Showing posts with label Elaine Castillo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elaine Castillo. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2022

Sunny's Book Club

Sunny's Book Club
hosted by CJ Reads
YouTube | Website | instagram

Sunny’s Book Club is a monthly book club highlighting both new releases and backlist titles we love.

JUNE:
Don't Say We Didn't Warn You
by Ariel Delgado Dixon
Contemporary, Thriller, LGBTQ | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

JULY:

New Animal
by Ella Baxter
Literary, Australia | Published: 2022 | Goodreads


AUGUST:

Death by Landscape
by Elvia Wilk
Essays, Feminism, Environment, Climate Change | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4


SEPTEMBER:

Dogs of Summer
by Andrea Abreu
translated by Julia Sanches LGBTQ, Spain | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

OCTOBER:

Motherthing
by Ainslie Hogarth
Horror, Ghosts | Published: 2022 | Goodreads | my rating: 4

NOVEMBER:

How to Read Now: Essays
by Elaine Castillo
Essays | Published: 2022 | Goodreads

DECEMBER:

Out
by Natsuo Kirino
translated by Stephen B. Snyder
Thriller, Japan | Published: 2022 (first 1997) | Goodreads | my rating: 5


Saturday, June 1, 2019

Lovely Books and Things - 6.1.19

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Upcoming birthday treats, next week :-)

2. Started volunteer usher duties for this week's SF International Arts Festival (here).

3. Despite the crowds, my 4th visit to see the Monet: the Late Years at the deYoung museum.


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Bought:

Miracle Creek
by Angie Kim
-Mystery, Korea | Goodreads

Diary of a Murderer:
And Other Stories

by Young-Ha Kim
-Short Stories, Korea | Goodreads

POST CAAMfest, I am feeling like getting into more Asian related stories with these two.


Shadows on the Lake
(Commissario Stefania Valenti #1)
by Giovanni Cocco, Amneris Magella
-Mystery, Historical, Italy, Lake Como | Goodreads

FOR face-to-face group, Foreign Mystery Book Club, June pick.


Author event:


The Bindery hosted a reading and Q&A for Penguin Classics Asian American Writers Series with Karen Tei Yamashita and Elaine Castillo.

Karen read her Introduction from...

No-No Boy
by John Okada
-Historical, 1950s, Japanese American | Goodreads


Elaine read her Forward from...

America Is in the Heart: A Personal History
by Carlos Bulosan
-Memoir, 1940s, Filipino | Goodreads


The authors current releases:

I Hotel
by Karen Tei Yamashita
-Historical, Short Stories, SF Chinatown | Goodreads


America Is Not the Heart
by Elaine Castillo
-Historical, Filipino American | Goodreads


Library:

The Lost Girls of Paris
by Pam Jenoff
-Historical Fiction, WWII, Paris | Goodreads

FOR online International Book Club, June pick.


AND watched: in theatre

Walking On Water (2018)
Director: Andrey Paounov
-Documentary, Adventure, Comedy | imdb | my rating: 5

Ten years after the passing of his wife and creative partner, Jeanne-Claude, renowned environmental artist Christo sets out to realize The Floating Piers, a project they conceived together many years before. We follow his visionary quest to install a wide golden walkway floating across the scenic Italian alpine Lake Iseo, looking like a heavenly dream but sturdy enough to support hundreds of thousands of people. Christo, now in his eighties, and Vladimir Yavachev, his stalwart director of operations, are passionate and stubborn about getting everything right despite bad weather, burdensome bureaucracy and a turnout of thousands more people than were expected.

Funny at times, inspiring, and breathtakingly beautiful, WALKING ON WATER takes the viewer on an intimate journey into Christo’s world amid mounting insanity—from complex dealings between art and state politics to engineering challenges, logistical nightmares, and the sheer force of mother nature. Through spectacular aerial views and fly-on-the-wall camerawork, we watch the artist’s extraordinary vision unfold, and get to know the man chasing it. Directed by Christo’s fellow countryman, Bulgarian Andrey M. Paounov.


I was in awe of the appearance of artist, Christo, at the screening of this documentary at the Opera Plaza theatre. He spoke about his piece, The Floating Piers installed at Lake Iseo near Brescia, Italy in June 18, 2016 to July 3, 2016.

Found out the color they always use is Yellow Dahlia.


Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Director: Nahnatchka Khan
Writers: Michael Golamco, Randall Park, Ali Wong
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Ali Wong, Miya Cech
-Comedy, Romance | imdb | my rating: 5

A pair of childhood friends end up falling for each other when they grow up.

