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Bookseller Recs
Finds some of our favorite bookseller pics below! From essay collections to new fiction, find some of our favorite picks! Currently, we only cover adult fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks; but we'll expand to covering our other sections soon!
Told thorugh the lens of Filipino food and mythology, Jill Damatac shares her experience as a formerly undocumented immigrant from the Philippines who moves the US. This memoir is a balance of the author’s personal story with the broader historical context of why people immigrate to the US. It’s a tough read because the author grows up experiencing pain and trauma at the hands of members of her family and her community, but it ends in a place of hope.
No God but Us is a beautifully written novel about two queer Afghan men—one from Afghanistan, one from the US—whose paths converge when they both join a refugee artist community in Iran. The book explores differences in identity amongst diaspora groups and the sacrifices people make to survive, especially as queer people and immigrants in hostile political environments.
Interior Chinatown is a satirical novel about a Taiwanese American man whose role in society has been relegated to titles like Generic Asian Man, but dreams of playing a larger role in the TV show filming in his neighborhood. While trying to reach this goal, though, he begins to realize that aspiring to play a stereotype isn’t as honorable as he thought. Written like a screenplay, it manages to tackle serious topics, like the lack of Asian visibility and the cultural significance of Chinatowns, with a fun premise and lighthearted tone.
Tell Me How to Be is a novel about an Indian American mother and son in the Midwest and the secrets they keep. When the two of them come together to clean out and sell the family home after the father’s death, they have to reconcile with parts of the past that they’ve been trying to suppress. This story feels really resonant with immigrant families that experience emotional and communication barriers that prevent them from talking openly about topics like love and sexuality, and it’s a nuanced and empathetic depiction of that that challenge.
When a New York City taxi driver discovers a passenger murdered in her backseat, she becomes the case’s most obvious suspect. She must work with her public defender to uncover the real killer before it’s too late. Fast-paced and gripping, The Midnight Taxi is both a mystery and a love letter to the immigrants and workers who keep New York running. And with a nuanced portrayal of the Sri Lankan American experience, this book explores so much ever losing momentum.
I AM THE GHOST HERE is a collection of 12 speculative short stories of women navigating modern life…from a doordasher trapped in a reality show who is pushed to repair her relationship with her immigrant mother on camera, and strangers who become lovers over a plastic-eating obsession
In a Black Mirror-esque way, each story looks at social media, technology, and bodily autonomy in a way that feels extreme and absurdist at first but quickly becomes very recognizable.
When a broke young Asian American writer agrees to sell her youth to an aging Hollywood producer through experimental blood treatments (a la silicon valley blood boys), money, mentorship, and a dangerous power struggle follow. Super fast-paced and biting, this novel explores ambition, exploitation, and the price women pay to survive in industries built to consume them. Recommended for those who loved Yellowface and The Substance.
Set in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Livonia Chow Mein is one of those novels that makes a neighborhood feel fully alive, with all its histories, tensions, losses, and the people determined to stay. Through the story of a Chinese family-owned restaurant, it brings questions of housing, race, gentrification, memory, and Asian complicity down to the personal level in a way that feels intimate and deeply moving.
In Horse Barbie, Geena shares her incredible journey as a trans beauty queen from the Philippines and New York, navigating pageants, modeling, to activism, and more... we love celebrating trans visibility, survival, and celebration.
I find Elaine's stories incredibly fun with sharp and empathetic commentary exploring identity, gender, and culture. This collection of short stories and novella presents new characters and context with the absurdity, dark wit, shock, and humor I loved in Disorientation.
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If you love food storytelling...this books for you! I loved watching Chef Edward Lee on Culinary Class Wars Season 1, and I loved his writing in Buttermilk Graffiti...maybe even more? Mixing recipes, personal history, and stories from his travels, Edward Lee shows us how immigrants have shaped America's culinary landscape.
From doriyaki, to intergenerational friendships, grief, and more, Sweet Bean Paste is a quick read that packs a lot in its ~220 pages. I return time and time again to one of it's last passages around resilience, especially in our current challenging times.
The title says it all. A tender coming of age memoir about growing up gay, Asian American, and working class in 1980’s Detroit centered around the author’s family’s Chinese restaurant where humor, egg rolls, and activism somehow all go hand in hand.
A foundational novel in the Taiwanese queer lit canon. The terms “crocodile” and “Lazi” (the protagonist’s name) are now terms for lesbians in Taiwan, meaning Qiu is basically Taiwanese Shakespeare.
A Brooklyn Filipino based chef whose food we absolutely love! In the Kusina is a whole love letter to queer Filipino joy, chosen family, and the flavors Woldy grew up with. And it’s filled with personal essays and recipes that taste like home with a twist.
​A fierce, lyrical blend of memoir and political critique, Julian Aguon confronts U.S. empire from his home in the Pacific, Guam...a place where colonialism, militarization, racism, and climate collapse are everyday realities. Urgent and incisive, this book asks what justice looks like when survival itself is an act of resistance.