From moving memoirs to unforgettable fiction, celebrate AAPI Heritage Month with Grand Central Publishing’s Asian American and Pacific Islander authors, with stories that inspire, challenge, and celebrate identity, culture, and community.
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Doctor by day and Bravo’s Real Housewife by night, Tiffany Moon has a prescription for releasing perfectionism and finding joy! “A must-read for anyone seeking more balance, purpose, and joy at home and at work.”—Barbara Corcoran
As a self-proclaimed “good girl,” Tiffany was a people pleaser and an A-student, fitting into the roles that were prescribed by her Chinese American family. As a lifelong overachiever, she accomplished a thriving career as an anesthesiologist. Yet Tiffany felt unfulfilled. She spent more time at work than at home with her family, didn’t know how to say “no” to anyone, and was governed by perfectionist standards. In Joy Prescriptions, Tiffany shares her journey to reconnect with herself. In order to feel whole, she had to drop the perfectionist trope and focus on rediscovering who she was.
Tiffany abandoned other people’s expectations and ultimately discovered how to live for her true self. She put herself first and embraced more creativity and laughter. Taking surprising chances on herself, she started a candle business, starred on a reality TV series, tried her hand at stand-up comedy, and became a social media influencer.
Joy Prescriptions is a must-read if you want to add more spark and joy to your life. Tiffany offers a healthy dose of introspection and healing that will release you from the constrained expectations of others and inspire you to design a joyful life that is more authentically you!
“Tiffany’s hard-earned wisdom and heartfelt stories remind us that true wealth is all about creating a life that feels rich in every way.” —Vivian Tu, New York Times bestselling author of Rich AF
Friendship is good for your health.
Studies show that loneliness is as deadly as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.
Still, we are not taught how to be good friends to one another. We cancel plans, lose touch, blame technology, and neglect our non-romantic loved ones. In Good Friends, author Priya Vulchi explores friendships across history, continents, and identities to show how friendship can open up new levels of joy and community in your life.
What is the meaning of friendship, these miraculous bonds with once-strangers? How do you begin friendships? End them? Keep them vibrant? For answers, Vulchi weaves through Western classical thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and uncovers the private moments between good friends like James Baldwin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Yuri Kochiyama, Toni Morrison, and June Jordan. Friendship, she shows, has ripple effects beyond just any two friends; it awakens solidarity and changes in the world.
Through her inspiring and impassioned prose, Vulchi entirely reimagines our platonic ties, revealing that friendship, in the right hands, is a brilliant act of love and resistance.
Intimate and engaging, Good Friends offers a resounding cry that friendship is not only vital for our own individual well-being, but for humanity itself. It invites you to be inspired not just by what people do but how people love. It invites you to look at your friends differently and enter a dazzlingly fresh philosophy of human connection.
As the Asian American daughter of immigrants, living with PTSD, and sustaining a permanent arm injury at age nine, Tiffany Yu is well aware of the intersections of identity that affect us all. She navigated the male-dominated world of corporate finance as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs before founding Diversability, an award-winning community business run by disabled people building disability pride, power, and leadership, and creating the viral Anti-Ableism series on TikTok.
Organized from personal to professional, domestic to political, Me to We to Us, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto frames context for conversations, breaks down the language of ableism, identifies microaggressions, and offers actions that lead to authentic allyship.
• How do we remove ableist language from our daily vocabulary?
• How do we create inclusive events?
• What are the advantages of hiring disabled employees, and what market opportunities are we missing out on when we don’t consider disabled consumers?
With contributions from disability advocates, activists, authors, entrepreneurs, scholars, educators, and executives, Yu celebrates the power of stories and lived experiences to foster the proximity, intimacy, and humanity of disability identities that have far too often been “othered” and rendered invisible.
Connie Chung is a pioneer. The youngest of ten children, she was the only one born in the U.S., after her parents escaped war-torn China in a harrowing journey to America, where Connie would one day make history as the first woman (and Asian) to co-anchor the CBS Evening News. Profoundly influenced by her family’s cultural traditions, yet growing up completely Americanized, she dealt with overt sexism and racism. Despite this, her tenacity led her to become a household name.
In Connie: A Memoir, Chung reveals behind-the-scenes details of her singular life. From her close relationship with Maury Povich, her husband and professional confidant; to the horrific memory of being molested by the doctor who had delivered her; to her joy of adopting their son when she was almost fifty, she does not hold back. She talks honestly about the good, bad, and ugly in her personal and professional life—this is Connie Chung like you’ve never seen her before.
“This delightful memoir is filled with Connie Chung’s trademark wit, sharp insights, and deep understanding of people. It’s a revealing account of what it’s like to be a woman breaking barriers in the world of TV news, filled with colorful tales of rivalry and triumph. But it also has a larger theme: how the line between serious reporting and tabloid journalism became blurred.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR’S PICK • A LA TIMES AND PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH
Somewhere in New York City, Lata Murthy knows there is another person with her name living a much more interesting life. That’s because Lata often receives the other Lata’s emails: invites to Hampton soirees, fundraising appeals from the New York City Ballet and reminders about sample sales at Soho boutiques. Lata’s own life—working in digital content, watching Food Network marathons, spending recklessly on clothes she can’t afford—feels pathetic in comparison. So, one day she decides to take on this other Lata’s identity and jumps headfirst into the glamorous New York lifestyle … but not without consequences.
