Tag: Asian American

Ep. 211 A Radical Shift with Julie Otsuka

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Today we’re speaking with Julie Otsuka, whose nationally-bestselling novel The Swimmers explores what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool. Our conversation covers the art of crafting sentences and finding the right voice. We also discuss the joy of writing in cafes, and the element of surprise.
There are no spoilers on this episode.

The Stacks Book Club selection for April is Doppelgangbanger by Cortney Lamar Charleston. We will discuss the book on April 27th with Nate Marshall.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

Connect with Julie: Website
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To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 192 Yo, Is This Racist with Andrew Ti

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Andrew Ti is the creator and co-host of the Yo, Is This Racist podcast, and a comedy and TV writer. He joins the show today to talk about his journey from a neuroscience major at Columbia to the writers room on mixed-ish. We also talk about his relationship to problematic white authors, his aversion to funny books, and more.

The Stacks Book Club selection for December is A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib, we will discuss the book on December 29th with Andrew Ti.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

Books

Everything Else

Connect with Andrew: Twitter | Instagram | Website

Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 130 The Politics of Sex with Angela Chen

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Today on The Stacks we are joined by Angela Chen, journalist and author of a brand new book on asexuality titled Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex. We talk about asexuality, the ways in which sex is politicized, involuntary celibates, and how people from marginalized groups are expected to educate the masses.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, we will discuss the book with Lupita Aquino on September 30th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Angela: Twitter | Instagram |Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 109 Trust Exercise by Susan Choi — The Stacks Book Club (Brandon Taylor)

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Its The Stacks Book Club day, and we’re discussing the 2019 National Book Award winner in fiction, Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. Our guest is Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life, and if you missed Brandon’s first episode you can hear it here. Trust Exercise looks at fiction, perspective, and truth as it ventures back to a 1980’s performing arts high school. On this episode we discuss the many twists and turns we experienced as readers and our takes on the characters. We dive deep today, and that means lots of spoilers. You’ve been warned.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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Connect with Brandon: Twitter | Instagram | Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Stacks Book Club — April 2020

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April marks the start of our third season of The Stacks. What a joy! Thank you all who have read along with The Stacks over these past two years, the show and the book club wouldn’t be what it is with out all of your enthusiasm and support.

Starting this month, we will have one book club book per month. The discussion of the book will be on the episode that falls on the last Wednesday of the month. This month that will be April 29th. Its a small change that will allow for more people to keep up with reading with The Stacks.

The Stacks will announce the book club selection on the first of the month, but you can find out a week early but tuning into the book club episode of the podcast. For example, we announced the April book on the March 25th episode of the podcast, and are announcing it now here, on April first!

So without further adieu, The Stacks Book Club pick for April 2020 is National Book Award winning novel, Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. The book looks at fiction and truth as it ventures back to a 1980’s performing arts high school. Trust Exercise is sure to inspire conversation about responsibility and desire and the ways we tell our stories.

Be sure to tune into The Stacks on April 29th for our deep dive into this book. There will be spoilers.

As always, we want to hear from you, so please reach out with your thoughts, questions, and things you want to hear discussed on the podcast. You can email us at thestackswithtraci@gmail.com, comment on this post, or reach out through Instagram @thestackspod.

Order your copies of our February books on Amazon or IndieBound.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 91 The People Who Change Us with Vanessa Hua

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Our guest today is Vanessa Hua. Vanessa is the author of A River of Stars and a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle. We talk today about the differences between writing a column versus a novel, the people who change our lives without knowing, and untraditional motherhood.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Books

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Everything Else

Connect with Vanessa: Twitter | Instagram | Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks received A River of Stars from the publisher. For more information click here.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Stacks Book Club — January 2020

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A brand new year (and decade) is just around the corner, and we’re looking forward to reading some fantastic books to kick the year off right. January 2020, is one of those rare three book months around here and we’re celebrating with three books that are completely different from one another. Variety is the spice of life, so let’s live a little!

