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This book is amazing. Not sure I was in the head space for something that punches you in the gut in the first section but that does not make this less amazing. The author has a unique narrative style that I appreciate.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks (it's possible that I am behind and this was a January book)

So this title is featured on a few banned booklists and that in and of itself disgusts me. Yes, this is a hard read but one I feel everyone should take time to read. This is part of my Japanese culture and author reading challenge. This author is so very good and I will definitely pick up more of her titles.

(2002) It's a small, lean story about a family taken into an internment camp during WWII. It's powerfully effective in communicating both the experiences of the imprisoned Japanese-Americans, and the outrage of the nation's actions. Highly recommended.

Also: banned from the curriculum in a Wisconsin school district for being too one-sided. Which pretty much tells you which side the school board is on. And why we need to keep reading #BannedBooks

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks for November: a banned book about the Japanese Internment; and a 3 Investigators mystery. Looking forward to these. Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

A small but impactful book about one American family's forced internment in a Japanese camp during WWII and the after effects. Otsuka's choice to not give the characters names makes the work feel both more intimate and like these people could have been anyone - even you. Masterfully told and an important American tale to know.

“There were the people inside the train and the people outside the train and in between them there were the shades. A man walking alongside the tracks would just see a train with black windows passing by in the middle of the day. He would think, There goes the train, and then he would not think about the train again. He would think about other things. What was for supper, maybe, or who was winning the war“ (49).

I loved ‘The Buddha in the Attic‘ so when I was told how incredible Otsuka‘s debut novel was, I had to read it too. This is also a slim book chronicling the experience of Japanese Americans in the 1940‘s, but this one focuses on a family. I love Otsuka‘s writing, she breaks my heart in a thousand tiny ways and makes me feel as though I‘m living inside the story. This will stay with me. ❤️

#BookReport #DaiseysReadingWeek
📖 When the Emperor Was Divine

#CurrentlyReading
🎧 Sense & Sensibility #PemberLittens
📖 From Striving to Thriving
📖 The Silmarillion #FellowshipofTolkien
📖 & 🎧 Love‘s Labour‘s Lost #ShakespeareReadalong
🎧 Moby Dick #LitsyBookClub

#WeeklyForecast
📚 Just catch up & keep up with current readalongs

This book is written in a style that felt sparse and distant. It fit the topic, a family‘s experience in a Japanese internment camp, but it also kept me from feeling connected to the characters. I especially appreciated the end sections describing the experience of the family and soldiers returning to their homes after the war.

#CatsofLitsy

I‘m reading a few more pages of this novel with a homemade baked chocolate doughnut this morning. I understand reasons authors choose to write a story without names, but it also sometimes keep the story a bit distant.

#BookAndBreakfast

Julie Otsuka‘s When the Emperor Was Divine is our Common Read book this year. She was here tonight as part of that. Her stories were really interesting— WtEWD is such a serious book that I was surprised when she said that she at first envisioned herself as a comic writer.

My thrifty finds - I‘ve been wanting to read the tagged book so lucky day! I read Mrs. Dalloway so long ago I don‘t recall anything about it, maybe the second round will leave an impression. I enjoyed the Candleford series on TV - I‘m guessing the trilogy will be a terrific comfort read when I‘m back in another course next week. 😢

New books arrived!!

The story was good, the writing so-so.

This short novel of a family sent to the Japanese internment camps during World War 2 packs a powerful punch. The lack of characters' names distances them, yet at the same time, presents an almost universal example of what the experience was like for a family. And that example is heartbreaking, all the more powerful for the spare writing style. It makes for a very uncomfortable reading experience - which is precisely what it's meant to be.

Here are the books on the docket for today's #WinterStormReadathon along with my morning coffee. Tagged book is on the Kindle and I'm #currentlyreading the top 3 and the bottom will be the next one to start after finishing one.

Nothing much happens in this beautifully written novel — a Japanese family is transported to an internment camp in Utah during WWII, while the husband and father is imprisoned elsewhere as a dangerous enemy of the US. The characters are nameless but you empathize with them anyway because you‘re let into the psychological worlds they inhabit.

Up next for the Common Read consideration reading and for the #24B42019 readathon.

This book follows an unnamed Japanese family as they‘re sent to interment camps during World War II. You follow the story through different points of view. It‘s so sad to see the struggle that they went through just for being Japanese at a time of war.

I recommend this one. I thought it was beautifully written.

I have my cuddle buddy here as I start on another book. I‘m excited to read this one.

A slim novel that packs a punch, this is about a Japanese family in the US who is forced into an internment camp during WWII. Each chapter tells the story from the point of view of a different family member: mother, father, daugher, son. It's a sobering look at a dark time in our nation's history--and a warning for our nation's current political rhetoric.

