Why am I passionate about this?

As an American artist and writer who has lived in European cities for the last decade and a halfā€”first Berlin, now Parisā€”I often look for echoes of dislocation and longing in the books I read. My first published book explores the lives of people who fled other countries to arrive in a city filled with a complex and dark history. 


I wrote

Drawn to Berlin: Comics Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe

By Ali Fitzgerald,

Book cover of Drawn to Berlin: Comics Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe

What is my book about?

This is a graphic surreal nonfiction book which chronicles the lives and drawings of different immigrants arriving in Berlin asā€¦

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of Giovanni's Room

Ali Fitzgerald Why did I love this book?

James Baldwin is one of my favorite authors, and this book is a short, masterful look at the mechanisms behind queer shame. Two lovers, David and Giovanni, hide in a darkened room in self-imposed exile in Paris until the narratorā€™s sense of shame breaks their love trance.

David, an American who is engaged to a woman, cannot bear to continue his gay affair and so leaves Giovanni, prompting a confrontation with a changed reality and a tragic reckoning with the guillotine. 

By James Baldwin,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked Giovanni's Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy.

United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love's endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love,ā€¦


Book cover of Matrix

Ali Fitzgerald Why did I love this book?

This is a book I often give to friends for birthdays, etc. It is a delightfully strange and profound tale of a 12th-century French girl who is sent to an English convent, where she forms her own city of women within the walls.

The protagonist, Marie de France, has an unflinching vision of an alternate world informed by divine visions. Itā€™s a strange joy to read on as Marie reimagines a decrepit abbey.

By Lauren Groff,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Matrix as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
AN OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Gorgeous, sensual, addictive' SARA COLLINS
'Brightly lit' NAOMI ALDERMAN

Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.

Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia.

'A propulsive, captivating read' BRIT BENNETT
'Fascinating, beguiling, vivid' MARIAN KEYES
'A dazzlingly clever tale' THE TIMES
'A thrillingly vivid,ā€¦


Ad

Book cover of Through Any Window

Through Any Window by Deb Richardson-Moore,

Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.

Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriffā€™s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. Asā€¦

Book cover of Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Ali Fitzgerald Why did I love this book?

I always include this book when I teach graphic novel workshops because itā€™s such a beautiful and profound exploration of childhood in flight. In the second volume, Satrapi reveals the cultural mishaps she encounters as a teen who escapes Tehran for Vienna.

Marjane fears she is losing her Iranian identity as she gets lost in a haze of drugs and partying, but she also feels out of place after returning to Iran. Years later, Marjane realizes with anguish that her future lies in Europe and is compelled to leave her family again.

By Marjane Satrapi,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Persepolis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Wise, often funny, sometimes heart-breaking, Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, growing up during the Iranian Revolution.

The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life.

Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary,ā€¦


Book cover of The Art of Losing

Ali Fitzgerald Why did I love this book?

My partner recommended this book, only recently translated into English, about a Parisian gallery worker, NaĆÆma, who unravels her family's tangled history between rural Algeria and France. In this book, Zeniter explores the complex aftershocks of colonization and how they affect and inform subsequent generations of migrants.

NaĆÆmaā€™s family story in France begins when her grandfather, Ali, flees North Africa after the Algerian war for independence. Coming from a mountain village, Ali finds the decrepit French apartment blocks bewildering and unwelcoming. The final section of Zeniterā€™s book is devoted to NaĆÆmaā€™s return to Algeria, where she attempts to weave together the past and future of her family and her identity. 

By Alice Zeniter, Frank Wynne (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Art of Losing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award

'Remarkable . . . a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity' - The Sunday Times

'Zeniter's extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle.' - The Wall Street Journal

Naima has always known that her father's family were from Algeria - but up until now, that has meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she has learned from her grand parents' tiny flat in a crumbling French sink estate: the foodā€¦


Ad

Book cover of A Theory of Expanded Love

A Theory of Expanded Love by Caitlin Hicks,

Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.

Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers inā€¦

Book cover of The Talented Mr. Ripley

Ali Fitzgerald Why did I love this book?

I go in and out of obsession with the irascible crime novelist Patricia Highsmith. In her first Ripley book, we are introduced to an amoral but likable American character who journeys between Rome, Palermo, and Naples, trying to outrun his modest and murderous past.

The cities he encounters are dazzling, filled with old villas and beautiful things representing his new, forged identity.

By Patricia Highsmith,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked The Talented Mr. Ripley as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith's five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a "sissy." Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. "Sinister and strangely alluring"ā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Drawn to Berlin: Comics Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe

By Ali Fitzgerald,

Book cover of Drawn to Berlin: Comics Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe

What is my book about?

This is a graphic surreal nonfiction book which chronicles the lives and drawings of different immigrants arriving in Berlin as they attempt to forge a future. From my perspective as a teacher and artist, I record a rapidly changing city through a series of comic workshops given in emergency refugee shelters. Different chapters explore the fascist history of Berlin as well as previous waves of migration, revealing complex themes of political and personal displacement taking place over different eras.

Book cover of Giovanni's Room
Book cover of Matrix
Book cover of Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,009

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

šŸ“š You might also likeā€¦

Book cover of Honeymoon at Sea: How I Found Myself Living on a Small Boat

Honeymoon at Sea by Jennifer Silva Redmond,

When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.ā€¦

Book cover of Love and Chocolate

Love and Chocolate by Linda Shenton Matchett,

Ilsa Krause and her siblings are stunned to discover their father left massive debt behind upon his death. To help pay off their creditors, she takes a job at Beckā€™s Chocolates, the company her father despised. To make matters worse, her boss is Ernst Webber, her high school love whoā€¦

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in gay men, Nuns, and women?

Gay Men 140 books
Nuns 27 books
Women 664 books