I wanted to do something in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and – of course – my first stop was my booklist. Because what better way to celebrate AAPI achievements than by buying and reading amazing books? (While shopping at AAPI-owned businesses, eating at AAPI-owned restaurants, and supporting diversity and inclusion efforts at work, obviously.) I couldn’t stick to just three, but here are a few of the AAPI-authored books I’ve read and loved in recent years.

The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris – I just recently read Vice President Harris’ memoir. As the first Asian-American and Black Vice President, VP Harris has lived a fascinating and ground-breaking life (and she’s just getting started!). I loved reading about her insights and experiences.

The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan – This is probably the ultimate classic of the Chinese-American experience. It’s been years since I read it, but I remember loving it (and eagerly looking around for Waverly Street and other book landmarks when I visited San Francisco in 2009). It’s time for a re-read.

Crazy Rich Asians (trilogy), by Kevin Kwan – It doesn’t get more fun than the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, in which Chinese-American professor, Rachel Chu, falls headfirst into the world of ultrarich Singapore – via her boyfriend, Nick Young. Rachel’s culture shock, the sweet love story, and the fabulous settings and delicious food and house descriptions combine for a totally perfect trilogy. I loved every page.

Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng – It was hard deciding whether to include Ng’s first novel, Everything I Never Told You, or this one – but I liked Little Fires Everywhere just a tiny bit better. The encounters between Asian, Black and white neighbors in suburban Ohio are filled with tension. So, so good.

Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee – Family sagas are generally not my jam, but I couldn’t resist this epic, spanning decades from World War II onward. It’s a rich and compelling read.

American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang – Yang became National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in 2016, and American-Born Chinese, dual-narrative graphic novel about the experience of growing up Chinese-American, is one of his flagship works and a wonderful read.

The Wangs vs. The World, by Jade Chang – Fun (and drama-filled) family cross-country road trip taking place during the 2008 economic crisis. The Wangs tumble from super-rich to poor (or probably, really, just regular folks) and find their riches-to-rags story, and their time crammed into one car together on their way to start anew, gives their family a new lease on life. How can you go wrong? I loved this one, and need to re-read it.

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – We need more historical fiction on this list! The Buddha in the Attic is a heartbreaking story of life in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Julie Otsuka writes so beautifully.

What are your favorite AAPI reads?

There’s a bear in the Truro woods.
People have seen it–three or four,
or two, or one. I think
of the thickness of the serious woods
around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;
I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,
the cranberry bogs. And the sky
with its new moon, its familiar star-trails,
burns down like a brand-new heaven,
while everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides
shadows seem to grow shoulders. Surely
a beast might be clever, be lucky, move quietly
through the woods for years, learning to stay away
from roads and houses. Common sense mutters:
it can’t be true, it must be somebody’s
runaway dog. But the seed
has been planted, and when has happiness ever
required much evidence to begin
its leaf-green breathing?

~Mary Oliver

That’s a wrap on National Poetry Month! Feels fitting to conclude with Mary Oliver. I love the imagery in this 1979 poem. I’ve never seen a bear in the wild, although they’re quite prevalent in the Adirondacks. Up in the Great North Woods, seeing a bear would be less of a matter for commentary than seeing Bigfoot. (For the record: I’ve also never seen him.) But I love the way Oliver, here, nods to common sense – it’s probably just someone’s dog – before dismissing logic in favor of happiness and fun.

Speaking of fun, did you enjoy National Poetry Month?

I think I’ve posted music during National Poetry Month before – right? In any event, you know how sometimes a song speaks to the exact moment you’re in? I’ve been listening to The New Pornographers’ 2003 album, “Electric Version,” a lot lately, and especially to “Ballad of a Comeback Kid” on repeat. It’s become my anthem of right now.

Ever so careful, on the strip we cruise
Crippled in someone else’s shoes
Who knew? Mind you
I never had to stand in line, you did
For the ballad of a comeback kid

What’s YOUR anthem of right now?

April may be the cruelest month – rainy, muddy, and (at least in my part of the world) crusted with the evil yellow pollen – but it’s also National Poetry Month, so at least we have that going for us! I have fun choosing poems (and sometimes songs, like this week) to feature on Fridays every year, but this year I’ve been leaning in extra and reading poetry almost every day. It’s been a delight, of course, not least because there are some extremely pretty poetry collections floating around out there. At the risk of enticing you all to judge books by their covers, here are three sets that I’m loving.

Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets. First off, you can’t go wrong with a classic. The Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets collection is popular for a reason. The dust jackets are gorgeous; the small octavo size fits easily into a tote bag – or even a coat pocket – and the volumes are many, widely available, and competitively priced. I don’t have a complete set, by a long shot. But I’ve gradually added to my collection over the years, and I’ve got some gems. My favorite so far is Poems of Gratitude, which I’ve read multiple times (it’s a particularly good choice for around Thanksgiving); next up, I plan to curl up with Poems of Rome.

Candlestick Press “Instead of a Card” Collection. I saw these on BookTube and was immediately enamored. These slim volumes contain ten poems apiece on a particular subject, and come with an extra-large envelope so that you can mail them to a lucky recipient instead of a card. I believe they’re sold in bookshops in the U.K.; I ordered a handful from overseas, via BookDepository. I’ve read Ten Poems about Walking; Ten Poems for Spring; and Ten Poems about Birds thus far – I need to decide whether I’m more in the mood for baking or sheep next. I dream of the day someone actually sends me a Candlestick Press volume instead of a card. In the meantime, it’s BookDepository for me.

