Amplify AAPI voices! Whether looking for better representation on your 'to read' list or simply a great new book, check out this list; a mix of recent fiction and nonfiction (published within past couple years, with an emphasis on the last calendar year) in a variety of genres and subjects, all by authors identifying as Asian American or Pacific Islander. A great list to read from any time of year, but if you're looking for a read for Asian-American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, look no further than these titles from contemporary AAPI voices. Selected by SJPL Librarians.
In his training as a spy, Ro was warned: you will always be living a lie. Jumping into a Star Eater's mind in the first place requires a moment of perfect psychic connection, and he has studied all his life to comprehend their species - the only…
Five years after the death of his youngest brother, Dan Moran is now the published trans author of the autofictional novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. He is teaching fiction in Brooklyn and working on his next book when a mysterious envelope arrives…
October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house…
After Marissa loses her mother at five, the most intimate relationship of her life begins. Her marine biologist father, determined to channel his grief into completing his wife’s research, whisks her across the globe to Thailand. There she meets…
India, 1922: Perveen Mistry, the only female lawyer in Bombay, has secured her biggest client yet: Champa Films, a movie studio run by director Subhas Ghoshal and his wife, Rochana, the biggest name in Indian cinema. In the public eye, Rochana has…
In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define…
In the fall of 1943, at the height of World War II, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup--the exchange of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. Nearly fifteen hundred Allied civilians trapped…
Two sisters. One fake marriage. Zero chance of keeping the truth hidden.
The Naik sisters escaped their traumatic past in Mumbai to come to the States, but their journeys have been vastly different. Simi is working toward a bright future as a…
The Sharaf family is the picture of success. Successful, rich, happy. They came to this country as refugees with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. And now, after years of hard work, they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their…
Cassia Park believes in soul mates—it’s the family business. For centuries, Park women have used past lives to match clients with their fated love, guaranteeing success for everyone but Cassia. After ten years searching for hers, Daniel Nam, she…
One night after a party, married couple Aliya and Sam end the night with a heated argument. Sam goes for a run early the next morning to clear her head—and doesn’t come back. Aliya reports her wife missing, but as a gay, Muslim daughter of…
Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of…
In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from…
Alchemy is the hidden art of transformation. An exclusive power wielded by crime syndicates that market it to the world’s elites in the form of sand, a drug that enhances those who take it into a more perfect version of themselves: more beautiful,…
Certainty Bulrush wants to be useful—to the Guild of Mages that took her in as a novice, to the little brother who depends on her, and to anyone else she can help. Unfortunately, her tepid magic hasn’t proven much use to anyone. When Certainty has…
A renowned intellectual announces a swayamvar for her 55th birthday, inviting suitors to compete for her hand. Once dismissive of love, she now defies societal ridicule, embracing desire despite disability and fading beauty. Supporters and…
My mother had died, but still I heard her voice. . .
Gish’s mother—Loo Shu-hsin—is born in 1925 to a wealthy Shanghai family where girls are expected to behave and be quiet. Every act of disobedience prompts the same “Bad bad girl! You don’t know…
In Patchwork, a charming and evocative sewist's diary, Maddie Ballard explores the making (and sometimes remaking) of seventeen specific garments over a period of great change in her life-from a jacket lined with the embroidered Cantonese names of…
A scintillating debut story collection examining a fundamental question: What does it mean to be good? In twelve kaleidoscopic stories, Mahreen Sohail shifts our perspective on this question from moment to moment. Two girls observe a group of child…
So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were…
