Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month! Sometimes referred to as Asian/Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, this is a month-long celebration of the rich cultural histories of the AAPI communities and the contributions they have made to the history and culture of the United States.
For more background on why we celebrate this month, take a look at this article I wrote a few years ago for Hallmark: What is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
One of the primary ways we celebrate AAPI Heritage Month in my family is read books – books written by AAPI authors about the Asian/Asian-American experience. Over the years, we’ve read a lot of these stories, so I’m sharing with you 20 books that I love and recommend for you to read during AAPI Heritage Month. They cover a variety of different genres and styles so I hope you find something that you will enjoy.
The links to purchase support Bel Canto Books, a woman- and BIPOC-owned independent bookstore in Long Beach, CA, via Bookshop.org.
Drop your recommendations in the comments below to share books you’ve read by AAPI authors!
Memoir
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu (especially the audiobook!)
House of Sticks by Ly Tran
Romance (my personal preferred genre 😉)
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (and the other two books in this series)
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev (and the others in this series)
The Stand-In by Lily Chu
Exes & O’s by Amy Lea
A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli
Fiction
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen
Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim (and the other two in this series)
Children’s Books
Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho (and literally everything else she has written!)
I Dream of Po Po by Livia Blackburne
Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon by Kat Zhang (and all of the Amy Wu books)
I am Golden by Eva Chen
Yes We Will by Kelly Yang
Currently on my reading list
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
