Staff Picks: Julie Leung’s Favorites
Julie Leung is the marketing director for Del Rey, the science fiction, fantasy, and horror imprint of Random House. She is also the author of numerous children’s books including Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist which won the American Library Association’s 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Best Picture Book. She grew up behind the cash register of her family’s Chinese restaurant with a constant stack of library books in hand. These days, she gravitates toward richly imagined SFF novels and Asian American diaspora narratives. Bonus if there’s both! You can find her under @jleungbooks on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok .
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Add to BookshelfThe Vanished Birds
by Simon Jimenez
This is the book I press into everyone’s hands and say, “this is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. Read it, it will change you.” It’s hard to describe this book beyond that. On the surface, The Vanished Birds is about spaceship travel, a mysterious boy who falls out of the sky, and a woman living outside of time as we know it. At its heart, it’s a layered, lyrical tale that speaks deeply felt truths about our relationship with time, each other, and our world.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
by Charles Yu
Before Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award, I knew what Charles Yu’s searingly insightful and humorous writing could do through How to Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe. It’s a quiet, understated novel whose impact is best felt in retrospection, sometimes years later. The important books do that, like an everlasting echo.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Black Water Sister
by Zen Cho
This book had me laughing out loud at its accuracy — Zen Cho nails exactly how it feels to be the only child of Asian immigrant parents and imagines succinctly how it might go if your grandmother’s spirit suddenly squatted inside your consciousness. Add a vengeful goddess against the forces of real estate development, and you have an unputdownable book! Simply my favorite summer read.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
We collectively know the gothic horror trope by heart: a solitary woman framed against the looming house and the husband who holds back sinister secrets. Mexican Gothic elevates this narrative in so many dimensions—remixing it for a new generation and setting it against the real-life landscapes of 1950’s Mexico. I loved every second of this read, and the reveals will absolutely haunt you.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Spin the Dawn
by Elizabeth Lim
Elizabeth Lim writes the books that teenage me (and adult me to be honest) only dreams about! Her first book Spin the Dawn is a stylish fantasy that took a Project Runway-esque framework, set it against a world inspired by imperial China, and raised the stakes to life-or-death. Instant reading catnip for me, and her gorgeous detailed covers are to-die-for!
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$12.99Buy from Other Retailers:
