Collection: Shop Asian

"In this vulnerable and courageous memoir, Prachi Gupta takes the myth of the exceptional Indian American family to task. . . . [Her] resilience and her hope to be fully seen are an inspiration in both personal and political terms."--The Washington Post

"I read it in one sitting. Wow. It aims right at the tender spot where racism, sexism, and family dynamics collide, and somehow manages to be both searingly honest and deeply compassionate."--Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

A SHE READS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SEASON: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Bustle

"In examining with boundless love the secrets and sorrows of one family, Gupta shows us the life-altering power of telling one's truth."--Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning

How do we understand ourselves when the story about who we are supposed to be is stronger than our sense of self? What do we stand to gain--and lose--by taking control of our narrative? These questions propel Prachi Gupta's heartfelt memoir and can feel particularly fraught for immigrants and their children who live under immense pressure to belong in America.

Prachi Gupta's family embodied the American Dream: a doctor father and a nurturing mother who raised two high-achieving children with one foot in the Indian American community, the other in Pennsylvania's white suburbia. But their belonging was predicated on a powerful myth: that Asian Americans have perfected the alchemy of middle-class life, raising tight-knit, ambitious families that are immune to hardship. Molding oneself to fit this perfect image often comes at a steep but hidden cost. In They Called Us Exceptional, Gupta articulates the dissonance, shame, and isolation of being upheld as an American success story while privately navigating traumas invisible to the outside world.

Gupta addresses her mother throughout the book, weaving a deeply vulnerable personal narrative with history, postcolonial theory, and research on mental health, to show how she slowly made sense of her reality and freed herself emotionally and physically from the pervasive, reductive myth that had once defined her. But, tragically, the act that liberated Gupta was also the act that distanced her from those she loved most. By charting her family's slow unraveling and her determination to break the cycle, Gupta shows how traditional notions of success keep us disconnected from ourselves and one another--and passionately argues why we must orient ourselves toward compassion over belonging.

Finalist for the Story Prize
Named a Best Book of 2023 by the Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Esquire, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews

A new collection--about loss, alienation, aging, and the strangeness of contemporary life--by the award-winning, and inimitable, author of The Book of Goose.

A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she's lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In the stories of Wednesday's Child, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces--death, violence, estrangement--come to light. Even before such moments, everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details: a filched jar of honey, a mound of wounded ants, a photograph kept hidden for many years, until it must be seen.

Yiyun Li is a truly original writer, an alchemist of opposites: tender and unsentimental, metaphysical and blunt, funny and horrifying, omniscient and unusually aware of just how much we cannot know. Beloved for her novels and her memoir, she returns here to her earliest form, gathering pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope, and other publications. Taken together, these stories, written over the span of a decade, articulate the cost, both material and emotional, of living--exile, assimilation, loss, love--with Li's trademark unnerving beauty and wisdom.

"I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea." - Yeonmi Park

"One of the most harrowing stories I have ever heard - and one of the most inspiring." - The Bookseller

"Park's remarkable and inspiring story shines a light on a country whose inhabitants live in misery beyond comprehension. Park's important memoir showcases the strength of the human spirit and one young woman's incredible determination to never be hungry again." --Publishers Weekly

In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea--and to freedom.

Park confronts her past with a startling resilience. In spite of everything, she has never stopped being proud of where she is from, and never stopped striving for a better life. Indeed, today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country. Park's testimony is heartbreaking and unimaginable, but never without hope. This is the human spirit at its most indomitable.

As Ryuunousuke Akutagawa and Nathaniel Hawthorne engage in a life-or-death battle, Chuuya Nakahara has information about The Guild's plot to destroy the Armed Detective Agency. H.P. Lovecraft and John Steinbeck also reveal their powerful abilities!

"To truly appreciate and understand Filipino dishes, you have to understand the evolution of the spices, the nuances of the flavor profiles, the land from which these dishes were birthed. That's what this book provides. This is not just a book of recipes; this is a book about our story." --Pati Navalta Poblete, Editor-in-Chief, San Francisco Magazine

No cuisine and appliance are better suited for one another than Filipino food and the Instant Pot.

