Asian Memoir

One of America's best-known rock and entertainment journalists describes his journey from his childhood, cooped up in the "rice room" of his family's restaurant in Oakland's Chinatown, where he did chores, to the major role he played as a writer and editor at Rolling Stone. It is a story of teen worship of Elvis, but also of Chinese customs and the tragic murder of his brother, and of the '60s scene in San Francisco, where he found freedom - and his career.

This unique and informative book provides well-documented but little-known facts that will give listeners a deeper understanding of the cultural experience of Asians in America. Michael Soon Lee powerfully reveals how he overcame prejudice and discrimination to achieve success despite these obstacles.

In the inspiring tradition of Black Hawk Down, this is the riveting real-life story of how an Australian SAS signalman's courage under fire saved more than 80 lives. It is an enthralling eyewitness account of the war on terror. Jock Wallace was pumped. It was the start of Operation Anaconda, the US-led military offensive to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban from their last stronghold in the Shahi Kot Valley in Afghanistan.

In Gift of Gratitude, author Claire E. Hallinan shares her gratitude for the gifts that she was given by her past: the ability to think of all experiences as positive, the strengths that she determined to be resilient, and the future that she believed to be hopeful through her unique learning experiences. It is these gifts that she is able to share in her very own classroom as a teacher today.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, typically referred to as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (today the capital of North Macedonia), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire's Kosovo Vilayet. After 18 years in Skopje, she went to Ireland and ultimately to India, where she spent the remainder of her life. Teresa formed the Missionaries of Charity in the year 1950, a Roman Catholic spiritual order with about 4,500 nuns active in about 133 nations in the year 2012.

Since the beginning of civilization, crime and injustice has existed. At the same time, gangs in all shapes and sizes have been around, from rebels, dissidents, and rogue soldiers to the average circle of miscreants loitering in alleys and behind convenience stores. In Japan, a gang of a different breed would arise - one underscored by honor, respect, family, and a code of ethics. They are the Yakuza. The Yakuza claim to be the Robin Hoods of the Far East. While they may lean towards the other side of the law, justice is all they truly aim for.

In Our Brave Foremothers, discover an intergenerational, intercultural bouquet of Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women lifted into the significance that they deserve. From Etel Adnan to Mary Jones, Thelma Garcia Buchholdt to Pura Belpré to Zitkála-Šá, here are 100 women of color who left a lasting mark on United States history. Including both famous and little-known names, the thoughtful profiles and detailed portraits of these women herald their achievements and passions.

Fleeing the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and fueled by a burning desire for a better life, Apple embarks on a daring journey to pursue her doctoral education in America. With no backup plan, Apple has to make this journey work. But she has no idea that her starting place, Las Cruces, NM, is a quiet desert town—a far cry from the bustling metropolis she envisioned. Anxious, ignorant, broken, lost, and homesick, Apple is also excited, curious, and open-minded. Will she simply survive the fish-out-of-the-water situation many immigrants experience, or will she thrive?

Surviving the Dragon is the remarkable life story of Arjia Rinpoche, who was ordained as a reincarnate lama at the age of two and fled Tibet 46 years later. In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao’s Communist "reeducation".

The story of an extraordinary campaign in the Vietnam War - fought in a 200-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels and chambers. The campaign in the tunnels of Cu Chi was fought with cunning and savagery between Viet Cong guerrillas and special teams of US infantrymen called 'Tunnel Rats'. The location: the 200-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels and secret chambers that the Viet Cong had dug around Saigon.

If you're Irish American or African American or Eastern European Jewish American, there's a rich literature to give you a sense of your family's arrival-in-America story. Until now, that hasn't been the case for Chinese Americans. From noted historian Mae Ngai, The Lucky Ones uncovers the three-generational saga of the Tape family. It's a sweeping story centered on patriarch Jeu Dips' (Joseph Tapes') self-invention as an immigration broker in post-gold rush San Francisco, and the extraordinary rise it enables.

In July 1944, the 9,000-man Japanese garrison on the island of Tinian listened warily as the thunder of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, Army and Air Corps, descended on their neighboring island, Saipan, just three miles away. There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Saipan, but the US obliterated the opposition after a horrific all-arms campaign. The sudden silence only indicated it was now Tinian's turn.

The name Bruce Lee is synonymous with martial arts superstar. Lee’s movie career was cut tragically short by his death at just 32 years old. Starring in six big-release feature movies, Lee revolutionized martial arts movie-making and challenged Western prejudices against the East. Challenging the status quo of martial arts practice, Lee created his own unique system, Jeet Kune Do. More than a martial art, Jeet Kune Do is a philosophy for life that is founded on the art of fighting without fighting.

When China opened its doors in the 1980s, it shocked the world by allowing private enterprise and free markets. As a foreign correspondent for BusinessWeek, Dori Jones Yang was among the first American journalists to cover China under Deng Xiaoping, who dared to defy Maoist doctrine as he rushed to catch up with richer nations. Fluent in Mandarin, she got to know ordinary Chinese people - who were embracing opportunities that had once been unimaginable in China.

On August 18, 1945, US Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. Marchione, a gunner in the US Air Force, died, like so many before him in World War II, quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy. Though tragic, Marchione's death would have been no more notable than any other had he not had the dubious distinction of being the last American killed in World War II combat.

In a vast expanse of arid grasslands, under the endless canopy of the Mongolian steppe, a legend arose. This wasn't just any legend, but a tale that would span continents and generations, altering the course of history. Genghis Khan: The Saga of the Mongol Conquests invites you on a riveting journey to rediscover the life, triumphs, and enduring legacy of one of the world's most enigmatic leaders: Genghis Khan.

The photographs of three young men had stood in his grandmother's house for as long as he could remember, beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India. One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line.

There are not many Indian heroes whose lives have been as dramatic and adventurous as that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. That, however, is an assessment of his life based on what is widely known about him. These often revolve around his resignation from the Indian Civil Service, joining the freedom movement, to be exiled twice for over seven years, throwing a challenge to the Gandhian leadership in the Congress, taking up an extremist position against the British Raj, evading the famed intelligence network to travel to Europe and then to Southeast Asia.

Das Tagebuch der berühmten chinesischen Schriftstellerin Fang Fang aus einer abgeriegelten Stadt ist ein einzigartiges, ergreifendes Zeitdokument über den Kampf gegen einen unsichtbaren Feind, den die Menschen in Wuhan weltweit als erste führten. Wuhan: Am 25. Januar, zwei Tage nachdem erstmals in der Geschichte eine 9-Millionen-Einwohner-Stadt komplett von der Außenwelt abgeriegelt wurde, beginnt Fang Fang, online Tagebuch zu schreiben. Eingeschlossen in ihrer Wohnung berichtet sie vom Hereinbrechen und dem Verlauf einer Katastrophe, von der Panik während der ersten Tage der Covid-19-Epidemie bis zu ihrer erfolgreichen Eindämmung.

While Pang-Mei Natasha Chang was a Chinese Studies major at Harvard University, she stumbled across the name of her 83-year-old great aunt Chang Yu-i in a history book. Over the next several years, Pang-Mei spent long afternoons drawing forth her aunt's story. Born in Shanghai to a well-to-do family, Chang Yu-i lived a life of defiance, continually breaking class and culture barriers.