Beginning this month, we take a look at the previous month’s books, offering a bit of review, when available. Clicking the pictures takes you to Amazon, where the books can easily be downloaded for eReaders or purchased at a discount.

Escape From Camp 14
Author: Blaine Harden
Publisher: Viking Adult
Release: March 29, 2012

Shin Dong-hyuk, born in a North Korean war camp, has never known the outside world. He watched his parents’ public execution as a boy, knowing only that they did wrong and that that was the only option for their alleged betrayal to the state. That is, until one day, he escapes. Blaine Harden tells the tale of Dong-hyuk’s exodus from Camp 14 and of the life he tries to lead outside of the propaganda fed to him from the North Korean government. A biographical look at the hardships and total-dominance theory behind the North Korean regime, Escape from Camp 14 offers a quick-paced journey from near destruction to salvation. A must-read for those interested in the Korean conflict currently in progress.

Racial Things, Racial Forms: Objecthood in Avant-Garde Asian American Poetry
Author: Joseph Jonghyun Jeon
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Release: March 15, 2012
Joseph Jonghyun Jeon takes a critical look at avant-garde Asian American contemporary poets and their craft in this examination of race, politics and the power of words.

A Dream of Stone & Shadow: A Dirk & Steele Novella
Author: Marjorie M. Liu
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release: March 13, 2012
A romance novel surrounding a gargoyle whose only hope to escape his imprisoned form is the love of a clairvoyant woman, Aggie Durand.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement
Author: Camilla Gibb
Publisher: The Penguin Press HC
Release: March 17, 2012
A Vietnamese-American art curator travels to Vietnam to seek art and her father’s whereabouts following their separation during the Vietnam War. Gibb weaves stories of the war around bowls of pho and from a sometimes-overlooked Vietnamese perspective.

Forgotten Country
Author: Catherine Chung
Publisher: Riverhead
Release: March 1, 2012
For a full review of this book, check our article by Ratevia Evans.

Tags: A Dream of Stone & Shadow, Blaine Harden, Camilla Gibb, Catherine Chung, Escape From Camp 14, Forgotten Country, Joseph Jonghyun Jeon, Marjorie M. Liu, North Korea, Racial Things Racial Forms: Objecthood in Avant-Garde Asian American Poetry, The Beauty of Humanity Movement