The Asian Readathon

I just found out about the Asian Readathon on Booktube, and plan to participate! The Asian Readathon encourages us to read up to five books by and about Asians during the month of May.

How I learned about the Asian Readathon

I first heard of this readathon in a very unlikely way. I added something on Twitter using the hashtag, #booktube, then went to look at all the tweets using that hashtag, and found a video by a popular Booktuber I’d never heard of before, Lucie Reads:

From her video, I found the creator of the Asian Readathon, Cindy. She put together a document full of book suggestions for the Asian Readathon… at Google Docs. In the document, she also introduces her four co-hosts and there are links to all of their channels.

I wasn’t going to do any readathons at Booktube this year because I’m so focused on finishing the 2019 PopSugar Reading Challenge, but since I’m almost halfway done with that challenge, and it is only the end of April, I’m going to let myself do this readathon.

Here are the 2019 Asian Readathon challenges:

1. Read a book by any Asian author.
2. Read a graphic novel featuring an Asian character or one draw/written by an Asian author.
3. Read a book featuring an intersectional character (has another aspect to their identity) ie: Asian and ______________.
4. Read a book written by an Asian author in their native language, that’s been translated to your language.
5. Read the group book: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman – an anthology of Asian short stories based on Asian mythology and legends.

And here’s the twist

The twist is that all the books must be from different Asian countries. There are 48 countries in Asia and I’m sorry I won’t be able to read about every country over there.

I’ll be reading books from four countries for this readathon: Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan. I wish I could read one from every Asian country, if I could find books in English from them, so maybe I’ll keep this list as a new challenge opportunity, to be used in future years. [Note: I have a memoir from North Korea in my TBR list for later this year.]

Here’s a list of Asian countries, thanks to Bridgat…

The 48 Asian countries are:

Here are the books I chose to read for the Asian Readathon:

✓ 1. Read any book by an Asian author.

I already had this book on my May TBR list… so works fine for me! This book was chosen by the readers at the Ultimate PopSugar Reading Challenge group at Goodreads for our May reading experience, to fulfill prompt #34, a book that includes a wedding. I’ve been looking forward to reading it (haven’t seen the movie yet) and so I purchased the boxed set with this book, and the two sequels.

The country: Singapore

Crazy Rich Asians

2. Read a graphic novel featuring an Asian character or one draw/written by an Asian author.

I’m going the easy route, to read The Boat online.

The country: Vietnam

The Boat

✓ 3. Read a book featuring an intersectional Asian character or written by an intersectional Asian identity . . . meaning, they are Asian plus something else. So I’ve decided to read Han Kang’s popular novel, The Vegetarian. It won the Man Booker International Prize for 2016. I’ve been wanting to read this for a while, ever since I saw the title, a few years back… mainly because I’m a long-time vegetarian and think it is great this diet has reached into literature.

The country: Korea

The Vegetarian

4. Read a book written by an Asian author in their native language, that’s been translated to your language.

I was going to read this one later this year, but changes are necessary. I’ll be reading a novel by Haruki Murakami. This has been translated from his native Japanese language. I had it on my 2019 TBR list already because it fits a PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt for this year: 17. A book set on a college or university campus.

The country: Japan

Norwegian Wood

5. Read the group book: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman, which will be covered in the live show on Saturday, May 25 at 6pm EST on readwithcindy’s channel.

This looks awesome. There are fifteen short stories based on Asian myths and legends. I’m in. I just ordered a copy of this book from Amazon.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

Here’s my Asian Readathon TBR video:

Will you be participating in the Asian Readathon at Booktube? If so, leave your link in the comments below so I can see what you’ll be reading.