Ru now screening in cinemas!

Montreal based Vietnamese author Kim Thuy‘s award winning novel Ru has been adapted into a feature length French language film that is currently screening in Montreal. It stars Chloé Djandji in what I believe is her first film role.

Pachinko – book review

I’d heard about the TV/Streaming limited series adaptation of the same name but without having any access to watch it I decided to buy the book by author Min Jin Lee. It’s a fairly thick book (at 479 pages with up to 34 lines per page), which was a bit intimidating for someone like me who’s not an avid reader. The book is separated into three parts or three books as they are called within the pages of this novel. But what helped me is that the chapters are all mostly pretty short. Often around 10 pages give or take so it was easy to read just short bits here and there when I could.

I was slow to get through it at the beginning. It wasn’t out of disinterest as there were interesting little things that I would learn about the lives of these characters but not a whole lot happens in the beginning in terms of plot. Each chapter feels like a sort of episode in the mundane lives of the characters. But it does help to really establish the characters, their living situation and social status. It also jumps around in time sometimes between chapters, which confused me a bit but it pretty much settles into a straightforward chronological order before the end of book 1.

The back of the book does spoil the book 1 part of the story so you might want to avoid reading it if you care about such things. You have to read most of book 1 to discover those things but it doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the story but it did make me wonder…”hey when is this thing mentioned on the back going to happen?”

Crazy Rich Asians – book trilogy review

After watching and enjoying the movie I wanted to read the book by Kevin Kwan to see how it compared. I quickly found out there were three books comprising a trilogy. I wondered to myself if I really wanted to commit myself to that many books with each being over 500 pages long. Eventually I ended up buying a box set of the three books anyway.

The first book (Crazy Rich Asians) is more interesting than the movie that’s based on it. If you liked the movie I think you’ll like the book because there is, of course, more detail, especially in regards to all the social/cultural aspects of the super wealthy in Singapore and side characters. The first book mainly focuses on Nick’s side of the family but there is also more on Rachel’s background near the end of the first book that sets up the second book (China Rich Girlfriend), which is pretty much mostly about Rachel’s side of the family. The third book (Rich People Problems) returns the focus back to Nick’s side of the family when his grandma’s health becomes an issue.

CBC’s Canada Reads 2018 winner: ‘Forgiveness’ Mark Sakamoto

Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents by Mark Sakamoto won the 2018 edition of CBC’s Canada Reads. It’s autobiographical and documents experiences of the author’s Japanese grandparents in Canada during WWII.

This will be on my “to read” list.

Some links with more info about the book:
CBC
Globe and Mail
National Post

Canada Reads 2018 CBC finale video:

ABC Disgusting, a children’s alphabet book by Greg Pak & Takeshi Miyazawa

Here’s a kickstarter for another book for kids called ABC Disgusting. It’s well known professionals Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa who also recently completed a successful kickstarter for The Princess Who Saved Herself.

Check out their kickstarter campaign.

Ru by Kim Thuy wins Canada Reads

The theme of this year’s Canada Reads contest was to choose a book to break barriers. After daily heated debates broadcasted on CBC, the last novel standing was Ru by Kim Thuy, a Vietnamese Canadian author who lives in Longueuil, a suburb of Montreal. Ru is originally a French novel, which won the Governer General’s Award for French Fiction in 2010 and was recently translated into English by Sheila Fischman. Two of the panelists also happen to be Asian Canadians, Kristin Kreuk and Elaine “Lainey” Lui who were arguing for other books, Intolerable and When Everything Feels Like the Movies, respectively. Lainey was one of two panelists arguing in the finale along with Cameron Bailey, who was arguing for Ru.

Asian Canadian Literature

There are a couple of books I’ve read by Wayson Choy named “The Jade Peony” and “All That Matters” as well as “Disappearing Moon Cafe” by Sky Lee. Another one that was interesting was “Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures” by Vincent Lam.

But for me one of the most impactful was “Banana Boys” by Terry Woo. It took me a couple of times to get into it. The first time I had trouble since each chapter switches to the perspective of a different character or “banana boy”. Banana being a somewhat perjorative slang term for a Chinese Canadian or more generally any person of East Asian descent who grew up mostly outside of East Asia (white on the inside, yellow on the outside).

However, one book I haven’t read was “Obasan” by Joy Kagawa about the internment camps of Japanese Canadians. It was published all the way back in 1981. It’s definitely an important one I should try to find a copy of.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures TV series premiering Jan 10 on HBO Canada

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures was first a collections of loosely related short shorties written by Canadian doctor Vincent Lam about the lives of a group of med students who become doctors.  The short story collection won the 2006 Giller prize and was a Canadian bestseller.  It’s been a long while since I read the book but I do remember enjoying all the interesting medical school and hospitable stuff but being less enthralled by the personal relationships.  Overall it was an insightful book that I’d particularly recommend for anyone wanting to learn more about the realities of med school and the medical profession.

You can read or listen to an excerpt from the book here.

Unfortunately I don’t have cable or satellite so I won’t be able to watch the whole series (8 episodes).  The TV series stars a couple of Asian Canadian actors in Byron Mann and Mayko Nguyen.  So if you have HBO Canada which is available through specialty channels Movie Central or Movie Network (depending on where you live in Canada), check out the TV series Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures premiering Sunday, January 10 at 8pm EST and showing weekly at the same time and day until February 28.

The first episode is free to view online (at least for Canadians, don’t know about anywhere else) on HBO Canada’s site.  Based on that episode, it seems like it will be focusing more on the love triangle than the medical stuff which doesn’t thrill me.  I don’t remember a love triangle in the book.

For more information check out Schema Mag and TV-eh?