#jer reader mode

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Currently reading: "Magically Black and Other Essays" by Jerald Walker (Amistad, 2024)

Imagine my surprise and immediate delight when I came across this in Libby! Jerald Walker is one of my favorite essayists--great storyteller, great commentary on race through humor and irony. For some reason, I never caught the news that he had a new book coming out, so I had no idea. Just the other day, I remembered that I didn't have his previous collection because I had gifted it to a friend, and now I'm sad that I don't have that book. Walker is one of those authors where I KNOW I need to buy the book because I'll be referring back to it often as an essayist.

I got a chance to listen to almost halfway through the book in one day because I was without a car and taking a train and bus to get around. It accompanied me throughout that afternoon, and the signature humor made me smile.

I usually don't read two books at once, but this one is an audiobook while the other one is a print book, so I read one or the other whenever the moment calls for it. Can't wait to finish this book.

[jerxiong]

Currently Reading: World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Milkweed, 2020)

Status: in progress (about halfway through the book; third time picking this up and getting farther than before)

Thoughts: This essay collection is really proving to me that I'm really, really, really bad with nature. I'm not one of those people who grew up immersed in nature--my parents didn't really take my family on hikes, camping, never really took us to the mountains, to forests, to beaches, to national parks. It was probably only a handful of times. What I learned from nature really came from school, like learning about poison oak and poison ivy--even though to this day, I still don't know the difference and would not recognize it if I came across it. I didn't do "nature" things until I was older, when my sisters were allowed to drive us out to do more things outside; when I was in college where I'd do more activities with them.

So, it's been really hard to finish this book. It's not boring, per se. It's doing straightforward essaying, using nature to talk about or connect back to memories to do with identity and race. I'm just having a difficult time conjuring the images in my head. I don't recognize them, I don't know their names. It's hard.

Strangely, my parents and grandparents were garden folks and so those were the things I recognized the most that their hands built: thai chili peppers, cilantro, green onion, squash, peaches.

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Quick Recap: Books I read between February-September 2025

Oops, I accidentally forgot to update my reading journey. I was reading--I finished Jerald Walker's book--but then I got busy with weddings! I got married in early spring and mid-summer this year sooo I definitely wasn't prioritizing reading this summer. But!

A quick recap via my BlueSky (including some books I have mentioned already here before).

Kao Kalia Yang's memoirs. One of the first Hmong writers I read in college, she writes emotional & beautiful memoirs. Haven't read the last two in a while, but "Where Rivers Part" was heartbreaking. I had forgotten some things about the Hmong experience; this reminded me of stories from my parents.

Putsata Reang was born in Cambodia & raised in rural Oregon. I have an affinity for writers from rural places. This book resonated: growing up in white spaces, a particular protectiveness over mom, & having one's partner rejected by parents. Also, I learned more about Cambodian refugees' history. ["Ma and Me"]

Ly navigates life while helping her parents make a life in the '90s in Queens. With worsening eyesight & no support, it leads to other issues…I had some questions, but overall, resonated with me: the shattering self-image, the anxiety from parents' expectations while understanding their trauma. ["House of Sticks" by Ly Tran]

Borrowed from a friend, I read this #Hmong book last week. Though not titled a memoir, it essentially is one, chronicling his young years w/ family escaping & then growing up in Minnesota. Then, desperate to achieve his dreams, he makes mistakes and ends up in state & federal prison. ["Thoughts From Prison: A Hmong Boy's Journey from the Mountains of Laos to the American Urban Jungle" by Chance Chang Vang]

Read this earlier this year based on a rec from a friend. Heartbreaking, painful to read at times, but the author's journalistic personal inquiry into complex trauma was enlightening and interesting. ["What My Bones Know" by Stephanie Foo]

Heartbreaking. Bittersweet. Painful. This chapters-long letter of a book addressing a mother that she can no longer reach--despite the mother being alive--because of so many reasons…utterly full of regret and aching and pleas. This book honestly broke me. ["They Called Us Exceptional" by Prachi Gupta.]

I took a couple months off of reading after the June wedding since I also went on my honeymoon in July. I finally had some time to read in August and September, helping me finish "All You Can Ever Know" by Nicole Chung, a 2018 memoir.

Chung, who is a Korean American adoptee, details life growing up wondering why her biological parents gave her up. I bought the book on a whim a few years ago, but never got around to finishing it. I got maybe 40 pages in and then just didn't have the time. However, I was able to check out the audiobook version on Libby and finally finished it during my work commute. It ended up being a bit different than I thought. For some reason, my assumption was that this book might dig into the adoptive system more, especially for Korean babies--and even more so because now there's stories about how Korean mothers were forced to give away their children. However, I have to remember that this story written before those recent 2024/2025 revelations. This book was written in 2018. Anyhow, I think the memoir is still written compellingly and with themes that resonates for anyone who's felt all too conscious of their differences when compared to Whiteness.

After finishing, I noticed that Nicole also had a second memoir about her adoptive parents, published in 2023. So, post-pandemic. Listening to the audiobook, the narrating voice of Nicole is still clearly hers. The style and candence are definitely hers. And this one is quite more devastating than the first. It's about how she lost both her adoptive parents to illness and cancer. Losing her father first (pre-pandemic) and then her mother (during pandemic) is truly painful.

[jerxiong]

Semi-completed: "Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes" by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco, 2023) *audio version*

Status: completed all the nonfiction essays; did not listen to the fiction stories since it's not of my interest at this time.

Thoughts: I should look up the reader for this. I've never heard Anthony read, so I imagine this is similar to what he sounds like, but of course, I am probably completely wrong. Anthony passed away in 2020, just as his first book, a story collection titled "Afterparties," was going to come out. He was a highly anticipated and "new" writer, as in he was just about to debut a book. He was a queer Cambodian American, which piqued my interest as someone also from the Southeast Asian community in the United States. And, he's from Stockton, California, a city I know of and have family and friends who live there or have come from there.

"Songs on Endless Repeat" is a mix collection of his writings, both fiction and nonfiction, that were either published in literary magazines or were completed but not polished before his death.

I think I'll pick up the physical printed copy of this book sometime in the future. I want to revisit these essays so for now I'll borrow it on the Libby app.