Ohh it went down in price, from 12.99 to 5.99 yay!! To bad, I can't get it right now.

Three out of five stars, maybe? I liked it, but felt the story was a bit unfinished - I wanted more.

My #tbrpile for February. Reading To the Lighthouse (thanks @Sarah83 ) for book club, and Judas (thanks @Cinfhen ). Also very much looking forward to rereading Nuruddin Farah and to read Siri Hustvedt. #readinggoals #readingresolutions @Jess7

This book hits on all of the cruelties of the internment: being taken away from your home, your life, your loved ones, your job, as well as the difficulty of coming back (or not, as most people found there was nothing to go back to).
The picture is a piece of a my Hiroshige print I recently received from my uncle. 💙💙💙💙

Book and afternoon snack.

This book was both difficult to read and a pleasure! It covers a time frame of the Japanese internment camps from the viewpoints of four nameless family members, the mother, the Father, the girl, and the boy. They almost lost me in the beginning at the white dog but I'm so glad I stuck with it! Perseverance, resignation, ostracisation, misperceptions, assumptions and Prejudice. This book should be required reading!

"And if anyone asks, you're Chinese."
The boy had nodded. "Chinese" he whispered. "I'm Chinese." "And I," said the girl, "am the Queen of Spain." " In your dreams," said the boy. "In my dreams," said the girl, "I'm the king." Love "the girl"! #Thebigreadholland

Started reading this book this morning. It‘s a different genre and style from what I normally read but so far I‘m enjoying it.

Already hating this book. Only a few pages in, and the main character has killed a dog, one that trusts her?! Yuck, completely unnecessary.

I'd def recommend this book to be read for #socialjustice. It beautifully captures what happens with mental health in war and conflict...when you're turned into a stranger in your own home...because you look and seem foreign. Othering. And the anxiety, angst, and OCD that comes with being torn apart from family, home, and familiarity because you're deemed an enemy. This book is about life in #japaneseinternment but it says so much more.

Just finished this gem after sunrise. It resonates with me. It was a good literary meal, full of strong prose and imagery. Satisfying, short, 5 chapters, to the point. Took some restraint to not photograph every other page for a beautiful sentence or two. I still have some quotes to share with you! I kept this book out for a week past it's due date because it had a hold on it and I really wanted to finish it--does that say enough for you?

"Be patient. And remember it's better to bend than to break." (p. 78)

This was a gorgeously written, powerful novella about Japanese internment camps during WWII

Next up! Reading this w my mom and all her friends 😊

Oldies but goodies! #oldiebutgoodie

A beautiful, purposeful build to the end. Highly recommended, especially if you're reading about Japanese internment these days. #LitsyAtoZ #japaneseinternment #japaneseamerican #WWII

Starting this now 😀

The is a simple story told via 5 mesmerising perspectives about a family that was uprooted & sent to a Japanese internment camp from their home in Berkeley to the Utah desert. The language is natural & so pure that it's unbelievably haunting, especially when you contemplate exactly what's going on. More so when you remember that this actually happened to people. It's an important book. A profound & surreal book. A book everyone should read. 5/5.

My heart is feeling a thousand different things right now. One of them is cold fear and concern. This is something that may happen within the next few years. History should be a lesson from which to grow and learn. Not a fucking itinerary by which to live and destroy. This book... is so powerful & profound.

#amreading #quotes #whentheemperorwasdivine #julieotsuka #ownvoices #japaneseinternment

This is turning into one of the most phenomenal books that I've read all year.

#amreading #whentheemperorwasdivine #julieotsuka #japan #japaneseinternment #diversebooks #diversereads

Just a few pages in and I already know this is going to be an emotionally intense book about a dark and uncomfortable period of American history (Japanese internment experience). I will say this: the writing is absolutely stunning.

#amreading #whentheemperorwasdivine #julieotsuka #ownvoices #diversebooks #diversereads #japaneseinternment #warfiction

Ok so while I was waiting for my library hold, I also had to buy these 😉

A beautifully wrought novel about the trauma inflicted upon Japanese-Americans through the (totally shitty and racist) internment camps of World War II. By not specifically naming the family members they represent any family who suffered this degradation but also highlights how whites tended to see all Asians as one group as opposed to many individuals.

Finished just in time for book club tonight, which is really good since this was my pick 😆! I thought a book about the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII would be really relevant to what's happening today, you know, 75 years later...... #LitsyAtoZ

My pick for this month's book club. We're meeting on Tuesday, so I gotta get crackin!

I ❤️ both these books! Beautiful writing. Stories around the removal and internment of Japanese Americans during WW2. I found myself wondering if history is going to repeat itself.