I found No God in Sight by Altaf Tyrewala interesting. Set in Mumbai, it is vignettes of people very loosely connected to each other.
Are you interested in movies too? Gurinder Chadha did two films that I love (in completely different ways): Bend it like Beckham (a british football romantic comedy), and Bride & Prejudice (a Bollywood musical of Pride & Prejudice). And Mira Nair did Monsoon Wedding.
And someone else mentioned it, but I found Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood (first book: Dawn) very fascinating. It is the most convincing aliens and alien contact that I've ever read (and I read a lot of scifi).
Banana Yoshimoto writes neat short stories and novellas -- my favorite is Lizard, I think Matt's favorite is Asleep. She's a Japanese author. If you like the mindbending, and you want even more, you can try The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.
If you like children's books: Laurence Yep -- Ribbons (San Francisco Chinese-American ballet students) Lensey Namioka -- Yang the Youngest and his Terrible Ear (Chinese immigrants in Seattle) Allen Say -- Tea with Milk, Grandfather's Journey, the Ink-Keepers Apprentice (loosely biographical stories) Yoshiko Uchida -- Journey to Topaz and Journey Home (about Japanese-American internment and going home to California race riots afterwards)
And I can give you way more suggestions (if you want any more -- just email) if I open up my book database, these books were just the ones in my head. You may have noticed a theme, and yes, I do tend to read more books and watch more movies that are connected to India or Japan. And I guess my own book challenge is that I like reading books from other countries -- so if you ever have suggestions of good translations, or New Zealand authors, or what have you, I'd love that. (Or if you want some good Canadian or British books, I can probably find too many of those too.)
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Are you interested in movies too? Gurinder Chadha did two films that I love (in completely different ways): Bend it like Beckham (a british football romantic comedy), and Bride & Prejudice (a Bollywood musical of Pride & Prejudice). And Mira Nair did Monsoon Wedding.
And someone else mentioned it, but I found Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood (first book: Dawn) very fascinating. It is the most convincing aliens and alien contact that I've ever read (and I read a lot of scifi).
Banana Yoshimoto writes neat short stories and novellas -- my favorite is Lizard, I think Matt's favorite is Asleep. She's a Japanese author. If you like the mindbending, and you want even more, you can try The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.
If you like children's books:
Laurence Yep -- Ribbons (San Francisco Chinese-American ballet students)
Lensey Namioka -- Yang the Youngest and his Terrible Ear (Chinese immigrants in Seattle)
Allen Say -- Tea with Milk, Grandfather's Journey, the Ink-Keepers Apprentice (loosely biographical stories)
Yoshiko Uchida -- Journey to Topaz and Journey Home (about Japanese-American internment and going home to California race riots afterwards)
And I can give you way more suggestions (if you want any more -- just email) if I open up my book database, these books were just the ones in my head. You may have noticed a theme, and yes, I do tend to read more books and watch more movies that are connected to India or Japan. And I guess my own book challenge is that I like reading books from other countries -- so if you ever have suggestions of good translations, or New Zealand authors, or what have you, I'd love that. (Or if you want some good Canadian or British books, I can probably find too many of those too.)