in my experience, they tend to portray Chinese food as something exotic and foreign at worst and as something non-normative at best. More importantly, the Chinese food that they talk about is not my Chinese food, which is normal, everyday and comfortingly familiar. Also, either I can't figure out what the books are talking about because the names are funny transliterated English (ex. "Dragon Phoenix Soup") that make sense in Chinese but not really in English or because they're talking about stuff that I don't eat very often (ex. banquet food from the seventies). (more) - Zia, Helen - Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People
Contrary to expectation, this is not actually a history of Asian Americans. For that, I would grab Ronald Takaki's Strangers from a Different Shore. Instead, this is a history of the politicization of Asian Americans as a group and the formation of an "Asian-American" identity, as opposed to many separate groups (Chinese Americans, Cambodian Americans, Thai Americans, etc.). (more)
Manga
- Yoshinaga Fumi - Antique Bakery, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.) - Fun food porn!
- Yumeji Kiriko and Ubukata Tou - Le Chevalier d'Eon, vol. 01 (Eng. trans.) (minor spoilers for premise) - FREAKING INSANE!
- Ogawa Yayoi - Tramps Like Us, vol. 11-12 (Eng. trans.) (spoilers)
- Tateno Makoto - Yellow, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.) (minor spoilers at the end) - better than anticipated, but still had a lot of yaoi tropes I dislike
- Urushibara Yuki - Mushishi, vol. 02 (Eng. trans.) - continues to be one of my favorite new series
- CLAMP - xxxHolic, ch. 135-143 (HUGE SPOILERS!)
- CLAMP - Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, ch. 156-164 (HUGE SPOILERS!)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 06:49 pm (UTC)His guidebook is great reading, even if you can't make it to the restaurants. I think the best part for me was learning about various regional cuisines!