From classic dinner staples like the traditionally sour Sinigang na Baboy (pork tamarind soup) to sweet treats like Putong Puti (steamed rice cake), the rich flavors of Filipino food are typically unlocked through a long braise or boil, a delicate steam, or some other treatment by moist heat. Fortunately, this is exactly what the Instant Pot does best.

The Filipino Instant Pot Cookbook is written by six home cooks who set out to explore their Filipino heritage and intimate family histories, one dish at a time. The result is a collection of over 75 heartfelt Filipino recipes, all carefully translated for preparation in today's most essential piece of kitchenware, the Instant Pot. Just as Filipino food is now a mainstay in the consciousness of foodies from around the world, The Filipino Instant Pot Cookbook is an absolute must-have for every modern home cook. It is written with humor and heart, and lined with beautifully styled photography that will trigger a warm sense of nostalgia.

Praised by the Culinary Director of the Filipino Food Movement, the President Emeritus of the Filipino American National Historical Society, and chefs from around the world, The Filipino Instant Pot Cookbook will help any home cook step into a kitchen and create great Filipino food for any setting, without breaking the bank... or the clock. Whether you're cooking for a raucous affair featuring the tableside chatter of an entire extended family or a simple, quiet comfort-meal under your favorite blanket on the couch, The Filipino Instant Pot Cookbook will have you covered.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, "one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot" (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.

In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations--until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.

The stranger's arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock--conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice--she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.

As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu'er, the tea that has shaped their family's destiny for centuries.

A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.

From the acclaimed author and translator of the National Book Award Finalist, Cursed Bunny, a fresh, uncanny, and utterly profound collection of stories set in near and distant futures that reflect our deepest fears--and deepest desires.

Bora Chung's inimitable blend of horror, absurdity, and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity, from total demise via a disease whose only symptom is casual cannibalism to a world in which even dreams can be monitored and used to convict people of crimes.

In "The Center for Immortality Research," a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In "A Song for Sleep," an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. "Seed" traverses the final frontier of capitalism's destruction of the planet--but nature always creeps back to life.

If you haven't yet experienced the fruits of Chung's singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series!

The Three-Body Problem Boxed Set contains all three volumes of Hugo Award-winning author Cixin Liu's bestselling science fiction trilogy--The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End--translated by Ken Liu.

A secret military group sends signals into space in hopes of establishing contact with aliens -- and succeeds.

Picking up their signal is an alien civilization on the brink of destruction who now readies to invade Earth.

News of the coming invasion divides humanity like never before. Some want to help the superior beings take over a world they see as corrupt. Others prepare to fight the invasion at all cost.

The Three Body Problem trilogy is a ground-breaking saga of enormous scope and vision.

"The War of the Worlds for the twenty-first century . . . Packed with a sense of wonder."
--The Wall Street Journal

"A meditation on technology, progress, morality, extinction, and knowledge that doubles as a cosmos- in-the-balance thriller." --NPR

NAMED A VOGUE BEST BOOK OF 2024
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY BOOKRIOT, THE MILLIONS, LITHUB AND MORE!

"A moving, strikingly evocative exploration of New York's art, tech, and activism scenes across the decades."-Vogue

The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life?

In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. "Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves," they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.

By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet's early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.

Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

The American group of ability users known as the "Guild" appears, led by the wealthy Francis Scott Fitzgerald, who has his sights set on the Armed Detective Agency! Can Agency president Fukuzawa stop him...!? Not if Guild member Lucy Montgomery and can help it!

Seven years before the events of Bungo Stray Dogs, a young Osamu Dazai is ordered by Ougai Mori to investigate an ominous rumor--there have been sightings of Mori's deceased predecessor, and the new Mafia boss would very much like for the dead to stay buried. Along the way, Dazai runs into a gravity manipulator named Chuuya Nakahara, leader of the teenage Sheep gang. Together, the two will one day achieve infamy as the fearsome duo Twin Dark, but for now, they'll have to learn to cooperate if they want to get to the bottom of this mystery...

