About Xixuan

I don’t read as much as I would like, and even less keep a good record of what I read. I read new books as well as old ones. I read children’s books with my son. A few favorite authors are Haruki Murakami, Charles Yu, Lisa See, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Sue Monk Kidd, Lin Yutang, and Eileen Chang.  

Babel- R.F. Kuang 

The Little Disturbance of Man - Grace Paley

Mystery Lights- Lena Valencia

Meander, Spiral, Explode - Jane Alison

American Pastoral - Phillip Roth

A Gentleman in Moscow - Armor Towles

Homeseeking - Karissa Chen

My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

Swamplandia! - Karen Russell

Goddess Complex - Sanjena Sathian

The Antidote - Karen Russell

Typical American - Gish Jen

A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies - Deesha Philyaw

American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld

Small Rain - Garth Greenwell

Madras on Rainy Days - Samina Ali

Gold Diggers - Sanjena Sathian

Blackouts - Justin Torres

River East, River West - Aube Rey Lescure

Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmy Ward

Their Divine Fires (ARC) - Wendy Chen

  Read my interview of Wendy Chen here: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/interviews/can-we-truly-be-free-our-past-conversation-wendy-chen-xixuan-collins

  Read my review of this book in North American Review here:

  https://northamericanreview.org/open-space/review-x-h-collins

Blank - Zibby Owens

To Live - Yu Hua 活着 - 余华

Stay True - Hua Hsu

Yellow Face -R. F. Kuang

Get Signed- Lucinda Halpern

Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again - Elizabeth Strout

I Am Homeless if This Is Not Mt Home - Lorrie Moore

Elsewhere - Yan Ge

  Read my review of this book in Asian Cha here:

  https://chajournal.blog/2024/05/26/elsewhere-stories/

The Great Divide - Cristina Henriquez

You Never Get It Back - Cara Blue Adams

Shanghailanders - Juli Min

A Map for The Missing - Belinda Huijuan Tang

Refuse to Be Done - Matt Bell

The Triggering Town - Ricard Hugo

Tell Everyone I said Hi - Chad Simpson

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Chemistry - Weike Wang

Don't Forget The Girl - Rebecca McKanna

The First Bad Man - Mirada July

Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson

Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout

All Fours - Miranda July

Groundskeeping - Lee Cole

Masquerade - Mike Fu

Come & Get It - Kiley Reid

Anita de Monte Laughs Last - Xochitl Gonzalez

Monsignor Quixote - Graham Greene (APS Together read)

James - Percival Everett

Orbital - Samantha Harvey

A Table for The Time Being - Ruth Ozeki

Natural History - Andrea Barrett

The 12th Commandment - Daniel Torday

The Sense of Wonder - Matthew Salesses

Trust Exercise - Susan Choi

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Lori Gottlieb

And It Begins Like This - LaTanya McQueen

Between The World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Bad Feminists - Roxane Gay

Against White Feminism - Rafia Zakaria

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Feed the Lake - essay collection on craft

Normal People-Sally Rooney

Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid

The Book of Goose - Yiyun Li

The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo

Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld

The Porcelain Moon - Janie Chang

Firefly Lane - Kristin Hannah

Swing Time - Zadie Smith

Cleopatra's Dagger - Carole Lawrence

Asian American Histories of The United States - Catherine Ceniza Choy

Mississippi River Museum - Keith Pilapil Lesmeister

You Have Reached Your Destination - Louise Marburg

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

长恨歌 - 王安忆

生死疲劳 - 莫言

人景与风景 - 聂华苓

The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

The Mothers - Brit Bennett

Wednesday's Child - Yiyun Li

The Moon Represents My Heart - Pim Wangtechawat

雪山大地 - 杨志军

Tulip 郁金香 - Chun Sue 春树

The End of the Story - Lydia Davis

Fifty Words for Rain - Asha Lemmie

Girls Left Behind - Emily Gunnis

The Fraud - Zadie Smith

Viscount Overboard - Misty Urban (my review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5990759847?type=review#rating_664236453)

Bernadine's Shanghai Shanghai Salon - Susan Blumberg-Kason (my review in Asian Cha: https://chajournal.blog/2023/11/28/bernardine/ )

The Balcony (Jane Delury)

Dear Mr. President - Gabe Hudson

The War Begins in Paris - Theodore Wheeler

Skipping Stones: A Memoir of Teaching - Galen Leohardy

Counterfeit - Kirstin Chen

Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan

The Searcher - Tana French 

The Family Chao - Lan Samantha Chang

We Heard It When We Were Young - Chuy Renteria

Body Work - Melissa Febos

Peach Blossom Spring - Melissa Fu

Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

White Ivy - Susie Yang

Olga Dies Dreaming - Xochitl Gonzalez

When the Reckoning Comes - LaTanya McQueen

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

The Last Rose of Shanghai - Weina Dai Randel

Mrs. Everything - Jennifer Weiner

The Committed - Veit Thanh Nguyen

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

Dust Tracks on a Road - Zora Neale Hurston

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

 张爱玲：我站在原地只等你一人 - 林系言

The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

The Great Divorce - CS Lewis

On Greif and Grieving - Kubler-Ross and Kessler

China’s Millennial Digital Generation: Conversations with Balinghou (Post-1980s) Indie Filmmakers - Karen Ma (read my review here: https://chajournal.blog/2022/10/12/chinese-filmmakers/)

Our Missing Hearts - Celeste Ng

北京娃娃 - 春树 (Beijing Doll - Chun Sue)

Bookends - Zibby Owens

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

乳牙 - 春树 （Milk Teeth - Chun Sue)

Hush Hush Hush - Audra Kerr Brown

The Writing Life - Annie Dillard

My Salinger Year - Joanna Rakoff

Characteristics with Chinese Characteristics  - Ping Zhu and Hui Faye Xiao (ed.) (Review coming soon)

The Best American Essays 2022 - Alexander Chee (ed.)

