Quyển tiểu thuyết ký sự của cô đào hát cải lương. Bội Châu kể chuyện về cuộc sống của một người nghệ sĩ đằng sau sân khấu và chuyện tình cảm đầy trắc trở khi cô bị chồng bỏ. Phần hai của sách chuyển từ tự truyện sang chuyện của những nhân vật khác nhưng có liên hệ với Bội Châu. Thú vị nhất là chuyện người bạn xem bói và mấy ông Việt Kiều về Việt Nam bị gái dụ. Nguyễn Thị Minh Ngọc viết văn giản dị, dễ gần gũi, và có chúc hài hước cùng cay đắng.

Tập truyện ngụ ngôn của Lê Luynh viết cho thiếu nhi với những chủ đề vây quanh đời sống. Mỗi câu chuyện được tác giả gửi gấm vào một bài học nho nhỏ trong cuộc sống hoặc trong cách đối xử với nhau. Phần minh họa của Nga Phan làm cho những câu chuyện dễ thương thêm sắc màu. Sau mỗi truyện tác giả cho thêm ba câu hỏi để phụ huynh cùng thảo luận với con. Sẽ thử đọc với mấy thằng con xem tụi nó có hiểu gì không.

As a voracious reader, I often ran into an issue called “too many books and too little time.” To help me figure out which book I should delve in first, I would read the first few paragraphs or pages. With Michelle Zauner’s memoir, she pulled me in right from her first sentence: “Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart.” Whether writing about her favorite Korean food or her complicated relationship with her Korean mother, Zauner’s prose is just impeccable. The story of her mother battling with fatal pancreatic cancer is heartbreaking. The pain and the suffering reminded me of my own mother who lost her life to Covid-19. I cried and salivated reading Crying in H Mart. It’s a beautiful, soulful memoir.

Ai đã từng đọc qua những tác phẩm của Nguyễn Nhật Ánh sẽ không cảm thấy ngạc nhiên về cách viết và đặc biệt là cách kể chuyện của ông. Con chim xanh biếc bay về cũng không ngoại lệ. Đây là tiểu thuyết tình cảm của những nhân vật mới ra trường đại học. Họ vẫn còn ngây thơ và yêu đời. Tuy là truyện yêu đương nhưng nó vẫn nhẹ nhàng và hồn nhiên như những tác phẩm khác của ông. Tôi phục cách viết giản dị và thoải mái của ông. Ông chứng minh cách dùng từ ngữ không cần phải cao siêu mà vẫn thu hút được người đọc.

I picked out this book to read together with my nine-year-old son at bedtime. Each night we read three stories. His reading was improving, but he gave up on me halfway through the book. I might as well finished up it myself. From Socrates to Tim Berners-Lee, Michael Phelps to Ricky Martin—among the few names I recognized—each brief bio written by Ben Brooks and illustrated by Quinton Winter. These figures are inspiring and I don’t know many of them. Aaron Fotheringham stuck in my mind the most because he skates in his wheelchair at skate parks. I would love to have the opportunity to watch him someday. Then I realized I could pop over to YouTube. Wheelz of steel.

As I finished reading this book, the pandemic is far from over. Even though the Biden administration has a much better handling of Covid, it was only last year that America had experienced the failure of the previous administration that cost us over half a million of human lives, including my mother’s. Through thorough research, vigorous stories, and compelling histories, Lawrence Wright illustrated how our government at the time botched the response from Covid, even with the simplest method of wearing a mask. If we had a competent leadership, we would have come out much better and this book proved it. It is a riveting revisit of America under Covid.

The follow account, in particular, brought back the experience that I had gone through with my own mother (p. 247-248):

On November 14, Selene got a call advising that her mother’s blood pressure was plummeting. “Based on how she’s declining, how long do we have?” Selene asked, thinking that she would pick up her father so that he could say goodbye. “A couple hours,” the doctor said. Ten minutes later, a nurse called and said, “Get here now.”

