Wordless Wednesday: April Moon

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Photo © Harvee Lau

Book Review: My Chinese-America: Essays by Allen Gee

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesday at A Daily Rhythm.

My Chinese-America:Essays by Allen Gee
Published April 1, 2015; Santa Fe Writers Project
Genre: literary essays

Book description:
In the first collection of essays by A Chinese-American male to be published in over a decade, Allen Gee writes about aspects of Asian American life in a detailed, eloquent manner, looking at how Asian-Americans view themselves in light of America’s insensitivities, stereotypes, and expectations. My Chinese-America speaks on masculinity, identity, and topics ranging from Jeremy Lin and immigration to profiling and Asian silences. 
The essays have an intimacy that transcends cultural boundaries, and casts light on a vital part of American culture that surrounds and influences all of us. (publisher)

My comments: 
I was both amazed and delighted at the frankness of some of the essays on the subject of Chinese-Americans in the U.S. Allen Gee is forthright and honest about some of his experiences and observations, yet he also shows how in touch he is with ordinary American life and how he lives it every day with his American wife and children, and his American creative writing students at Georgia College. 

His topics range from racial stereotyping of Asians to his practice of non-violence in dealing with physical and emotional challenges in his daily life. He shows himself also as a hunter and fisherman, in tune with his surroundings and American life,  but also in touch with the perceptions of other minorities and ethnic groups in a multi-cultural country. 

This collection of essays is frank in its assessments and also eye opening for those who are interested in the point of view of a group in American society who are often seen as silent, nerdy, possibly weak except in the area of academics. It shows many sides of the Chinese-American experience, and especially the one experienced by Allen Gee. 

Objective rating: 4.5/5

First paragraph, first chapter:

In mid-July during a summer when I wanted to remain in only one place, my mother called from upstate New York and asked. Won't you visit? You aren't going to miss your father's sixtieth birthday, are you? And what about Matthew? she reminded me, speaking of her first grandchild - my nephew- who was almost nine months old. You should see him now. He's trying to walk, and you should hear hin laugh. Can't you leave work for a while? Hers was a selfless voice that strove to weave connections, that valued community and the continuity of tradition. 

About Allen Gee
I grew up largely in Albany, NY, but spent a lot of time in NYC, visiting family there. I attended the University of New Hampshire, then the Iowa Writers Workshop, and finally, the University of Houston. I'm now a Professor of English at Georgia College. I live on Lake Sinclair, in Milledgeville, GA, and often volunteer at Andalusia, Flannery O'Connor's farm. My wife, Renee Dodd, is also a writer. Her terrific novel is: "A Cabinet of Wonders." I have two daughters, Ashley and Willa. My favorite pastimes outside of reading and writing are: running, fishing, traveling, hiking, and backpack-ing. I went fishing up in Alaska last summer, and I want to go back again.

Thanks to Serena Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book for its book tour.

Visit the tour schedule for more reviews and information 

Sunday Salon: Two Genres

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday 

ARC and review novel received recently:

When the Moon Is Low by Nadia Hashimi, to be released July 21, 2015; William Morrow
Genre: fiction
Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.

A Finely Knit Murder by Sally Golenbaum, to be published May 5, 2015; NAL
Genre: mystery 
... the sleuthing skills of Izzy Chambers Perry and the Seaside Knitters are tested as death mars the beginning of the school year…

What's on your reading plate?

Book Beginning: The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Paperback published May 12, 2015; St. Martin's Griffin
Hardcover first published in 1987
Genre: fiction

Book description: 
Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart. (publisher)

Book beginning: The taxi, an old Rover smelling of  old cigarette smoke, trundled along the empty country road at an unhurried pace. It was early afternoon at the very end of February, a magic winter day of bitter cold, frost, and pale, cloudless skies. The sun shone, sending long shadows, but there was little warmth in it, and the ploughed fields lay hard as iron. From the chimneys of scattered farmhouses and small stone cottages, smoke rose, straight as columns, up into the still air, and flocks of sheep, heavy with wool and incipient pregnancy, gathered around feeding troughs, stuffed with fresh hay.  

Sitting in the back of the taxi, gazing through the dusty window, Penelope Keeling decided that she had never seen the familiar countryside look so beautiful.  

page 56:

"It's just that...this is the sort of place where I think I could stay. I wouldn't feel trapped or rooted here. I don't know why." She smiled at him. "I don't know why."

 This book was first published in 1987 and has been a bestseller since then. I have never read it but have heard about it, and now have the chance to read the new paperback edition to be published in May, Thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. Post it. Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also, visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Wordless Wednesday: Am I Cute, Or What?

Visit Wordless Wednesday  and NC Sue at Image-in-ing for more pictures.

Photo © Harvee Lau

Memoir: FINDING SAMUEL LOWE by Paula Williams Madison

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesdays meme hosted by Jenn.

A friend sent this book to me and I'm so glad she did. It was a terrific and inspirational read, about a woman's determination to find her mother Nell's paternal family, a family her mother had lost contact with at age 3, when she was separated from her Chinese father, Samuel Lowe, and hidden away in the countryside by her Jamaican mother, Albertha. Years later, Nell's daughter. Paula Williams Madison has traced her mother's family lineage to a village in Guangdong, China and found relatives she never knew she had.  

Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem by Paula Williams Madison
Published April 14, 2015; Amistad Press
Genre: memoir
Rating: 5/5

First chapter, first paragraph:

He gave me one of his serious, twenty-four karat, all-Roosevelt looks. "Baby," he asked, "do you know you're Black?"I looked at him, puzzled and defensive. "Yes, I know I am Black." He looked a little hesitant, as if he were afraid to say any more, afraid to make the next point. He was worried about the unknowns. He worried that I might indeed find this family of mine, of Samuel Lowe's - find whomever might still exist. 

Teaser: (page 174)

In a few weeks, my world had been expanded by another continent - a huge continent where one corner houses my family. I have a place, a village, elders, cousins. They know me and they know my name....
I am Hakka.
I am Lowe Ding Chow's granddaughter.
I am Nell Vera Lowe's only daughter.
I am a Lowe.   

My comments: Very impressive research went into this memoir about a woman's determination and success in finding and reuniting with her mother's paternal side of the family in Jamaica, the U.S., and in China. Moving and inspirational, it's a must read for all who value the importance of family, tradition, and culture. I admired the author's frankness and her sharing her family's complex history. 

Book description: Spanning four generations and moving between New York, Jamaica, and China, a powerful memoir that is a universal story of one woman's search for her maternal grandfather and the key to her self-identity. Finding Samuel Lowe includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert and photos in the text. (publisher)

The author, Paula Williams Madison, and her husband Roosevelt Madison, live in Los Angeles. 

Sunday Salon: Awkward Silences

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday 

A memoir and a mystery that came in the mail: 

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences by Alexandra Petri
To be released June 2, 2015; NAL
Genre: memoir, humor

But Petri is here to tell you: Everything you fear is not so bad. Trust her. She’s tried it. And in the course of her misadventures, she’s learned that there are worse things out there than awkwardness—and that interesting things start to happen when you stop caring what people think. (publisher)

Death Wears a Beauty Mask by Mary Higgins Clark
Published April 28, 2015; Simon and Schuster
Genre: short stories, mystery
A collection of short stories from the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark, including the never-before-published novella Death Wears a Beauty Mask.

Finished reading:

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain was a terrific read.  I gave this five stars for writing, characters, historical research. Book review to come in July; published July 28, 23015 by Ballantine Books. Genre: historical fiction set in Kenya, 1920s

Currently reading:

Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem by Paula Williams Madison

What's new on your reading shelf?