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Recommendations based on Washington Blackby Esi Edugyan
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
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)
There There
by Tommy Orange
A powerful novel that follows the lives of twelve Native Americans living in Oakland, California, as they prepare for a powwow.
The book begins with an essay by Orange, detailing "brief and jarring vignettes revealing the violence and genocide that Indigenous people have endured, and how it has been sanitized over the ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Half Blood Blues
by Esi Edugyan
Tale of a jazz band's tumultuous journey through the shadows of Nazi Germany.
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, is arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. A German citizen. And he is ... (Goodreads)
Conversations with Friends
by Sally Rooney
Two college students explore the complexity of relationships and their place in the world.
A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple. Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A ... (Goodreads)
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
Nine strangers are brought together by their love for trees, leading to a fight to save the last of the remaining forests.
Nicholas Hoel, Mimi Ma, Adam Appich, Ray Brinkman, Dorothy Cazaly, Douglas Pavlicek, Neelay Mehta, Patricia Westerford, and Olivia Vandergriff are people who had unique relationships with trees which ... (Wikipedia)
Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
A young black babysitter is accused of kidnapping the white child she cares for, exposing the complexities of race and privilege in modern America.
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her ... (Goodreads)
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)
Warlight
by Michael Ondaatje
After WWII, two siblings are left in the care of mysterious figures as their parents disappear. Years later, they uncover the truth.
In a narrative as mysterious as memory itself – at once both shadowed and luminous – Warlight is a vivid, thrilling novel of violence and love, intrigue and desire. It is 1945, and London is still ... (Goodreads)
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)
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
A novel-in-verse that follows the interconnected lives of twelve British women of color.
Joint Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2019 Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve ... (Goodreads)
Through Black Spruce
by Joseph Boyden
A journey of reconciliation, to uncover the truth and find peace.
A haunting novel about identity, love, and loss by the author of, Three Day Road, Will Bird is a legendary Cree bush pilot, now lying in a coma in a hospital in his hometown of Moose Factory, ... (Goodreads)
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
Coming of age story of a young Black girl dealing with prejudice and racism in 1940s Ohio.
In Lorain, Ohio , nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer and her 10-year-old sister Frieda live with their parents, a tenant named Mr. Henry, and Pecola Breedlove, a temporary foster child whose house was ... (Wikipedia)
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)
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
A letter from a son to his illiterate mother, exploring their family's history and his own coming-of-age as a gay Vietnamese-American.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began ... (Goodreads)
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
Two boys sentenced to a brutal reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida struggle to survive and maintain their humanity.
Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida. ... (Goodreads)
An American Marriage
by Tayari Jones
A newlywed couple's lives are torn apart when the husband is wrongfully convicted of a crime. The novel explores love, loyalty, and injustice.
Roy, a sales representative for a textbook company, and Celestial, an artist specializing in custom made baby dolls, are newlyweds who live in Atlanta. After their first year of marriage they travel ... (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)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
by Madeleine Thien
A family saga spanning generations of musicians in China, exploring the impact of political upheaval on their lives and art.
The novel begins with a girl named Marie living with her mother in Vancouver , Canada. The year is 1991, and the addition to their household of a Chinese refugee fleeing the post-Tiananmen Square ... (Wikipedia)
Before We Were Yours
by Lisa Wingate
Family torn apart is reunited across generations, revealing a powerful tale of resilience and hope.
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the ... (Goodreads)
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
A story of a former slave turned landowner navigating the complex social dynamics of Antebellum America.
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black ... (Goodreads)
Manhattan Beach
by Jennifer Egan
A female-led story of crime, courage and sacrifice set in 1940s Brooklyn.
Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea ... (Goodreads)
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)
Everything Under
by Daisy Johnson
A haunting story of a mother and daughter, their secrets, and the search for a lost person.
The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a ... (Goodreads)
Love
by Toni Morrison
A complex and layered exploration of love, its many forms, and the ways in which it shapes our lives.
Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison’s spellbinding new novel is a Faulknerian symphony of passion and hatred, power and perversity, color and class that spans three generations of black women in a ... (Goodreads)
Jonny Appleseed
by Joshua Whitehead
Jonny, a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer, leaves the reserve to make a new life in the city, but must confront his past and identity along the way.
"You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine" is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel. Off the reserve ... (Goodreads)
State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett
A journey in the Amazon rainforest to find a missing colleague and unlock the secrets of a mysterious drug.
In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, "State of Wonder" presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional ... (Goodreads)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan
A man's journey to reconcile his past and make sense of his actions during the Japanese occupation of Burma.
Dorrigo Evans has found fame and public recognition as a war veteran in old age, but inwardly he is plagued by his own shortcomings and considers his numerous accolades to be a “failure of perception ... (Wikipedia)
Lethal White
by Robert Galbraith
Private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin investigate a blackmail case involving a government minister.
At Robin Ellacott's marriage to Matthew Cunliffe, Cormoran Strike's capture of the Shacklewell Ripper the night before is already widely known, except by Robin. When Strike tells her that he had been ... (Wikipedia)
Marcelo in the Real World
by Francisco X. Stork
A young man with Asperger's Syndrome navigates the challenges of the real world.
Marcelo Sandoval, is a seventeen-year-old who hears music in his head as a result of mild autism , described as a " cognitive disorder " by his father. , He attends a school that caters to the needs ... (Wikipedia)