ALL around feel good film with hilarious moments. Loved that San Francisco and food were characters as well.

This Vogue theatre screening included a Q&A with director, Nahnatchka Khan and actors, Ali Wong and Randall Park and special guest Dan the Automator.

We have to keep hush hush on the appearance of a certain special guest actor in the film. Just want to say, the person was part of the hilarious moments.


AND watched: on DVD

Just My Luck
Director: Donald Petrie
Screenplay: I. Marlene King, Amy Harris
Story by: Jonathan Bernstein, Mark Blackwell, James Greer, I. Marlene King
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Chris Pine
-Comedy, Fantasy, Romance | imdb | my rating: 5

FUN, funny and cute ;-)

Miss Zombie (2013)
Director/Writer: SABU
Stars: Makoto Togashi, Ayaka Komatsu, Tateto Serizawa
-Horror, Zombies, Japan | imdb my rating: 5

A Japanese family acquires an undead domestic servant whose presence begins to effect their daily lives.

BEAUTIFUL zombie film. Really. It was shot in black and white with a splash of color in one scene which created the perfect dramatic effect. Low level "pet" zombies, provided you do not feed them meat!

*** Happy Zombie Awareness month ***

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* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Thursday, March 7, 2019

America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

America Is Not the Heart
by Elaine Castillo

Find out more about this book and author:
Goodreads

Published: 2018
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Literary, Historical, Filipino
Hardback: 408
Rating: 5

First sentence(s):
So you're a girl and you're poor, but at least you're light-skinned—that'll save you.

Three generations of women from one immigrant family trying to reconcile the home they left behind with the life they're building in America.

How many lives can one person lead in a single lifetime? When Hero de Vera arrives in America, disowned by her parents in the Philippines, she's already on her third. Her uncle, Pol, who has offered her a fresh start and a place to stay in the Bay Area, knows not to ask about her past. And his younger wife, Paz, has learned enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. Only their daughter Roni asks Hero why her hands seem to constantly ache.

Illuminating the violent political history of the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s and the insular immigrant communities that spring up in the suburban United States with an uncanny ear for the unspoken intimacies and pain that get buried by the duties of everyday life and family ritual, Castillo delivers a powerful, increasingly relevant novel about the promise of the American dream and the unshakable power of the past. In a voice as immediate and startling as those of Junot Diaz and NoViolet Bulawayo, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful telenovela of a debut novel. With exuberance, muscularity, and tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave home to grasp at another, sometimes turning back.


My two-bits:

Loved the bits of Filipino history intermingled with the Filipino American and immigrant experiences.

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* part of the Tournament of Books 2019 (here)

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Lovely Books and Things - 1.26.19

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update

Linking up with:
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Library visits

2. Homemade carrot soup

3. Tarot cards with Mucha illustrations


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Library: part of this year's Tournament of Books (here)

Call Me Zebra
by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
-Contemporary
Goodreads

The Dictionary of Animal Languages
by Heidi Sopinka
-Historical
Goodreads

The Golden State
by Lydia Kiesling
-Literary
Goodreads

The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
-Literary
Goodreads

The Parking Lot Attendant
by Nafkote Tamirat
-Literary, Africa
Goodreads

America Is Not the Heart
by Elaine Castillo
-Historical
Goodreads


AND watched: in theatre - nominated for the Oscar's 2019

Capernaum (2018)
Capharnaüm (original title)
Director/screenplay: Nadine Labaki
Screenplay: Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Keserwany, Georges Khabbaz, Khaled Mouzanar
Stars: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole
-Drama, Lebanon | imdb | my rating: 5

While serving a five-year sentence for a violent crime, a 12-year-old boy sues his parents for neglect.

LOVED this beautifully made film. The kids were wonderfully played and portrayed.

Shoplifters (2018)
Manbiki kazoku (original title)
Director/writer: Hirokazu Koreeda
Screenplay: Hirokazu Koreeda
Stars: Lily Franky, Sakura Andô, Mayu Matsuoka
-Crime, Drama, Japan | imdb | my rating: 5

A family of small-time crooks take in a child they find outside in the cold.

LOVED this too! Life living on the fringe.

The Favourite (2018)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writers: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Stars: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz
-Biography, Comedy, Drama | imdb | my rating: 5

In early 18th century England, a frail Queen Anne occupies the throne and her close friend, Lady Sarah, governs the country in her stead. When a new servant, Abigail, arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah.

OH, the costumes, setting and quirkiness makes this an enjoyable one. The dance scene, ha!

~*~

* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)
 
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