Naomi Hirahara

Naomi Hirahara: Evergreen

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Japantown #2

The follow up to Hirahara’s spectacular Clark and Division finds the Ito family, released from detention camp and the follow up resettlement in Chicago, back in 1946 Los Angeles.  After the Japanese were sent to camps, their homes and businesses were taken over, and they’ve returned to try and build up their lives again.  Our heroine, Aki, works as a nurse’s aide and is waiting for her husband Art to return from the war.  She and her parents have found a small home to rent which the two couples will share. read more

Naomi Hirahara joins our August Book Club

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Naomi Hirahara will join our book club via zoom on Sunday, August 21 at 2 p.m. when we discuss her award winning book, Clark and Division.  Set during WWII, it follows the travails of the Ito family who are placed in a Japanese internment camp in California and then, after two years in the camp, relocated from California to Chicago. The portrait of the family, of the time period, and of the Ito family’s circumstances are beautifully portrayed.  All are welcome to join!  Come with questions or come to listen.  I can’t recommend this book more highly – it was my favorite read of 2021 and am delighted to get it into the hands of as many readers as possible.  We do have copies available on the store page of this website, but please check out your local bookstore, your library, and find and read a copy in some form or fashion!  Email us as store (at) auntagathas.com for the zoom link. read more

Best of 2021

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There are two authors whose work is so consistently excellent I don’t add them to my best of lists anymore, but I can tell you that William Kent Krueger’s prequel to his Cork O’Connor series, Lightning Strike, is beautifully written, felt and told; and Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, a sly look at devotees of a flawed charismatic leader, is a beautiful read.  Both writers have a quality of heart and spirit that give their books an extra something, and their main characters, Cork O’Connor and Armand Gamache, are beloved by readers. Soon to join these two are Elly Griffiths and Ann Cleeves, both of whom turned in stellar reads this year (see below).  I invite readers to cast their reading nets a bit wider and consider some of these other fine titles.  These are all books that stayed with me and left me thinking after I finished them. read more

Naomi Hirahara: Clark and Division

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This book is a knockout.  Hirahara, author of three different series set in contemporary Los Angeles and Hawaii, has turned her eye to 1944 and the plight of American born Japanese, as well as first generation immigrants, right after Pearl Harbor.  It is still shocking to me that we created internment camps for Japanese citizens who were simply going about their daily lives.  Hirahara brings it home by focusing intimately on one family, the Itos.

The Itos – parents and daughters Rose and Aki – are hardworking, successful citizens.  Mr. Ito manages a produce market and Rose and eventually Aki work there too.  Rose is the star, the center of the family.  Aki looks up to her and wishes she had her strength.  This book could simply be the story of Aki discovering that strength in herself, but it is so much more. read more