May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month! This month serves as a time to celebrate the culture, history, and achievements of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the nation. We hope you enjoy this list of a few of the NHPR staff’s favorite texts by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  If you have a favorite that didn’t make it onto this list, let us know! Our inbox, voices@nhpr.org, is always open. – Zoë 

Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations On Race, Affirmative Action, And Family by Oiyan Poon

Part memoir, part review of Supreme Court rulings that have defined race relations in America (as well as Asian Americans’ positionality within the Black/White binary), and a personal as well as academic deep dive into the issue of affirmative action, Oiyan explores all this by addressing her daughter’s many questions, including her precocious questions when she was just three years old: are we White? No. Are we Black? No. Then what are we? Asian American. But Asian American isn’t a color! Wise words Te Te! Wise words indeed… – Felix Poon

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

A heartbreaking story of family ties and family tragedies, a brilliant examination of the pressures children can face and the escape valves they create for themselves. Secrets abound, as do struggles for genuine connection and identity. It’s beautiful, and gut-wrenching. – Sara Plourde

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang

An NPR review of Bestiary says “Chang’s facility for making even mundane or traumatic events beautiful with words is a reminder that stories are, among other things, some of our very best survival tools.” And stories abound here, with elements of beasts and magic, amid the all too real issues of familial abuse and separation, which Chang handles deftly. – Sara Plourde

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

Privilege in the publishing industry is put on notice in this debut satire in which a white author steals a manuscript from her dead Asian friend and publishes it as her own work. Yellowface asks us to consider who gets to tell our stories – and who gets to profit off the telling of those stories. – Sara Plourde

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong 

For those who prioritize beautiful language, pick up this poetry collection. Vuong shares with us an intimate look into familial grief and the depth of a mothers love. – Zoë Kay

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar 

This is such a stunning debut novel. I laughed, I cried ( a lot), I contemplated my own life and the human experience. I truly can not recommend this book enough. The plot does center around death and addiction, but somehow manages to leave the reader feeling hopeful. – Zoë Kay

Franny Choi poetry, and Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang – Sarah Gibson

This is a very unoriginal suggestion but if you, like me, didn’t read the bestseller Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner when it first came out, I highly recommend you jump on the bandwagon (pun not intended!). Michelle is the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast, and her memoir about food, family, identity and grief is so compelling. I finished it in two days! – Lauren Chooljian

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

It’s an epic read that is by turns devastating and full of hope. If you’re already a Tan fan (The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter are also excellent) you know you’re in for lots of deep mother/daughter feels, too.

Also Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I read most of this novel in one night when I had pregnancy insomnia because it totally sucked me in! – Katie Colaneri

Everything Asian by Sung J. Woo

My friend Sung emigrated from South Korea to New Jersey as a young man. So has the protagonist of this novel. The funny moments and the sad ones will be familiar to anyone who’s no more than a remove or two away from the immigrant experience – which is most of us. And anybody who’s ever cringed at their parents’ behavior will see their teen years brought to life in this slyly serious picaresque. – Jim Schachter

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston. This work is considered a classic in the genre of memoir, first published in 1976. The author explores myth, memory, and the immigrant experience of her Chinese family as they settle in California. – Angela Menendez

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo – Jackie Harris

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei – Julia Furukawa

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

This is probably the best book about language learning I’ve ever read! It is a memoir about Lahiri – one of the most accomplished writers in the English language – leaving behind English and starting to write in Italian in her 40s. Lahiri originally wrote the book in Italian and it was translated into English by Ann Goldstein (Elena Ferrante’s translator, for any fans of the Neapolitan Quartet!). It is an amazing meditation on both the power and limits of language. – Kate Dario

The I.Q. series by Joe Ide – the books are just great. – Rebecca Lavoie

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Yes, I’m throwing a romance novel on this list. It’s a modern rom-com! (And definitely for adults.) But I loved the construct, the framing device, and the East Coast-West Coast vibe of it all. If you enjoy books by the likes of Emily Henry, want to get a glimpse inside the workings of a TV writers room, and are curious about how a grown-up can maybe break from the stifling expectations of her parents, you may just love this book! – Rebecca Lavoie

The Executive Council shelved an attempt by the Department of Business and Economic Affairs Wednesday to spend more than $4 million in federal money to pay for professional photographs of New Hampshire’s seasons. 

In a series of four proposed contracts, the department sought to spend the money – which comes from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 – to pay four photography companies to develop “still images, b-roll video, and produced video segments,” according to a written explanation to the council from Commissioner Taylor Caswell.

But a number of councilors – as well as Gov. Chris Sununu – raised objections over the price tag. The contracts have been tabled, and Councilor David Wheeler, a Republican of Milford, has urged the department to find better ways to spend the money. 

“I’d like to know: What are we doing with $4 million taking pictures?” said Wheeler.

“What are we getting for $3,000 a day out of this?” asked Councilor Cinde Warmington, a Concord Democrat. 

Under the contracts, the companies would be tasked with creating content to cover New Hampshire’s seven tourism regions in all four seasons. The content is meant to serve as a free resource for tourism businesses in the state to use in their promotional materials, and could be used by the state in its advertising efforts, too, Caswell said. 

Caswell’s department assigned different areas of the state to different contractors. Brian Nevins, a former staff photographer for Surfer and Snowboard magazines, would be awarded $1.3 million to produce content in the Lakes Region, the Dartmouth and Lake Sunapee areas, and the Seacoast. Portland Post Production LLC, which has worked with the University of New Hampshire, L.L. Bean, and Saucony, would be given $860,000 to focus on the Merrimack Valley and Monadnock areas. 

Meanwhile, Warden Co., which has worked with the department on winter photography in the past, would be awarded $860,000 to take photos and video for the Great North Woods and White Mountains areas. And Dennis Welsh, a professional photographer and videographer, would be paid just under $1.1 million to develop general content for the VisitNH seasonal campaign. 

Not all councilors appeared opposed. “The shelf life: You’re going to get five, six years out of these images, correct?” Councilor Janet Stevens, a Republican of Rye, asked Caswell. “This is an investment that could span a decade moving forward,” she said. 

Defending the contracts, Caswell said the federal funds have been awarded to the state for very specific purposes, and that when they put the contracts out to bid, the amount reflects the offers received. 

“These were as a result the best combination of quality and cost that we saw,” he said. He said the department chose to split up the money into different contracts so that no one photography business would be tasked with developing content for the whole state.

He also said the department is running out of time to spend down the money in that program. 

“I wouldn’t necessarily be able to guarantee that we’ll be able to come up with an additional program (in time),” Caswell said, responding to Wheeler’s suggestion that they spend the money otherwise. 

The contracts can come off the table and receive an up or down from the council in future meetings. But Sununu agreed with councilors that the services were too high, even if they did come from federal funds. 

“I have an iPhone,” the governor quipped. “And I’m like 20 bucks.”