Powered by a book like {foo}
Recommendations based on What It Means When a Man Falls from the Skyby Lesley Nneka Arimah
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
A family's journey through the Mississippi Delta, confronting a traumatic past.
It is Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to bravely help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. Jojo ends up throwing up at the sight although Pop is sympathetic. ... (Wikipedia)
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
An escaped slave's daring escape to freedom, fighting against the brutality of slavery.
The story is told in the third person, focusing mainly on Cora. Scattered single chapters also focus on Cora's mother Mabel, the slavecatcher Ridgeway, a reluctant slave sympathizer named Ethel, and ... (Wikipedia)
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
Spanning centuries, the intertwining stories of two African sisters, their descendants, and the legacy of slavery.
Effia is raised by her mother, Baaba, who is cruel to her. Nevertheless she works hard to please her mother. Known as a beauty, Effia is intended to be married to the future chief of her village, but ... (Wikipedia)
Pachinko
by Lee Min-jin
A saga spanning four generations of a Korean family living in Japan, struggling to survive and thrive amidst prejudice and poverty.
The novel takes place over the course of three books: Book I Gohyang/Hometown, Book II Motherland, and Book III Pachinko. In 1883, in the little island fishing village of Yeongdo , which is a ferry ... (Wikipedia)
Freshwater
by Akwaeke Emezi
A powerful novel about a young Nigerian woman with multiple personalities, struggling to find her place in the world.
An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result ... (Goodreads)
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An exploration of race, identity, and belonging as two Nigerian immigrants experience life in America and beyond.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to ... (Goodreads)
LaRose
by Louise Erdrich
A family's tragedy brings them together, pushing them to confront the past and embrace their future.
LaRose is set in North Dakota , on an Ojibwa reservation in the "era of George W. Bush and 9/11." , The novel's protagonist is LaRose Iron, a young Native American boy. , His father, Landreaux Iron, ... (Wikipedia)
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
A post-apocalyptic story of survival, hope, and the power of community.
This highly acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from award-winning author Octavia E. Butler "pairs well with, 1984, or, The Handmaid's Tale," (John Green,, New York Times,)–now with a ... (Barnes & Noble)
Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Story of two sisters navigating a civil war in Nigeria, and the effects of colonialism.
The novel takes place in Nigeria prior to and during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). The effect of the war is shown through the relationships of five people's lives including the twin daughters of ... (Wikipedia)
Under the Udala Trees
by Chinelo Okparanta
A young Nigerian girl navigates her sexuality and identity amidst the backdrop of civil war and religious conflict.
The novel opens in 1960's Nigeria, following the tale of Ijeoma, a young girl who lives in a small town called Ojoto with her mother, Adaora and father, Uzo, in the middle of the Nigerian Civil War. ... (Wikipedia)
Goodbye, Vitamin
by Rachel Khong
A young woman returns home to help care for her father with Alzheimer's, reflecting on family, love, and memory.
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR;, O, The Oprah Magazine,;, Vogue,;, San Francisco Chronicl,e;, Esquire,;, Huffington Post,;, Nylon,;, Entertainment Weekly,;, BuzzFeed,;, Booklist,; and, The ... (Barnes & Noble)
Another Brooklyn
by Jacqueline Woodson
A poetic story of four teenage girls growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s.
The story starts with August, an adult anthropologist, returning to New York to bury her father. On the subway, she encounters an old friend, and begins to reminisce. She remembers being an 8 year ... (Wikipedia)
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
by Carmen Maria Machado
Collection of surreal stories exploring the complexities of gender, sexuality and identity.
In Her Body and Other Parties , Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her ... (Goodreads)
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the struggles of Indian-American immigrants in the US.
A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four ... (Wikipedia)
Go Tell It on the Mountain
by James Baldwin
A young boy's struggle to reconcile his faith and family with his own identity.
“,Mountain,” Baldwin said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.”, Go Tell It on the Mountain, originally published in 1953, is Baldwin’s first major work, a novel ... (Barnes & Noble)
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
A spiritual exploration of death, exploring the afterlife through the eyes of President Lincoln.
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by ... (Goodreads)
Children of Blood and Bone
by Tomi Adeyemi
In a world where magic has been suppressed, a young girl fights to bring it back and overthrow the oppressive monarchy.
The novel takes place in the fictional land of Orïsha, inhabited by two distinct people: divîners, who have the capability to become magical maji and are marked by white hair, and non-magical ... (Wikipedia)
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
A woman's radical decision to pursue a vegetarian lifestyle, leading to unexpected and far-reaching consequences.
The Vegetarian tells the story of Yeong-hye, a home-maker who, one day, suddenly decides to stop eating meat after a series of dreams involving images of animal slaughter. This abstention leads her ... (Wikipedia)
Difficult Women
by Roxane Gay
A collection of stories exploring the complexity of womanhood through the eyes of diverse characters.
Award-winning author and powerhouse talent Roxane Gay burst onto the scene with, An Untamed State, and the, New York Times, bestselling essay collection, Bad Feminist, (Harper Perennial). Gay returns ... (Goodreads)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
A woman's journey of self-discovery, liberation and empowerment.
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person – no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three ... (Goodreads)
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.
The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)
Exit West
by Mohsin Hamid
Reflection on displacement and immigration as two refugees traverse the world in search of a new life.
Nadia and Saeed meet when they are working students in an unnamed city. Saeed is more conservative and still lives at home, as custom generally requires, but the more independent Nadia has chosen to ... (Wikipedia)
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
A black man's journey towards self-actualization in a world of racial oppression.
The narrator, an unnamed black man, begins by describing his living conditions: an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights, operated by power stolen from the city's electric grid. He ... (Wikipedia)
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Exploration of African culture and traditions, grappling with the tension between modernity and tradition.
The novel's protagonist , Okonkwo, is famous in the villages of Umuofia for being a wrestling champion, defeating a wrestler nicknamed "Amalinze The Cat" (because he never lands on his back). Okonkwo ... (Wikipedia)
Stay with Me
by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
A sweeping tale of love, betrayal, and the power of family, set in Nigeria.
This celebrated, unforgettable first novel, shortlisted for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction and set in Nigeria, gives voice to both husband and wife as they tell the story of their ... (Goodreads)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
A haunting story of loss and resilience in the aftermath of slavery.
Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio , where the protagonist Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver at 124 Bluestone Road. The book ... (Wikipedia)
Salvage the Bones
by Jesmyn Ward
A family struggles to survive in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.
The novel follows a working-class African-American family living in southern Mississippi in 2005. The family consists of Daddy, his daughter Esch (the narrator), and his sons Randall, Skeetah, and ... (Wikipedia)
Another Country
by James Baldwin
An exploration of race and identity, examining the lives of a diverse group of characters.
The book uses a third-person narrator who is nevertheless closely aware of the characters' emotions. , :,219, The first fifth of Another Country tells of the downfall of jazz drummer Rufus Scott. He ... (Wikipedia)
What We Lose
by Zinzi Clemmons
A young woman navigates the complexities of identity, grief, and love after the death of her mother.
Thandi, the daughter of a South African mother and an American father, comes of age in Pennsylvania . When she is in college, her mother is stricken by cancer and dies, causing Thandi's life to fall ... (Wikipedia)
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.
The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)
