Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed.
Remember The Fifth Element? Well, it’s having its 25th anniversary and even playing in certain theaters. While it’s cute it’s having a moment, I don’t appreciate being told that it came out 25 years ago. Just rude. I will say that I must have seen it like 100 times as a kid. Literally. It has to be just about the most ridiculous spectacle of a movie I’ve ever seen— and I love it. Despite not having watched it in like ten years, I’m pretty sure I still know some parts verbatim. I might have to give it a rewatch soon, though, just to get some of those nostalgia-based brain chemicals going.
Now, on to the Club!
Nibbles and Sips
I love Indian food and one of my favorite dishes is saag paneer. For some reason I thought it was just beyond my abilities (probably something to do with homemade cheese I saw someone use once), but she actually looks pretty simple if you use tofu or feta cheese. Just make sure to use ground spices.
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Just look at all that green!
Now for some books!
Short Stories by Asian Americans
The way my attention span is set up, I really appreciate a good short story. A part from that, though, I like how there have been so many authors who have gotten started in the field by first publishing short stories. I think it says a lot about the talent of a writer if they’re able to fit their entire story within a smaller word count. So, here are a few collections to highlight short story month.
Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
The stories here can be extremely odd or endearing— or both! They follow the lives of Cambodian Americans, some of whom were born in the U.S., and some who have brought memories of the Khmer Rouge genocide with them. The refugees of Afterparties adapt to new lives in California while their children try to forge their own identities, contending with sexuality, race, and community along the way.
The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu
Women and queer people fight for agency, belonging, and love in a world full of hoodoo, body-stealing witches, and Amish vampires. The magic here gets real, and the dangerous women who wield it get even realer. The first story, for example, is about a girl in Kentucky who has no family and has to murder men with hoodoo because of the witch who threatens to take her soul. Sis is… going through a lot. Liu’s writing is lush and this collection, which ends with a novella, feels like an update on the original Grimm’s fairy tales.
The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, ed. by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang
This collection was written and edited by an award-winning team of female and nonbinary Chinese writers and has stories that haven’t been translated to English before. These science fiction and fantasy stories celebrate China’s rich culture while still looking to the future. There’s a restaurant at the end of the universe, a woman and her admirer who travel on the backs of giant fish so spring can bloom, and immortality that gets cultivated in the high mountains.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Suggestion Section
Remarkably Bright Creatures is Jenna Bush Hager’s May pick
The Candy House is Belletrist’s pick
Steph Curry has a book club at Literati, and May’s pick is Portrait of a Thief
Here are some Pacific Islander authors you should know about
Here’s an interesting and close read of the first line of Mrs. Dalloway
I hope this newsletter found you well, and as always, thanks for hanging out! If you have any comments or just want to connect, send an email to erica@riotnewmedia.com or holla at me on Twitter @erica_eze_. You can also catch me talking more mess in the new In Reading Color newsletter as well as chattin’ with my new cohost Tirzah Price on the Hey YA podcast.
Until next week,
-E