Designed for introduction to fiction and fiction-writing courses, 30/30 is part of Longman’s Penguin Academics series of portable, value-priced texts. This anthology offers an array of fiction that not only teaches craft, but also provides a context in which to study formal and thematic trends of the past 30 years. The stories are represented by a mix of well-established authors and newer voices, offering a stylistic range, from the traditional narrative to experimental forms, and thematic range as well, with stories that address issues including family and culture, love and loss, ethnicity and gender.

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years

Literature & Fiction

Shreve, Porter

Nguyen, Bich Minh

History & Criticism

Longman

Short Girls

Genre Fiction

Penguin

As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled "delicacies" of mainstream America capture her imagination. In Stealing Buddha's Dinner, the glossy branded allure of Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House Cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for Nguyen's struggle to become a "real" American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell- O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man. Vivid and viscerally powerful, this remarkable memoir about growing up in the 1980s introduces an original new literary voice and an entirely new spin on the classic assimilation story.

Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir

Reference

Penguin??Books

The authentic and compassionate first novel about two sisters from the author of the acclaimed memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner Called "A writer to watch, a tremendous talent" by the Chicago Tribune, Bich Minh Nguyen makes her fiction debut with the deeply moving and entertaining story of two Vietnamese sisters. Aside from their petite stature, Van and Linny Luong couldn't be more different. Diligent, unassuming Van works as an immigration lawyer in the Michigan suburbs where she resides with her handsome, Chinese-American lawyer husband. Beautiful, fashionable Linny lives in Chicago and has drifted into an affair with a married man. When Van's picture-perfect marriage collapses and Linny finds herself grappling to escape her dead-end life, the long-estranged sisters are unable to confide in one another- until their eccentric inventor father calls them back home to the Vietnamese American community they fled long ago.

Short Girls: A Novel

United States

Penguin Publishing Group

“A powerful and wholly original American saga.” —San Francisco Chronicle Bich Minh Nguyen’s previous books—the acclaimed memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner and the American Book Award–winning novel Short Girls—established her talents as a writer of keen cultural observation. In Pioneer Girl, Nguyen entwines the Asian American experience with the escapist pleasures of literature, in a dazzling mystery about the origins of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic Little House on the Prairie. Lee Lien has long dodged her Vietnamese family’s rigid expectations by immersing herself in books. But now, jobless with a PhD in literature, she is back at home, working in her family’s restaurant under her mother’s hypercritical gaze—until an heirloom from their past sends Lee on a search for clues that may lead back to Wilder herself, transforming strangers’ lives as well as her own.

Pioneer Girl: A Novel

Designed for introduction to fiction and fiction-writing courses, 30/30 is part of Longman’s Penguin Academics series of portable, value-priced texts. This anthology offers an array of fiction that not only teaches craft, but also provides a context in which to study formal and thematic trends of the past 30 years. The stories are represented by a mix of well-established authors and newer voices, offering a stylistic range, from the traditional narrative to experimental forms, and thematic range as well, with stories that address issues including family and culture, love and loss, ethnicity and gender.

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academics Series)

Two estranged Vietnamese sisters, each wrestling with their own lives, careers, and romances, are reunited at their father's American citizenship party, and forge a new relationship in this novel from the PEN/Jerard Fund Award-winning author. 30,000 first printing.

Viking Adult

Discovering a family heirloom that her mother may have received from Laura Ingalls Wilder, PhD graduate Lee Lien explores the tenuous connection between her ancestors and the famous pioneer author only to discover a trail of clues that lead to fateful encounters.

Pioneer Girl

VIKING

A coming-of-age memoir by a Vietnamese American recounts her struggles for an American identity in the pre-politically correct climate of the Midwest and her passion for American food in the face of her family's Buddhist lifestyle.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Van and Linny Luong are temperamental opposites. Diligent, unassuming Van has found her calling as an immigration lawyer in the midwestern suburbs, but no one knows that her picture-perfect marriage has suddenly evaporated. Her younger sister, Linny, fashion-forward and socially adept, lives in Chicago where she has drifted into a dead-end affair with a married man. Though both women feel untethered and burdened by a secret, they’ve never been able to confide in each other. But then, after nearly thirty years in the U.S., their eccentric, invention-obsessed father decides to take the citizenship oath―a rite of passage he hopes will improve the prospects of his most prized creation, the “Luong Arm,” an instrument to help short people grasp objects that are out of reach. When Van and Linny reluctantly heed the summons home they end up having to plan a celebration for him, replete with cha gio egg rolls and encounters with old friends from years past. In the time warp of a childhood home unaltered since their mother’s death and insulated by the same Vietnamese American community they grew up with, Van and Linny find they are bound by much more than the duties of culture and family history, or their aging father’s demands and whims. As they chart the uncertainty that has defined them, as well as the bitter irony of their romantic straits, Van and Linny discover in their common cause a new, enduring connection that sees them through the host of surprises to come. Bich Minh Nguyen was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a writer to watch, a tremendous talent” for her debut memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, and her charm and shrewd powers of observation are on brilliant display in this first novel. By turns deeply moving, wickedly urbane, and utterly entertaining, Short Girls chronicles the pitfalls and triumphs that govern all family lives. Nguyen’s insights into the complexities of duty, culture, and ambition often shared by the children of immigrants make Van and Linny’s story fresh and unforgettable ― a true American tale for our time.

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Books by Nguyen, Bich Minh

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nguyen, Bich Minh. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years

Short Girls

Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir

Short Girls: A Novel

Pioneer Girl: A Novel

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academics Series)

Short Girls: A Novel

Pioneer Girl

Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir

Short Girls