At first, it all feels like a fairy tale. All of Lata’s NYC dreams come true: she gets a higher-paying job, moves into a chic Chelsea apartment and is embraced by an elite friend group that includes Rajeev, an up-and-coming fashion designer intent on making a splash at New York Fashion Week. But Lata doesn’t just catch the attention of the handsome fashion designer—she also incurs the wrath of the mysterious woman she is impersonating. And this Other Lata wants Lata to pay…but in the oddest of ways. Other Lata’s blackmail seems designed to humiliate Lata in front of her wealthy new circle, and Lata has no choice but to submit to her demands if she doesn’t want to lose her new friends and lifestyle.
Despite Other Lata’s machinations, Lata and Rajeev’s romance finds ways to blossom. But when Other Lata’s demands change from mischievous to illegal, Lata must find a way to extricate herself from Other Lata’s control once and for all.
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty.
*Includes reading group guide*
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE
Roxane Gay’s Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER
From acclaimed Japanese author Sanaka Hiigari comes a heartwarming, life-affirming novel about a magical photo studio, where people go after they die to view key moments from their life—and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife.
The hands and pendulum of the old wooden clock on the wall were motionless. Hirasaka cocked his head to listen, but the silence inside the photo studio was almost deafening. His leather shoes sank softly into the aging red carpet as he strode over to the arrangement of flowers on the counter and carefully adjusted the angle of the petals…
This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaka, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard.
Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes via Mr. Hirasaka’s “spinning lantern of memories.”
We meet Hatsue, a ninety-two year old woman who worked as a nursery teacher, the rowdy Waniguchi, a yakuza overseer in his life who is also capable of great compassion, and finally Mitsuru, a young girl who has died tragically young at the hands of abusive parents.
Sorting through the many photos of their lives, Mr. Hirasaka also offers guests a second gift: a chance to travel back in time to take a photo of one particular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish in a special way.
Full of charm and whimsy, The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia, laughter, and love.
Angelina Lee feels like she doesn’t belong. Newly divorced and completely unmoored by the sudden, tragic death of her mother, she hopes studying Korean will reconnect her to her roots. But nothing about Seoul feels familiar. Further complicating matters is the resurgence of an alluring man from Angelina’s past, and fellow classmate Keisuke Ono, an irritatingly good-looking Japanese American journalist who refuses to leave her alone. Angelina is reluctant to admit the true reason for her trip—trying to understand her mother’s suicide. A shocking conversation with an estranged relative proves her suspicion correct: her mother had an older sister, Sunyuh, who disappeared under the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII—a secret the family buried for over sixty years.
Angelina knows, deep down, her mother’s fateful decision must be linked to Sunyuh. To find answers, Angelina embarks on a journey that takes her across oceans and continents, and challenges everything she believed about herself and her heritage. Told through the bold, determined voices of three women, this poignant family drama explores love, grief, healing, and the complicated love that exists between mothers and daughters. It’s about the questions we wish we had asked lost relatives, the lives we could have lived had we made different choices, and, above all, second chances.
Rooted in the story of his own transformative journey, a monk and internationally beloved founder of Yoga of Immortals shares the methods he uses to help us tap into our unlimited potential.
Ishan Shivanand was born into an ancient lineage of yogis spanning twenty-one generations, and spent the first twenty years of his life in a Himalayan monastery. Grounded in the traditions of yoga, meditation, martial arts, storytelling, and herbal medicine, he developed the Yoga of Immortals (YOI) protocol, which is designed to help followers combat stress, anxiety, depression, and create healthy individuals and healthy communities. The Practice of Immortality shares these lessons and practices. In a world suffering the effects of fear, competitiveness, and anger, Ishan encourages us to take a step back.
Structured as a thoughtful narrative with practices based in the true intentions and meaning of yoga, The Practice of Immortality will help you achieve that which you never thought possible.
When Nancy Kwan burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, Asian characters in film were portrayed by white actors in makeup playing “yellowface,” and those minor roles were the stuff of cliché: shopkeepers, maids, prostitutes, servants. When—against all odds—Nancy landed the lead role in the much-anticipated 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong, she became an international superstar and was celebrated for her beauty, grace, authenticity, and spunk: a “Chinese Garbo,” the “Asian Bardot.” From Hong Kong to London, Hollywood and beyond, The World of Nancy Kwan charts Nancy’s journey. The obstacles she faced, the prejudices she overcame, and how her success created paths for others.
Never allowing show business to change her, Kwan persevered in an industry where everything was stacked against her, breaking through barriers and becoming a beacon of hope to generations of Asians who aspired to be seen. The World of Nancy Kwan is a multi-faceted personal history of an iconic actress whose triumphant rise and resilience illuminates the broader history of Hollywood and how the only way forward is to stay true to oneself.