Powerful Books about the Experiences of Immigrants We've had violent Border Patrol activity in our city this week, with people snatched from places of work and off the street because of the color of their skin. Many are suffering and afraid in the face of this discriminatory kidnaping, and tens of thousands of children have been absent from public school, too frightened to attend. So it feels like an opportune time to highlight just a few powerful stories about or by immigran

Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles. Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple fa

Comedian Zarna Garg lived several lives before falling into comedy in midlife and realizing it was where she'd belonged all along. Her...

Powerful Books about the Experiences of Immigrants I could have listed many other powerful books about immigrants. But these four fiction...

Zamora's memoir of his grueling journey from El Salvador to the United States without family at age nine keeps the reader within each...

Hester is richly imagined historical fiction with connections to themes and characters from The Scarlet Letter. It's magical and...

Powerful Books about the Experiences of Immigrants I could have listed many other powerful books about immigrants. But these four fiction...

Main protagonist Gifty's journey was full of challenges and not too easy or complete, and her voice had me hooked throughout Yaa Gyasi's...

Characters cope with lost dreams and find ways to (often clumsily) come together through their shared pain. The vibrancy of Beirut is...

What I'm Reading Now Here's what I've got going at the moment: a dark, intriguing story of interconnectedness between unusual characters;...

Evaristo offers a set of twelve interconnected stories about Black women in contemporary Britain and their friendships, loves, struggles,...

01 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee In the early 1900s, a teenager falls for a silver-tongued stranger on the coast of Korea. But when the...

01 Where the Forest Meets the Stars Joanna is feeling adrift after her mother's death, and she disappears into the constant attention her...

There's a love triangle and fantastic details that bring the era1830s to life. The Parting Glass has both substance and lovely lighter...