Eschewed Obfuscation

The Arbitrary Compilation of Books by/about POC, not!live from your local Delaware library:
Part I
Part II
YA Edition [this one!]
Part III

More books by or about POC from the shelves of my local library. I wish I had time to go through and at least add Amazon review quotes to all of these. If anyone has written informative reviews of any of these books, please link to them in comments and I'll add a [note]. Asterisks mark books that I would tentatively recommend, mostly unread, to those on the flist looking to diversify their reading.

*Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
The Sky that Changed Forever by Firyal Alshalabi & Sam Drexler
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez
*The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1, the Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
Samurai Girl: The Book of the Sword by Carrie Asai [see magicnoire's cautionary comment]
In Beautiful Disguises by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Marisol and Magdalena: The Sound of Our Sisterhoood by Veronica Chambers
Quinceañera Means Sweet 15 by Veronica Chambers
Wandering Warrior by Da Chen
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Wings by Julia Gonzales
*Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale [my review; highly rec'ed]
La Línea by Ann Jaramillo
Breaking through by Francisco Jiménez
The Circuit by Francisco Jiménez
The Beat Goes on by Adele Minchin
*The Fold by An Na
Wait for Me by An Na
Fire in the Hills by Donna Jo Napoli
*Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa
Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury
Getting It by Alex Sanchez
The God Box by Alex Sanchez
*Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai
Shiva's Fire by Suzanne Fisher Staples
Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Flight to Freedom by Ana Veciana-Suarez
*The Sunbird by Elizabeth E. Wein
Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan
Native Son by Richard Wright

The Arbitrary Compilation of Books by/about POC, not!live from your local Delaware library:
Part I
Part II [this one!]
YA Edition
Part III

As always, asterisks mark tentative recommendations, i.e. books that I would check out on a whim if I wasn't so overloaded with backlog.

Color of the Sea by John Hamamura
The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton
*Sadika's Way: A Novel of Pakistan and America by Hina Haq
The Revenge of the Forty-seven Samurai by Erik Christian Haugard
The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher
The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
Empress of the Splendid Season by Oscar Hijuelos
Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
A Simple Habana Melody by Oscar Hijuelos
*A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini [my review; rec'd]
*The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter
*Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala [about war in West Africa]
The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi by Arthur Japin
The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha
East into Upper East by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
My Nine Lives by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Poet and Dancer by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Crazed by Ha Jin
*Waiting by Ha Jin
War Trash by Ha Jin
Kagami by Elizabeth Kata
*The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
Trespassing by Uzma Aslam Khan
*Mirage by Soheir Khashoggi
Mosaic by Soheir Khashoggi
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book by Maxine Hong Kingston
*The Budding Tree: Six Stories of Love in Edo by Aiko Kitahara
Flowers for Mei-Ling by Lorraine Lachs [warning: protag looks like the stereotypical "Oriental" woman]
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min [read before starting this journal; good story but tedious prose]
Katherine by Anchee Min
The Last Empress by Anchee Min
Wild Ginger by Anchee Min

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection
by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (eds.)
534 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Horror

I've only read one story from this anthology--Ellen Kushner's "The Hunt of the Unicorn." In some ways it was disappointing because I'd expected a Riverside book; while the setting is reminiscent of the city, there are no overt references and it really is a standalone. The ending also had no punch for me although it might be better understood upon rereading. Kushner's weakest work to date for me; but it's old too (1995), so I'll cut her some slack.

Obviously not a review of the collection, or even a review for anyone other than myself.