On this episode, we discuss our March 2026 Book Club Pick, Butter by Asako Yuzuki, a story of food and murder following a Japanese journalist who begins a professional relationship with a convicted serial killer, charged with the murders of three domestic partners, in hopes of getting an exclusive interview. However, she ends up getting more than she bargained for as she gets sucked into the killer’s philosophy and worldview that leads her to question amd she knows about the pleasures of food, the importance of friendships, as well as how traditional gender roles makes fools of us all.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

For our mid-month book news check in for March 2026, we catch up on the latest Asian American publishing announcements as well as check in on the ongoing fight against book bans:

• The Carlton Girls: Casey and the Cruel Thief by Julie Abe
• The Goodfolke Family by Roshani Chokshi
• P.S. Are We Friends Now? by John Schu and Jasmine Warga
• My Neighbor Yokai by noho
• Fall, in Love by Mia Kayla
• The Gravedigger’s Apprentice by Linda Cheng
• Seeking Wonderful by Susan Yoon; illust. Veronica Mang
• We Are the Light: A Story of Diwali by Rajani LaRocca; illust. Sayan Mukherjee
• Home Is Waiting to Be Found by Tina Athaide; ilust. Vũ Thủy Ngọc Hà
• Matcha & Matches by Cara Tanamachi
• Tea Leaves and Fate Strings by C.B. Lee
• The Red Thread by Laura G. Lee
• Scream, Queen! by Sujin Witherspoon

Book news mentioned on this episode:

• Lee & Low postpones their quadrennial Diversity Baseline Survey in order to concentrate on fighting book bans

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode, we discuss our February 2026 book club pick, Behind Frenemy Lines by Zen Cho, a romantic comedy about two Asian lawyers in London who share an (kinda?) adversarial relationship who end up sharing an office and perhaps become something more as they find themselves in a pseudo fake relationship to help with each other’s personal troubles. We read Zen Cho’s Regency era fantasy romance Sorcerer to the Crown almost a decade ago and were very excited to see what a contemporary Zen Cho romance looks like.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On our final mid-month book news episode in 2025, we review some of the latest Asian American publishing announcements, and weigh in on some recent book tea for December 2025!

Upcoming books mentioned in our publishing news:

1. Light and Thread by Han Kang
2. When We Swallowed the Sea by Janet Hong
3. Limitlessly, Mina by Gianna Lakenauth
4. Take to the Sky by Christina Soontornvat
5. Not Again, Dragon Chen! by Amanda Adams; illust. Wazza Pink
6. Jin Young, In Between by Ellen Oh
7. Don’t Print This by Monica Chin
8. A Super Definitely True Story of the Great Animal Race by Dane Liu; illust. Aki
9. Foreigners by E.L. Shen

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode we discuss our November 2025 book club pick, Taiwan Travelogue by Shuang-zi Yang, translated by Lin King, a historical fiction novel (with a meta-fiction twist) about a Japanese travel writer invited to write about the imperial colony of Taiwan by the Japanese government in the 1930’s, and follows her budding relationship with her Taiwanese translator as they eat through the island while she pushes on the boundaries between colonizer and colonized.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

Join us as we discuss our October 2025 book club pick, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, a Chinese American horror story taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic following Cora Zeng, a crime scene cleaner haunted by the trauma of witnessing her sister’s murder in a NYC subway station, as well as what appears to be her sister’s actual hungry ghost. We follow Cora and her co-workers on a blood-soaked quest as they try to simultaneously figure out how to exorcise her ghost, as well as solve a series of serial murders in NYC, all involving East Asian women.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors