Book Group Discussion Meeting, Saturday, February 2, 2019, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Introducing Kevin Kwan

Here's a simplified biography from a site called Who2:

Kevin Kwan is the author of Crazy Rich Asians and its sequels, China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems.

Kwan grew up in Singapore until he was eleven, when his family moved to Texas.

After getting his degree in creative writing from the University of Houston (1994), Kwan headed to New York, where he earned his BFA from Parsons School of Design and began working for high profile publishers.

Kwan spent time at Martha Stewart’s Living and Interview magazines before opening his own creative consulting firm, specialzing in visual projects for fashion designers, celebrities and publishing firms.

After ten years as a designer, Kwan wrote his first novel, Crazy Rich Asians, a breakout best seller and a popular “beach read,” famous for its nutty characters and their delightfully wicked excesses.

Kwan followed with China Rich Girlfriend in 2015, and Rich People Problems in 2017, just as the filming of a film version of Crazy Rich Asian was underway. 

The Wikipedia bio is more detailed and interesting, and I suggest you check it out, but as it is Wikipedia, know that it may not be 100% accurate.

The following is a brief interview with Kwan about Crazy Rich Asians:



Singapore Album

The world's most expensive city.

The colonial-era Raffles Hotel, now considered just a tourist destination by the locals. 

A colonial-era "black and white" house.

Singapore National Archives (former site of Anglo-Chinese School)

Singapore Botanic Gardens, behind which Nick's grandma's mansion was found

The video below shows a time lapse of a tan hua flower blooming:



Singapore Food 

Singapore food carries the influences of China, India, and Malaysia. Here's a link to an article entitled "10 Best Singapore Dishes." Nick's family spend a lot of time sipping tea and snacking on "kueh" (also spelled "kuih"), which are rice cakes. Here are a couple of links: "7 Nyonya Kuih You Must Have" and "How to Know the Names of Chinese/Nyonya/Malay Kuih".

Crazy Rich Asians, the Movie 

If you're like me (and you're probably not) you knew Crazy Rich Asians was a movie before you knew it was a book. The trailer is below. Just from watching the trailer, I saw several differences between the book and the movie.

Book Discussion Meeting, Saturday, January 5, 2019, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

This is what yarn-bombing looks like.

The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood

Author Biography (from the fount of all knowledge)

Ann Hood was born in 1956 and grew up in Rhode Island. After she earned her BA in English from the University of Rhode Island, she worked for TWA as a flight attendant. She attended graduate school at New York University, studying American Literature. Hood began writing her first novel in 1983 while working as a flight attendant and attending graduate school. Her flight attendant career ended in 1986 when TWA went on strike and the flight attendants found themselves replaced. This gave her the opportunity to become a full-time writer.

On April 18, 2002, Hood's five-year-old daughter, Grace, died from a virulent form of strep. For two years Hood found herself unable to write or even read. She took solace in learning to knit and in knitting groups. She gradually made her way back to her craft, writing short essays about Grace and grief. To make sense of her own grief, in late 2004 Hood began to write her novel The Knitting Circle, about a woman whose five-year-old daughter dies from meningitis. The woman joins a knitting group of others also struggling to heal from loss. Hood’s best-selling memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief chronicles her own struggle after her daughter’s sudden death.

Hood is a faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing program at The New School in New York City. She also teaches at New York University and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

She is the recipient of the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Best American Spiritual Writing Award.

Hood lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She has two children, Annabelle and Sam, and is married to writer Michael Ruhlman.

Her body of work includes:

Novels

• Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, 1987.
• Waiting to Vanish, 1988.
• Three-Legged Horse, 1989.
• Something Blue, 1991.
• Places to Stay the Night, 1993.
• The Properties of Water, 1995.
• Ruby, 1998.
• The Knitting Circle, 2007.
• The Red Thread, 2010.
• The Obituary Writer, 2013.
• An Italian Wife, 2014.
• The Book That Matters Most, 2016.

Young-adult novels

• How I Saved My Father's Life (And Ruined Everything Else), 2008.
• She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah), 2018.

Short story collection

• An Ornithologist's Guide to Life: Stories, 2004.

Nonfiction

• Creating Character Emotions (textbook), 1998.
• Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time (memoir). 2000.
• Comfort: A Journey Through Grief (memoir), 2008.
• Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting (essay, anthology), 2013.
• Knitting Pearls: Writers Writing About Knitting (essay, anthology), 2015.
• Morningstar (memoir), 2017.

In the video below, Ann Hood talks about The Book That Matters Most with a group at the Norwich, VT, library.

Scene from downtown Providence, Rhode Island