“They put me in a helmet,” Selene recalled. “There was a plastic flap that closed around my neck. Inside the helmet there was a fan at the top that blew air down, so that any air that got in would be flushed away.

And they put a gown on me, and double gloves, and they let me go in and say goodbye to her. That was the biggest shock, to see her, and to see how she looked. She was twice her size, because she was swollen from steroids. Her tongue was hanging out the side of her mouth because she was on the ventilator—she’d been intubated. They had to brace her head to keep it straight on the pillow, and they had tape around her mouth to keep the tube in. I’ll never forget it. But I think the thing that will haunt me is the smell. It’s like the smell of decay, like she had already started to die.

“The thing that made it so hard to see that was to juxtapose it against President Trump out there, saying he felt like he was twenty-eight years old again and he never felt better. So how could the same thing that did this to her, how could someone ever take it for granted that this was nothing, you have nothing to be afraid of?”

Selene gathered her mother in her arms as the machines went silent.

In her latest collection of essays, Lamott opens up about her recent marriage, her past drinking problem, as well as her faith. From accidentally taking her dog medications to falling off the cliffs, Lamott revealed hilarious and serious stories from her life. Lamott is one of those writers that I would read anything she had written. This one is uplifting and optimistic.

I am glad to see more Vietnamese-American voices in the literary world. The latest is from Lý Trần whose debut memoir is captivating, devastating, and moving. Ms. Trần writes with candid and vigor about her experience of growing up in America as a child of Vietnamese-Chinese immigrant parents, working in the nail salon, worshipping the Buddhas, and struggling with depression. From her complex relationship with her parents to her academic failures to her romantic relationship, Ms. Trần opened up about her incredible journey as she made the transition from an immigrant to an Asian American. Her prose is engaging and unflinching. The book is almost 400 pages, but it’s a fast read. Each chapter is a short story with a clear purpose of what she wanted to convey. Trần is a gifted writer. I hope more Vietnamese Americans will pick up this book. You will find it relatable.

Here’s a scene from the nail salon (p. 136):

I wanted so badly for my mother and me to disappear, to start over. It had started out as a new adventure but I didn’t want to be in a nail salon anymore. Seeing my mother, now in her fifties, hunching over the pedicure bowl, hands trembling, unable to understand, unable to communicate, was almost more than I could bear. I prayed silently for a return of the cummerbunds. Even that was better than this. At least we were all together and we had fun. Where were my brothers now? Where was my father?

“Lý!” my mother called again. “What are you doing? Daydreaming? Didn’t I just ask you to come here? I need help. I don’t understand what this woman is saying.”

I got up from my seat and walked over, reluctantly introducing myself to the client.

“I’m very sorry. My mother doesn’t speak much English, but I can translate for you.” As I apologized, I felt a burning sensation in my chest. This woman would never know who we were and where we came from. We were just a couple of clumsy immigrants working on her toes, not worthy of respect. I hated her. I hated her for sitting above us on that leather chair. I hated her for thinking that it gave her power over us. I hated that it did give her power over us. That money was power in this world and we would never be powerful.

Still, I translated.

Adichie’s Notes on Grief is a beautiful, lyrical tribute to her father who passed away caused by a kidney failure. His sudden death during the global COVID-19 pandemic devastated her. She lived in the U.S. and he died in Nigeria; therefore, she could not be with him. My father passed away in Vietnam during the lockdown as well; therefore, I felt her pain and sorrow. The book is 67 pages and I read it in one sitting.

Những bài viết ngắn tựa như những blog posts chia sẻ tâm sự cá nhân của hai tác giả. Nội dung rời rạc. Chuyện không đủ thu hút. Cách viết không đủ quyến rũ. Tác giả viết trong tâm trạng chán đời nên cũng chẳng có gì sôi nổi. Đọc không thấy chán đời, chỉ thấy chán nản.