KCU / CCPL present Adventure Begins @ Your Library - Asia

Bronze and Sunflower - Cao Wenxuan

Summary (from CCPL's catalog): "Taken in by a poor family in a rural village after the death of her father, Sunflower bonds with the family's only child, Bronze, who has not spoken since being traumatized by a terrible fire."

Olive Hill Branch - JF AUD WEN

Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu

Summary (from CCPL catalog): "Every day Willis Wu leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy-- and he sees his life as a script. After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he has ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family, and what that means for him in today's America. -- adapted from jacket."

Olive Hill Branch - F YU

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

Summary (from Amazon): "In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want—husband, country home, successful career—but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and set out to explore three different aspects of her nature, against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

Olive Hill Branch - NF 910.4 GIL

Grayson Branch - NF 910 GIL

The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman

Summary (from Amazon.com): "Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path..."

Olive Hill - F HOFF

A Single Shard - Linda Sue Park

Summary (from KCU YL's catalog): "Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch'ulp'o, a potters' village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the potter's craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is elated-until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min's irascible temper, and his own ignorance. But Tree-ear is determined to prove himself-even if it means taking a long, solitary journey on foot to present Min's work in the hope of a royal commission-even if it means arriving at the royal court with nothing to show but a single celadon shard."

J F P2359s (Ford Collection)

A Wish in the Dark - Christina Soontornvat

Summary (from KCU YL's catalog): "A boy on the run. A girl determined to find him. A compelling fantasy looks at issues of privilege, protest, and justice. All light in Chattana is created by one man--the Governor, who appeared after the Great Fire to bring peace and order to the city. For Pong, who was born in Namwon Prison, the magical lights represent freedom, and he dreams of the day he will be able to walk among them. But when Pong escapes from prison, he realizes that the world outside is no fairer than the one behind bars. The wealthy dine and dance under bright orb light, while the poor toil away in darkness. Worst of all, Pong's prison tattoo marks him as a fugitive who can never be truly free. Nok, the prison warden's perfect daughter, is bent on tracking Pong down and restoring her family's good name. But as Nok hunts Pong through the alleys and canals of Chattana, she uncovers secrets that make her question the truths she has always held dear. Set in a Thai-inspired fantasy world, Christina Soontornvat's twist on Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is a dazzling, fast-paced adventure that explores the difference between law and justice--and asks whether one child can shine a light in the dark."

J F So63w (Ford Collection)

My Year Abroad - Chang-rae Lee

Summary (from KCU YL's catalog): "Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself."

GR LEE

Dragonfly Eyes - Cao Wenxuan

Summary (from KCU YL's catalog): "Ah Mei has always been close to her French grandmother, Nainai, and is proud to look like her. But in their home city of Shanghai, many people are suspicious of their European heritage and looks. Politics and war make 1960s Shanghai a difficult place to grow up, especially when the family silk business is given over to the government and they are left with their beloved home and little else. Ah Mei and her grandmother suffer, but they are resourceful and have each other, and the tenderness they share brings them great strength."

J F W4889d (Ford Collection)

The Travels of Marco Polo - Marco Polo

Summary (from amazon.com): "The Travels of Marco Polo offers a sweeping panorama of Persia, China, Japan, and other lands in the last half of the thirteenth century."

Folk-Tales of Bengal - Lal Behari Day

Summary (from librivox.com): "Folk-Tales of Bengal is a collection of folk tales and fairy tales of Bengal written by Lal Behari Dey. The book was published in 1883. The illustrations by Warwick Goble were added in 1912. All these stories were passed from generation to generation for centuries."

The Eyes of Asia - Rudyard Kipling

Summary (from amazon.com): "The Eyes of Asia is a slim, charming booklet containing articles originally published in 1917 in The Morning Post. It collects Kipling’s articles describing Sikh soldiers’ experiences of the First World War. It also includes four original letters written to relations and friends at home in India by soldiers of the Indian Army who were on active service in Europe and Africa in 1915-18."

Korean Folk Tales - Im Bang

Summary (from amazon.com): "Stories of the East is not typical of Woolf, but these three pieces are of vital importance in understanding his mistrust of and dislike for colonialism. The stories provide disturbing commentaries about the disintegration of the colonial process and the uncomfortable moral ground occupied by the servants of the British Government in Ceylon prior to the Great War."

Twelve Treasures of the East: Legends and Folk Tales from Asia - Tutu Dutta-Yean

Summary (from amazon.com): "A collection of twelve timeless folktales and legends from Asia."

Seven Wonders of Ancient Asia - Michael Woods

Summary (from amazon.com): "Take a new look at ancient history through the seven wonders of a geographical or cultural region. Each book in this series explains the qualities that makes something a 'wonder', with information about how the wonders were constructed, how they were discovered or preserved, how they are studied, and if and how they are used in modern times."

Seven Natural Wonders of Asia and the Middle East - Michael Woods

Summary (from amazon.com): "Without any human influence, nature has created extraordinary wonders - from majestic mountains and bubbling volcanoes to amazing plants and animals. These wonders are found across all the continents and oceans of this planet. In a tour of the seven greatest wonders of Asia and the Middle East, one of the first wonders we'll see is Mount Everest, between Nepal and Tibet. It's the tallest mountain on Earth. We'll also visit the Chocolate Hills in the Philippines. In the dry season, these hills look like afield of chocolate kisses. The salty Dead Sea sits between Israel and Jordan. If you were to swim in this sea, you wouldn't even sink."

Tales from the 1001 Arabian Nights - Sir Richard Francis Burton

Summary (from Google Books): "Bawdy and exotic, 1001 Arabian nights features the wily and seductive Shahrazad, who saves her own life by telling tales of magical transformation, genies and wishes, flying carpets and fantastical journeys, terror and passion to entertain and appease the brutal King Shahryar."

The Jade Story Book: Stories from the Orient - Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens

Summary (from librivox.com): "A collection of folklore gathered from India, China, Japan, the Philippines, and Persia."

A Bachelor Girl in Burma - G. E. Mitton

Summary (from librivox.com): "Miss Mitton was an unusual English woman of her time. As a published author, this unmarried woman in her early 30s recorded her visit to Burma (and Ceylon) at the turn of the 20th century. Her language is picturesque, and her attitude toward the natives of this country is typical of her era. Burma of the early 1900s was, and still is, a little known and underappreciated destination for those who love to wander the world. Anyone interested in Edwardian travel, attitudes, and women's issues during the Edwardian colonial period will enjoy this travelogue."

Across Asia on a Bicycle - Thomas Gaskell Allen

Summary (from librivox.com): "In 1890, two Americans newly graduated from college set out to travel around the world on a then-new invention, the modern bicycle. In 1893 they returned, have covered over 15,000 miles, at that time the "longest continuous land journey ever made around the world." This is their account of their trip across Turkey, Persia, Turkestan and northern China. It described their adventures traveling along through regions few outsiders ever visited."

Korean Folk Tales - Im Bang

Summary (from librivox.com): "To any one who would like to look somewhat into the inner soul of the Oriental, and see the peculiar spiritual existences among which he lives, the following stories will serve as true interpreters, born as they are of the three great religions of the Far East, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism." Manuscripts by two of Korea's (possibly) most famous authors, dating from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were uncovered in the early years of the twentieth century. Translation revealed stories that are not for the faint-hearted: gruesome, harsh, unlovely, depicting scenes of the day, as well as the hope for better things."