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Celeste Ng

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Celeste Ng

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Born
The United States
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May 2007

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Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts.


Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), was a New York Times bestseller, a
New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Everything I Never Told You was also the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the ALA’s Alex Award. It has been translated into over thirty languages and is being adapted for the screen.


Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 Indie Next bestseller, and Amazon's Best Fiction Book of 2017. It was named a be
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Popular Answered Questions

Celeste Ng Hi Juliana,

This is a great question--I'm glad you asked! I also don't care for the term "Oriental," myself. But I chose to use it in the book delibera…more
Hi Juliana,

This is a great question--I'm glad you asked! I also don't care for the term "Oriental," myself. But I chose to use it in the book deliberately for two reasons.

First, it's the term that would have been used at the time, both by the main characters and the people surrounding them. Relatedly, I wanted to startle the reader a little by using a now-outdated term, to remind readers that we were in an earlier and less progressive era, where people weren't seen as "Asian," but "Oriental."

Thank you for asking!(less)
Celeste Ng Hi Dawn,

Thanks for your question! I had the basic plot and cast in mind from the start--I knew, for example, that Lydia would be dead and that she'd d…more
Hi Dawn,

Thanks for your question! I had the basic plot and cast in mind from the start--I knew, for example, that Lydia would be dead and that she'd drowned in the lake, and I had a basic idea of why. And I knew the major things that had happened in the family's history. Those actually stayed pretty constant throughout all of the drafts and all the writing. But as I wrote, I figured out *why* those events had happened, and learned much more about each of the characters. For me, writing is always a mix of what I know (or think I know) and what I don't know, of exploration and explanation.(less)
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Little Fires Everywhere

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Our Missing Hearts

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Little Fires Everywhere Debuts at #7 on the NYT Bestseller List

I'm thrilled to report that in its first week in print, Little Fires Everywhere debuts at #7 on the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller List! (It's also at #8 on the NYT Combined Print & Ebook List, #10 on the Publishers Weekly Bestseller List, #4 on the Indie National List, and Amazon's #8 most sold book.)

Thank you so much, all of you, for your support!











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Published on September 24, 2017 11:40

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Inciting Joy: Essays
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Celeste Ng is currently reading
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
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The Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks
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The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
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Mott Street by Ava Chin
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Ava Chin accomplishes an astonishing feat: by tracing five generations of her own Chinese American ancestors, she also traces the story of Chinese exclusion, illuminating an often-ignored part of our national past. Mott Street is a vibrant and moving ...more
Celeste Ng has read
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell
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Told in a rich array of voices, this gorgeously written debut explores the myriad syncopations of love and desire. Laura Warrell writes with an enormous understanding of human nature, a boundless sympathy for life’s complications, and a keen eye for ...more
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Central Places by Delia Cai
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Delia Cai’s CENTRAL PLACES is a sensitive, sharp-eyed, slyly funny story of venturing back into the foreign country that is your past—and discovering that you can never really shake the places and people that shaped you. This book will resonate with ...more
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Maame by Jessica George
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An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys—and the guilt—of trying to find your own way in life. At heart this is a book about seeing life and your loved ones and yourself in a new light, and Maddie’s journey will resonate with anyone ...more
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Maame by Jessica George
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Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong
Kaleidoscope
by Cecily Wong (Goodreads Author)
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Sparkling with sharp observations and deeply wise in its insights, Kaleidoscope is a moving portrayal of the tangled knot of sisterhood and the dizzying spiral of grief. Cecily Wong’s dazzling second novel deftly illuminates the complex push-pull of ...more
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Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong
Kaleidoscope
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Quotes by Celeste Ng  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”
Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”
Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

Polls

112593
Vote For One Book To Be Read in January 2015(Book published in 2014)

A Sudden Light A Sudden Light by Garth Stein Garth
Stein
When a boy tries to save his parents’ marriage, he uncovers a legacy of family secrets in a coming-of-age ghost story by the author of the internationally bestselling phenomenon, The Art of Racing in the Rain.
 
  4 votes 23.5%

Everything I Never Told You Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng Celeste NgLydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins this debut novel about a mixed-race family living in 1970s Ohio and the tragedy that will either be their undoing or their salvation.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Leaving Time Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult Jodi PicoultFor more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Station Eleven Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Emily St. John MandelAn audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
 
  3 votes 17.6%

Mermaids in Paradise Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet Lydia MilletMermaids in Paradise is Lydia Millet’s funniest book yet, tempering the sharp satire of her early career with the empathy and subtlety of her more recent novels and short stories. This is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale, darkly comic on the surface and illuminating in its depths.
 
  2 votes 11.8%

The Book of Strange New Things The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber [author:Michel Faber|16272It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.
 
  1 vote 5.9%

Us Us by David Nicholls David NichollsDouglas Petersen understands his wife's need to 'rediscover herself' now that their son is leaving home.

He just thought they'd be doing their rediscovering together.

So when Connie announces that she will be leaving, too, he resolves to make their last family holiday into the trip of a lifetime: one that will draw the three of them closer, and win the respect of his son. One that will make Connie fall in love with him all over again.
 
  1 vote 5.9%

An Untamed State An Untamed State by Roxane Gay Roxane GayAn Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Before, During, After Before, During, After by Richard Bausch Richard Bausch
In prose that is direct, exact, and lyrical, Richard Bausch plumbs the complexities of public and personal trauma, and the courage with which we learn to face them. Above all, Before, During, After is a love story, offering a penetrating and exquisite portrait of intimacy, of spiritual and physical longing, and of the secrets we convince ourselves to keep even as they threaten to destroy us. An unforgettable tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished storytellers.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales Stone Mattress Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood Margaret AtwoodMargaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

Revival Revival by Stephen King Stephen KingA dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
 
  0 votes 0.0%

17 total votes
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