Showing results by narrator "Mirai Mirai" in All Categories

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.

Greetings from Monchac, Louisiana. Home to fifty-seven souls and the world's only floating stationery store! When Mila Breaux's LA dreams go up in smoke, she'll move her cozy lettering shop down to bayou country, and pile her pens and paper onto her late uncle's houseboat. But the discovery of human bones just feet from her new store will rock the foundations of the sleepy swamp town. It will be up to Mila and a quirky band of characters to get to the bottom of things before it is too late!

High-school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one-fifth of Japanese pop group Maza Maza. Akari's dedication to her oshi consumes her days completely. She keeps a blog entirely devoted to him, religiously chronicling and analysing all his events. He is the spine of her life; she cannot survive without him. When Masaki is rumoured to have assaulted a female fan, facing waves of social media backlash, Akari's world falls apart.

When Poppy Song joined Mrs. Z's third-grade class at Curiosity Academy, she knew just how to connect with her classmates: baked goods. Her beloved grandmother Po Po used to own her own bakery, and Poppy has inherited Po Po's gift for making pineapple buns, egg tarts, and other sweets, which she gladly shares with the other kids in Mrs. Z's class. After her classmates hear about a fancy treat called Dragon's Beard candy, they can't wait for Poppy to make some and bring it in.

“I wish to become one of those round vacuum cleaner robots.” That’s what Machi prays for at the altar of Japanese goddess Benzaiten. Ever since her two best friends decided they want nothing to do with her, Machi hasn’t been able to speak. After months of online school and a carousel of therapists, she can no longer see the point of being human. She doesn’t expect Benzaiten to hear her prayer, much less offer a different prayer on Machi’s behalf—that Machi discover the beauty of humanity, ultimately restoring her to her previous self.

When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to write a letter to a stranger about an unforgettable encounter, she opened the floodgates. The responses—intimate and addictive, all written in the second person—began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by a remarkable cast of writers guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection. Moving and unforgettable, Letter to a Stranger is an irresistible listen for the literary traveler and the perfect gift for anyone who is haunted by a person they met once and will remember forever.

After the fall of South Vietnam, fourteen-year-old Mai, a young Vietnamese girl of Chinese descent, is torn from a life of privilege and forced to flee across the South China Sea in the hold of a fishing trawler. Mai finds tenuous safety in a refugee camp on an island off the coast of Malaysia, where a greedy relative called Small Auntie offers her a place to stay—but her hospitality isn’t free. With her father’s words echoing in her ears, Mai endures the hardships of the camp, which are tempered only by her dreams of being sponsored by her uncle for entry into America.

Join Shantini Rajah on a delightful manifesting journey that integrates spiritual and scientific concepts with simple exercises and tools anyone can use to attract their dream life.

Alexandra, also known as Al, has been playing baseball with her older brothers for as long as she can remember. But when she ages out of Little League, it seems like it’s the end of the road for Al and the sport she loves. Until, that is, her friend Sammy suggests that Al try out for the middle school team—a team that has always been boys-only.

Seventh-grader Viv never looks forward to picture day. It’s just another day where she wears a boring braid and no one notices her. (Her two best friends, Milo and Al, don’t count, of course.) But enough is enough. This year, she’s taking matters into her own hands. Literally. Viv grabs a pair of scissors, her phone for live-streaming, and, well, bye-bye braid. Suddenly Viv is an over-night influencer at Brinkley Middle School. Everyone wants her help planning their next big moment—from haircuts, to dance proposals, activist rallies and mathlete championships.

The electric, unsettling, and often surreal stories in Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go explore the alienated, technology-mediated lives of restless Asian and Asian American women today. A woman escapes into dating simulations to forget her best friend’s abandonment; a teenager begins to see menacing omens on others’ bodies after her double eyelid surgery; reunited schoolmates are drawn into the Japanese mountains to participate in an uncanny social experiment; a supernatural karaoke machine becomes a K-pop star’s channel for redemption. In every story, characters refuse dutiful, docile stereotypes.

Astrid Johansen swore she would never return to Heron Bay, Washington. In that idyllic coastal town, her little sister, Nina, drowned in a reflecting pool under Astrid’s watch seventeen years ago. Though guilt has kept her away, Astrid can’t ignore her aunt Maude’s urgent plea to come back. Maude claims to have found a letter that will change everything about the past.