Year of the Tiger?

Well, no.  But there are three current books which would make you think otherwise:

The first, The Tiger's Wife, gets my top recommendation.  Author Tea Obreht tells a haunting story of family, generations and folklore involving a young female doctor (Natalia) in search of understanding her grandfather's life and death.  Obreht's beautiful prose and adept storytelling has won her recognition by The New Yorker as one of the 20 novelists to watch under 40.





The second, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan's A Tiger in the Kitchen, is a quick and easy food memoir about the author's return to native Singapore to reconnect with her family while learning to cook all of her favorite childhood dishes.







The third, perhaps most notorious book on this list, is Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  Chua's book swept the news early this year because of its sometimes controversial outlook on parenting "the Chinese way". Though I've not read this one, my friend (also a librarian), highly recommends it.  To read more about Chua's book and the craze it's created, check out this The New Yorker article from January 31, 2011.