Tokyo Ueno Station - Miri Yu (Translated by Morgan Giles)

Real Life - Brandon Tyler 

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

How Much of These Hills is Gold - C Pam Zhang

The Lost Jewels - Kirstin Manning

Intimations (a thin volume of my favorite essays about the pandemic)- Zadie Smith 

Craft in the Real World - Matthew Salesses

The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

A little Life (Audio book) - Hanya Yanagihara

Land of Big Numbers - Te-Ping Chen

Pachinko - Min Jin Lee

Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart

The Gospel of Gentility - Jane Hunter

The Conversion of Missionaries - Lian Xi

Good Chinese Wife - Susan Blumberg-Kason

My Walk with Grief - Elaine K. Olson

Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer

Minor Feelings - Cathy Park Hong

Rabbit in the Moon - Heather Diamond

And I Do Not Forgive You - Amber Sparks

Married, Living in Italy - Misty Urban

Squared Away - Alicia Dill

The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich

Let Me Tell you What I Mean - Joan Didion

Whiteout Conditions - Tariq Shah

My Day as Regan Forrester - Misty Urban

Golden Inches, the China Memoir - Grace Service

Nightbitch -Rachel Yoder

The Incendiaries - R. O. Kwon

The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tze, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Queen of The Night - Alexander Chee

Upstream Odyssey - Danial W. Crofts

The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan (re-read for IPR Talk of Iowa Book Club0

In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado

Never Let Me Go -  Kazuo Ishiguro 

Night Rooms - Gina Nutt

Disgrace -  J. M. Coetzee 

The Book of Longings – Sue Monk Kidd

Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu

The Mountains Sing -  Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai 

River Bend Chronicles – Ben Miller

The Mermaid Chair – Sue Monk Kidd

The Year of the Rat – Grace Lin

The Refugees – Viet Thanh Nguyen

Dear Friend, from My life, I Write to You – Yiyun Li

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers -  Yiyun Li

Kinder than Solitude – Yiyun Li

The Song of the Jade Lily – Kirsty Manning

The Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston

China Man – Maxine Hong Kingston

The Hundred Year Flood – Matthew Salesses

The Bride Finder – Susan Carroll

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel – Alexander Chee

Walking on Water - Madeleine L'Engle

Madame Bovary's Ovaries - David P. Barash and Nanelle R. Barash

Belabored - Lyz Lenz

Disappear, Doppelgänger Disappear - Matthew Salesses

A Candle for San Simon - Kelly Daniels

Edinburgh - Alexander Chee

Third Class Super Hero -Charles Yu

Sorry, Please, Thank You - Charles Yu

Nights When Nothing Happened -Simon Han

Gork, The Teenage Dragon - Gabe Hudson

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Chinglish – Sue Pickford Cheung

The Tenth Muse - Catherine Chung

God Land – Lyz Lenz

The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan - Ben Foss

The War on Normal People – Andrew Yang

How to Change Your Mind – Michael Pollan

What We Were Promised – Lucy Tan

Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng

The Island of Sea Woman – Lisa See

The Rules of Magic – Alice Hoffman

Elegies for Uncanny Girls – Jennifer Colville

Killing Commendatore – Haruki Murakami

The Necessaries – Misty Urban

Dog Logic – Tom Strelich

Shattered Pearl – Jodie Toohey

The Old Guard – Tom McKay

Men Without Women – Haruki Murakami

Moment in Peking– Lin Yutang (I read the Chinese version earlier)

The Percy Jackson Series - Rick Riordan

The Alvin Ho Series (Yes, Chinese family!) - Lenore Look and Leuyen Pham

A wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

The Year of the Dog - Grace Lin

The Year of the Rat - Grace Lin

A Night Divided - Jennifer A. Nielsen

The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate

Bud, Not Buddy - Christopher Paul Curtis (Highly recommend Mrs. Leonardo's audio book on YouTube. The way she reads the book gives me even more joy)

The Front Desk and Three Keys - Kelly Yang

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (second time)

The Lost Ryu - Emi Watanabe Cohen

Morning Sun in Wuhan - Ying Chang Compestine

Girl Forgotten - April Henry (Notes about this book: My son's school is reading this book, so I decided to read it myself. I’m troubled by the portrayal of a very minor character. Most people will not even notice, I’m sure, but I can’t help but think about the one stereotype of Asian girls in the media (in this case, judging by the name Susie Yang is Chinese; earlier, Piper also said Alice, her best friend, was Asian), aka “that crazy Asian girl you dated in high school,” who fell in love so quickly, so passionately, so needy, so prone to extreme emotion, and so out of control. In this book, the starter girlfriend got her and the poor good white boy in an accident and put to an end his Division I baseball perspective while she died. My problem is, why does this girl have to be Asian? It doesn’t do anything to move the story forward or create tension in the story. It’s a dangerous way to be “inclusive” in creating diverse, non-white characters but only present these characters in a stereotypical way, a racist trope)