Faber Nature Poets. Of all the themes in the general poetic landscape, I am on record as preferring nature. And since apparently no one does poetry collections better than Faber & Faber, I was naturally intrigued (see what I did there?) by the Faber Nature Poets collection. The set of six volumes – this is a complete collection – features six different poets who focused their writing on the natural world: Wordsworth; Keats; Thomas; Clare; Hardy; Coleridge. Again, these are not widely available in the U.S. (so far as I know – I’ve never seen them in stores) but I was able to get them from BookDepository. I’ve only read the Wordsworth volume so far, but I’m looking forward to curling up with each one in turn.

Volumes of poetry don’t strictly need to be pretty, of course, but it doesn’t hurt. I love seeing these lined up neatly on my shelves, and I’ve been enjoying making my way through each collection in turn.

Do you enjoy collecting pretty volumes of poetry?

My brain is a bog, and in it there are planted
Seeds bought with money at a fair price,
Education, experience, and a packet of travel,
Taste and intelligence and good advice.

They were planted faithfully, a long time ago,
On a trim, well-weeded, well-watered bed,
And it was hoped by now there would be fine harvest,
But other things have blossomed in their stead.

There are no tall hollyhocks to mark the border,
The red roses have died – they were a total loss,
Only the bog-myrtle is blooming and the wild thyme,
And everywhere the heavy dripping moss.

There is no promise now of carnations or lilies,
But here is a little bunch that will live for an hour:
Marsh-marigolds and mint and water-plantains,
And sprigs of duckweed bursting into flower.

~Virginia Graham

This reminds me of a meme I saw on Facebook not too long ago: a woman lying face-down on a couch, glasses dangling from her hand and a book splayed out on the ground. The caption: “This can’t be the same brain I was using to read 750 page novels in three days in middle school.” So real, it hurts. I have been wondering lately what’s going on with my brain. It seems a smaller and more crowded place than it used to. I blame the pandemic, not to mention work and parenting, jostling for space. Tee-ball schedules, work deadlines, vaccination statistics, house projects, 401(k)s, school laptop connectivity issues, and an officemate who literally babbles to himself all.day.long. (as I type this, he’s sitting next to me repeating “badger badger badger badger badger badger…”) have taken over the entire mental real estate. But at least Virginia Graham can relate. Can you?

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul which through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure: —
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

~ William Wordsworth

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

~ e.e. cummings

Can’t have National Poetry Month without my very favorite poet, e.e. cummings!

I don’t remember how old I was, exactly, when I first met Anne Shirley – eight, maybe? – but I do remember exactly where I was: curled up in an armchair in the corner of my grandmother’s living room, with her flowing white drapes pooling on the floor behind my chair. I had always loved to read, for as long as I can remember, but was often resistant to Grandmother’s attempts to press books into my hands. Partly, this was because I wanted to play with the interesting knick-knacks in her house; partly it may have been her choices of books like Ben-Hur and Hiawatha, which didn’t interest me much.

Enter Anne. It was a sunny day, and I think I wanted to play outside. Grandmother handed me her copy of Anne of Green Gables, directed me to the armchair, and told me to read one chapter (or maybe two?) and then I could play. I stayed in the chair for hours.

As the years went on, even after acquiring my own copies of the Anne books, I always gravitated to Grandmother’s copy whenever I was at her house. It was this version:

And from that first experience, body in Grandmother’s armchair but spirit riding alongside Anne and Matthew through the White Way of Delight, obsession grew. It’s not a new story, is it? Bookish girl encounters Anne Shirley, acquires religious devotion to Maud, blazes through entire series and onward until all she has left is The Doctor’s Sweetheart.

Well-trodden footpath though it may be, Anne of Green Gables, and the L.M. Montgomery bibliography I powered through after that first encounter, gave me so many durable gifts. Anne is the childhood classic that has proven most enduring into my bookish adulthood. It was the first really beautifully written novel that I also found deeply engaging, and it has stood the test of time and held up to my adult tastes better than other classics I read around the same time – Heidi, for instance, or Hans Brinker or Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. L.M. Montgomery sparked my love for beautiful nature writing; a common complaint about Anne, Emily, and the lesser-known Montgomery works is too many sunsets, too many stars sparkling over snowfall, too many rapturous descriptions of gardens. I say, bring them all on – it’s a short step, not even a leap, from Maud’s nature writing to the really beautiful works being written today. And nature writing aside, Anne Shirley and Emily Starr and even Jane Stuart and Sara Stanley all pass the Bechdel test, and they showcase different types of families and profile loving and committed friendships and relationships. All of which explain why I still revisit them all regularly as an adult – and why my daughter is named after a Montgomery heroine.

When I was thirteen and a committed Anne-fan, I went to Prince Edward Island with my other grandmother. Grandmama and Grandpapa took my brother and me along on a bus trip from Boston to P.E.I. and back, with stops in Maine (for Acadia National Park and a lobster bake); Halifax, Nova Scotia; and New Brunswick.

There was plenty to love about that trip. I enjoyed it all, but the highlight was Green Gables: standing in “Anne’s bedroom” with the pretty “sprigged” wallpaper, dreaming up for myself what it would be like to wake up in that welcoming space and lean out the window to greet the day (and the Snow Queen). Close second, the uniquely beautiful P.E.I. nature; I could imagine Anne, Emily, Sara, and friends wandering these shores, the fragrances of lupine and salt mingling to create that special island magic.

On my life bookshelf, Anne of Green Gables has to take the first spot.

What is your most enduring childhood favorite?