Wong has created a real barnstormer of a novel that deserves to be on several of the awards list. It’s definitely getting a place in my Top Ten.' If These Books Could Talk This book covers the history -- and future! -- of the humble banana. It starts with its beginnings in Asia, its geographic and evolutionary progressing, and the arrival of the banana to America. PP Wong has blazed a trail for future British Chinese novelists. The Life of a Banana is bursting with original and exciting flavours.' The Independent, UK This book contains two novellas, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadows, both recounting the personal tragedies faced by two young female protagonists, Mikage from Kitchen and Satsuki from Moonlight Shadow.

The characters in the stories are on their journey to realize that there is so much more that the world has to offer. Spiritually inspired, they find the true essence of life; some through religious aspirations, some in marital bonds, and others through peaceful journeys.Sometimes, on long car trips with LSW, we compete for who can make up the absurdest micro-history title, following the pattern “X: The Y that Changed the World”, where X is the name of an object and Y is the category to which the object belongs. I remember suggesting X=Mauve, and then found out later there is really a book about this, proving that politics is not the only endeavor where satire has become obsolete.) Bananas are cheerful! This is noted even in the book itself (finally, getting to the actual book in question), which includes a remarkably informative chapter on the 1922 Tin Pan Alley novelty hit “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and yet another one devoted to slipping on a banana peel as classic movie sight gag. Since the book's publication in 2008, the banana has continued to provide comic fodder as the favorite food/conversation topic/go-to any-occasion utterance of the yellow pill-shaped Minions, of lucrative movie and associated licensing fame. Xing Li has been struggling with her identity since her mother died, leaving her and her brother to live with their eclectic bunch of relatives and attend new schools. Her new school is full of rich white kids, and as the bullying escalates, Xing finds herself in increasing danger because of who she is, her only solace her best friend Jay, a Chinese-Jamaican kid with a passion for music. Wow. This is a Feb 2019 update: I just read an article that confirms that the banana is at great risk. I thought the author of this book was trying to give a dramatic spin to his work, but apparently it’s all very serious! Here is the article: https://amp.ft.com/content/74fb67b8-2... Born to a famous poet, philosopher, literary critic Takaaki Yoshimoto, Banana found solace in literature from early childhood, which influenced her desire to become a writer. She is liberal in her views, stands for human rights, and has been an advocate for women rights in Japan.

I was less than enamored with Koeppel’s style, a combination of pedestrian prose and forced attempts at humor, often with a creepy confiding tone. There were some cutesy metaphors I could have done without, such as when he likens gene splicing to splicing together reels of film, producing “the best qualities of both: Rhett Butler played by Harrison Ford and Scarlet O’Hara with a cinnamon-bun hairstyle.”

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And this idea of British born Chinese - and the prejudices and difficulties of fitting in, faced as a result of the culture clash, is at the heart of the novel and its very title. The book is published by the independent book publisher Legend Press who impressively had two of their books on the 2015 Women’s Prize shortlist I think it's pretty depressing that this book came out in 2007--nearly 2 decades ago--and none of the problems regarding the monoculture of bananas, the problems with corporations owning GMOs for food billions of people rely on for food, the diseases in banana fruits, etc. have been resolved. I am now pretty convinced that, thanks to capitalism and greed, we are going to lose bananas within the next few decades.

Although the main character is a young girl, I wouldn't necessarily say that this book is aimed at teens or young adults. Given the topics in question and how rare it is for such topics to be covered in British literature, I think this is a must-read for adults too. Britain is at war with Germany. As bombs rain down on the city, orphan boy Eric forms an extraordinary friendship with a remarkable gorilla: Gertrude. Eric spends his days at the place that makes him most happy: London Zoo. But when the zoo is no longer safe Eric must go on an epic adventure to rescue Gertrude. Together with his Uncle Sid, a keeper at the zoo, the three go on the run. But while hiding out at the seaside they uncover a top-secret plot . . . escape the clutches of evil villains . . . and in the end they save the day! LSW reported that members of the book club had never heard of micro-histories. (What cave do readers like this live in?) She sold the book club on the novel idea of micro-histories by emphasizing the sub-genre of micro-histories called “commodity micro-histories”. Mark Kurlansky is a well-known and persistent practitioner of this genre with books on cod, oysters, salt, and most recently paper. There are also popular micro-histories from other authors of alcohol, milk, chocolate, coffee (at least two), tea, vanilla, eels, opium, diamonds, uranium, oranges, tomatoes, cotton, caviar, olives, olive oil, sugar, and pencils. There is a lot to learn about the impact of the banana on the world. And I would bet that all, or surely most of it, is in this book. Banana was a fun, educational and often surprising read. There is a lot of information to take in, and while you may know some of the info here, it is certain that there is a bunch you do not. Did you know that the banana tree isn’t properly a tree, but a very large herb? Neither did I. Or that the bananas we eat are considered berries? Say it ain’t so.One more strange thing that isn't really a complaint is that I'm not sure how Xing Li gets into a club. I'm pretty sure we're strict about stuff like this, and she's not even in her teens, but I might have misread that chapter, or mistook her age because the voice sounded so young. Because Panama disease was permanently making fallow so much of its existing holdings, the fruit companies had a continuous need for new land, according to John Soluri, author of Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States.” Bananas have been coming up in my life a lot lately - I've decided they're the wonder food for biking. A guy at work has been sharing lots of banana factoids. So I'm predisposed to like reading about bananas. Dan Koeppel’s Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World has incredible detail on the history and science of the banana but has significant issues with fluidity and focus.

Life Of A Banana is so refreshingly distinct. Read it, and you will soon find yourself wanting more.' The Daily Mail, UKMany scenes from the novel depict Banana’s exceptional skill of sowing hope into the readers’ minds despite their circumstances. The true spirit of Yoshihiro in his son, the tender sweep of Haru’s beautiful hair, and the ghost of Shiori on the swings urging the mortals never to lose hope during the dark phases of life. The Life of a Banana can make people think in intimate and silent reflection. What we are all called to do is essentially understand that there must not be any form of judgment or condemnation of those who look different. We need tolerance and full acceptance without any prejudice, which makes us more human.’ Vanity Fair Xing Li's Grandmother is a complicated and deeply flawed character who we get to learn more about as the book progresses. I can't say anything more about her, as I don't want to spoil anything. This book does not only look outwards at the experience of a British born Chinese girl in a predominantly white society but also what it is like to be British born Chinese with a strict Chinese family. Xing Li has an incredibly strained relationship with her grandmother and uncle which goes through numerous twists and turns throughout the book. The feelings Xing struggles with and tries to reconcile between her Western values and her grandmother's Chinese values is something I think a lot of British born Asians understand to varying degrees.