Audiobooks Narrated by Elaine Kao

An Excess Male: A Novel

From debut author Maggie Shen King, An Excess Male is the chilling dystopian tale of politics, inequality, marriage, love, and rebellion, set in a near-future China, that further explores the themes of the classics The Handmaid's Tale and When She Woke. Under the One Child Policy, everyone plotted to have a son. Now 40 million of them can't find wives. China's One Child Policy and its cultural preference for male heirs have created a society overrun by 40 million unmarriageable men. By the year 2030, more than twenty-five percent of men in their late thirties will not have a family of their own. An Excess Male is one such leftover man's quest for love and family under a State that seeks to glorify its past mistakes and impose order through authoritarian measures, reinvigorated Communist ideals, and social engineering. Wei-guo holds fast to the belief that as long as he continues to improve himself, his small business, and in turn, his country, his chance at love will come. He finally saves up the dowry required to enter matchmaking talks at the lowest rung as a third husband-the maximum allowed by law. Only a single family-one harboring an illegal spouse-shows interest, yet with May-ling and her two husbands, Wei-guo feels seen, heard, and connected to like never before. But everyone and everything-walls, streetlights, garbage cans-are listening, and men, excess or not, are dispensable to the State. Wei-guo must reach a new understanding of patriotism and test the limits of his love and his resolve in order to save himself and this family he has come to hold dear. In Maggie Shen King's startling and beautiful debut, An Excess Male looks to explore the intersection of marriage, family, gender, and state in an all-too-plausible future.

Maggie Shen King (Author), Elaine Kao, James Chen, Tim Chiou (Narrator)

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Open Mic

Let’s face it: Talking about race can be difficult. It’s a slippery subject, rife with as many perspectives as there are people in the world. But laughter gets us talking. It has the power to break down barriers and draw us closer together. In Open Mic, acclaimed author and speaker Mitali Perkins invites us to listen in as ten authors for young adults — some familiar, some new — step up to the mic and share their stories about what it’s like growing up between cultures. In a mix of styles, the offerings in this anthology are as diverse as their authors: from the laugh-out-loud hilarious, like David Yoo’s story about a Korean-American boy pretending to fit every Asian stereotype in order to make friends; to the editorial, like Gene Luen Yang’s comic that explains why he won’t be watching the Last Airbender movie; to the ironic, like the poem from G. Neri about confronting stereotypes abroad; to the reverent, like Naomi Shihab Nye’s ode to her father’s use of language. But no matter what, this volume will certainly get us talking. Step up to the mic.

Mitali Perkins (Author), Elaine Kao, J. D. Jackson, Jd Jackson, Kathleen Gati, Mitali Perkins, Paula J P, Paula J Parker, Todd Haberkorn, Tommy A. Gomez (Narrator)

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