AT THAT MOMENT, MY LIFE TOOK ON A DIFFERENT GENRE. As a struggling office worker, Dokja Kim's sole joy in life is an online novel so obscure that he's its only reader. Then one day the story comes to an end...and so does the world. People all around the globe suddenly find themselves being massacred by horrific monsters or pitted against each other in sadistic scenarios straight out of the novel. However, only Dokja is aware that this is merely the first chapter of what is to come. Knowing that devastating plot twists are on the horizon, he can no longer afford to sit back as a reader--it's time for Dokja to step up and write his own destiny!

A nerd must fight powerful spirits and aliens all vying for the secret power of his "family jewel," so who better to fight alongside him than his high school crush and a spirit granny?!

Momo Ayase and Okarun are on opposite sides of the paranormal spectrum regarding what they'll believe in and what they won't. Their quest to prove each other wrong leads them down a path of secret crushes and paranormal battles they'll have to participate in to believe!

Okarun, a high school boy obsessed with supernatural phenomena, has lost his precious family jewels in a battle with Turbo Granny! His classmate Aira ends up finding one, and it awakens spiritual powers within her. Around this same time, a strange woman in a red dress appears at the school and attacks Aira, Okarun, and Momo! Who is she, and what's with her obsession with Aira?

Kafka wants to clean up kaiju, but not literally! Will a sudden metamorphosis stand in the way of his dream?

With the highest kaiju-emergence rates in the world, Japan is no stranger to attack by deadly monsters. Enter the Japan Defense Force, a military organization tasked with the neutralization of kaiju. Kafka Hibino, a kaiju-corpse cleanup man, has always dreamed of joining the force. But when he gets another shot at achieving his childhood dream, he undergoes an unexpected transformation. How can he fight kaiju now that he's become one himself?!

The Defense Force has taken Kafka into custody and has plans to dispose of him. Kafka attempts to plead his case with Director General Shinomiya, wielder of the mighty Kaiju No. 2's power and the person lauded as the strongest in Defense Force history. But when Kafka's pleas fail to move the director general, he winds up facing him in combat! What's more, he starts to lose control of his kaiju form! Can Kafka keep it together long enough to save his own skin?

A nerd must fight powerful spirits and aliens all vying for the secret power of his "family jewel," so who better to fight alongside him than his high school crush and a spirit granny?!

Momo Ayase and Okarun are on opposite sides of the paranormal spectrum regarding what they'll believe in and what they won't. Their quest to prove each other wrong leads them down a path of secret crushes and paranormal battles they'll have to participate in to believe!

The Kito clan tosses Okarun and the gang into an alternate-reality version of Jiji's family home as an offering to the serpent god! There they encounter another of the clan's sacrifices, a child who goes on to possess the softhearted Jiji. The two of them become the Evil Eye, who then attacks Okarun and Momo. Okarun decides to take him on alone and sends Momo back aboveground to get help. There she comes up with an ingenious plan to get rid of the giant serpent god...but can she pull it off on her own in time to save Jiji?

A New York Times Bestseller and #1 Indie Bestseller - A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year - A School Library Journal Best Book of 2021 - Included in NPR's 2021 Books We Love List - Featured in Forbes, Oprah Daily, The Cut, and Book Riot - Golden Poppy Book Award Winner - Featured in Chicago Public Library's Best Books of 2021 - 2021 Nerdy Award Winner - A Kirkus Children's Best Book of 2021

This lyrical, stunning picture book tells a story about learning to love and celebrate your Asian-shaped eyes, in the spirit of Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, and is a celebration of diversity.

A young Asian girl notices that her eyes look different from her peers'. They have big, round eyes and long lashes. She realizes that her eyes are like her mother's, her grandmother's, and her little sister's. They have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons, and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future.

Drawing from the strength of these powerful women in her life, she recognizes her own beauty and discovers a path to self-love and empowerment. This powerful, poetic picture book will resonate with readers of all ages.

"This tale of self-acceptance and respect for one's roots is breathtaking." --Kirkus (starred review)

"A young girl finds beauty in her uniqueness." --School Library Journal (starred review)

"A lyrical celebration of her eyes, their shape, spirit, and legacy." --Booklist (starred review)

"A poignant testament to familial love and legacy." --Publishers Weekly

Plus don't miss the beautiful companion book from the same team: Eyes That Speak to the Stars.