David Shih

On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell.
Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now he is an exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle unprecedented in this remote province: an

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When did kindness become a sign of weakness? What if kindness actually has the power to change the world? Culture is at a crossroads when it comes to kindness. These days we either view kindness as an inert act based on the absence of being a jerk, or we see acts of kindness as heroic and herculean, beyond the reach and capability of mere mortals. Choosing kindness is also exhausting. The public and private back-and-forth exchanges of hatred and de-humanizing...

"Clarissa Goenawan's dark, spellbinding literary debut opens with a murder and shines a spotlight onto life in fictional small-town Japan. Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister, Keiko's, sudden death. Shewas viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister's affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to abandon the family...

"Following the enthralling 18th century Chinese mysteries Jade Dragon Mountain and White Mirror, comes the next Li Du adventure in Whisper of Ink. Li Du was prepared to travel anywhere in the world except for one place: home. But to unravel the mystery that surrounds his mentor's execution, that's exactly where he must go. Plunged into the painful memories and teeming streets of Beijing, Li Du obtains a humble clerkship that offers anonymity and access...

From the critically acclaimed author of Rainbirds comes a novel of tragedy and dark histories set in Japan.

University sophomore Miwako Sumida has hanged herself, leaving those closest to her reeling. In the months before her suicide, she was hiding away in a remote mountainside village, but what, or whom, was she running from?
Ryusei, a fellow student at Waseda who harbored unrequited feelings for Miwako, begs her...

Written for a young audience, this intense memoir explores the harsh realities of life on the streets in contemporary North Korea.
Every Falling Star is the memoir of Sungju Lee, who at the age of twelve was forced to live on the streets of North Korea and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains.
Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story,...

In 1701 young Lord Asano is goaded into attacking a corrupt official at the Japanese Court. Although the wound Asano inflicts is minimal, the Emperor's punishment is harsh: Lord Asano is ordered to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide. His lands are confiscated and his family is dishonored and exiled. His samurai retainers now become ronin, or masterless, and are dispersed. These ronin are not trusted by their enemies, and live under the watchful eyes...

From a world-renowned painter, an exploration of creativity's quintessential—and often overlooked—role in the spiritual life
Written over thirty years of painting and creating in his studio, this book is Makoto Fujimura's broad and deep exploration of creativity and the spiritual aspects of "making." What he does in the studio, he asserts, is theological work as much as it is aesthetic work. In between pouring precious,

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First published in 1956, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. It was not until the mid-1970s that a new generation of Japanese American writers and scholars recognized the novel's importance and popularized it as one of literature's most powerful testaments to the Asian American experience. No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no...

Detective Galileo, Keigo Higashino's best loved character from The Devotion of Suspect X, returns in Silent Parade, a complex and challenging mystery-several murders, decades apart, with no solid evidence. A popular young girl disappears without a trace, her skeletal remains discovered three years later in the ashes of a burned out house. There's a suspect and compelling circumstantial evidence of his guilt, but no concrete proof. When he isn't indicted,...