First up, on the first day of the year, January 1st, we’re reading Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li. This novel tells the story of the inner workings of a family run Chinese restaurant and all the people who make the Duck Palace run, that is until disaster strikes. Li’s novel is a little fun, a little who-done-it, and a whole lot about what it means to be family.

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool is economist Emily Oster’s look into the studies that inform parenting decisions and fuel “mommy wars”. Oster challenges conventional wisdom using data points and cost-benefit analysis, and gives parents the freedom to decide what is best for their families. This is certainly a book about parenting, but more than that it is a book about how we can make better decisions for our lives. We will read this book on January 15th.

Our final book for the month will be Jia Tolentino’s essay collection Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion. The book is a series of essays that get at what it is to be alive right now. It is questions, contradictions, observations, and insights into the moment as explained by one of this generation’s greatest thinkers. The essays examine life on the internet, “difficult women”, and the art of the scam. It is a challenging and insightful read that we’re discussing on January 29th.

As always, we want to hear from you, so please reach out with your thoughts, questions, and things you want to hear discussed on the podcast. You can email us at thestackswithtraci@gmail.com, comment on this post, or reach out through Instagram @thestackspod.

Order your copies of our January books on Amazon or IndieBound:

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks received a copy of Cribsheet and Trick Mirror from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For more information click here.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

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Nicole Chung’s story of her transracial adoption, search for her birth parents, and becoming a mother come together beautifully in this, her memoir, All You Can Ever Know. We featured Chung and her book on The Stacks podcast, you can hear Chung talk about her process on The Short Stacks, and a full discussion of the book (with spoilers) with author Vanessa McGrady for The Stacks Book Club.

What makes All You Can Ever Know special, is Chung’s willingness to be open and vulnerable with her story. She embraces the complexities of adoption and identity, and her reader is privileged to get to hear her inner most thoughts on these subjects. Chung weaves three families together, her birth family, her adoptive family, and the family she has created with her husband in the most fluid and natural way. It all makes sense. She finds the balance between the three and that allows for a much deeper understanding of who she is.

Chung was adopted by White parents into a White family and community, and is by birth Korean. This element, her transracial adoption, was what I found most interesting. I would have loved even more about this as Chung grows older and comes into her own. We hear a lot about how it effected her as a child, and her desires to be white, or more accurately, be the same as those around her. However, as the book goes on we don’t really get to revisit her relationship to her ethnicity once out of her White hometown.

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about adoption in such an intimate way. Chung doesn’t speak for all adoptees or for anyone else in All You Can Ever Know, and yet she is able to tap into the ideas of family and belonging that feel universal. I suggest this book to lovers of memoir, people interested in adoption stories, and people who appreciate small stories.

We have so much more on All You Can Ever Know on the podcast, listen to the episodes below.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 46 All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung — The Stacks Book Club (Vanessa McGrady)

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All You Can Ever Know is an emotional memoir on adoption and identity by Nicole Chung. It is also this week’s pick for The Stacks Book Club. We are again joined by author Vanessa McGrady (author of Rock Needs River) to discuss All You Can Ever Know. We talk about transracial adoptions, adoption mythology, and expectations versus reality. There are spoilers this week, listen at your own risk, or check out The Short Stacks feature author Nicole Chung, which is spoiler free.

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Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Vanessa: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

The Short Stacks 6: Nicole Chung//All You Can Ever Know

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Today on The Short Stacks author Nicole Chung joins us to discuss her memoir, and The Stacks Book Club pick, All You Can Ever Know. The book addresses her transracial adoption, her decision to find her birth family, and becoming a mother. Nicole shares with The Stacks the chaotic setting in which she wrote the book, why she felt compelled to tell her story, and much more. There are no spoilers this week, so listen and enjoy, and then come back on Wednesday to hear our TSBC conversation around All You Can Ever Know.

LISTEN NOW

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Connect with Nicole: Website | Twitter | Instagram
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Subscribe

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.