100 books like A Silent Fury

I first read this book while I was conducting anthropological fieldwork in the mines of Guanajuato, Mexico. Even though the conditions in the mines I visited were somewhat better, and even though I was in silver and gold mines and not coal mines, I was amazed by the continuity in mining practices and the kinds of conflicts that emerge, such as the danger caused when miners are paid by the amount produced since they don’t want to take the time needed to support the tunnels with wooden timbering.

I also love that it includes descriptions of women and girls as mineworkers, which very few books about mining do.  

This was one of my favorite books as a child and probably one reason I became an anthropologist of mining.

Though I wouldn’t have put it this way at the time, I found it fascinating that in a place where everything is doing the same job, especially a highly dangerous and damaging job, other aspects of culture coalesce around that job and its meanings—things like religion, kinship, gender, leisure, ecology, etcetera. I was deeply moved by the description of the vast slag heap that slowly came to tower over the town, eventually engulfing the narrator’s small house. 

I love this book’s restrained, atmospheric description of the experiences of a North American couple re-opening an abandoned copper mine in Mexico in the middle of the 20th century. It is Doerr’s first book, which she wrote in her mid-70s, based on experiences with her husband earlier in her life.

Her spare, evocative writing style gives a vivid sense of place and of human relationships between the foreign managers and the villagers, creating a sense of tenuous but real connection across wide divisions of language, race, class, education, and religion. 

This is not only a great ethnography (a book based on long-term anthropological fieldwork) giving a splendidly detailed and deeply humane account of the lives of Bolivian tin miners and their families in the 1970s, but also one of the most effective case studies within the framework of “dependency theory.”

The title, which comes from one of the author’s interviews with a miner, captures the violence and misery of tin mining, but I also love the way the book portrays its protagonists as ordinary people living and giving meaning to their lives as best they can. 

The colonial period of Mexico was a mystery to me, so I turned to the ultimate source, this book by Paz. Surprisingly, I found that I did not agree with all of Paz’s conclusions about Sor Juana and the time she lived. He wrote from a male perspective, a middle-aged scholarly male perspective. Sor Juana was a young woman, a distinguished scholar in her own right. Had she written such a history, it would be quite different.

Sadly, there is no such book written from a woman’s perspective, so I invite you to join me in discovering what nuggets of wisdom you can in this book, truly the ultimate deep dive into Sor Juana’s life and times. Yes, I relied a great deal on Paz’s research. You will find it fascinating too.

As a reader I simply couldn’t have one book without the other. Detective Cruz is the first female detective in Acapulco and fights for every inch of respect in a police department rife with corruption and misogyny in a country where Mexicans don’t trust the police, feeling that no one cares. But Det. Cruz cares. The recurring theme of so many girls gone missing is her passion which occasionally rises up during other investigations throughout the series. As a writer I enjoyed suspense and danger. Carmen Amato makes you feel the heat and taste the food of Acapulco. Best ever female cop protagonist.

Texas schools do an incredible job of acculturating their students in Texas history. The school system starts by telling the story of true Texans. Unfortunately, some of those tales were what we called “stories.” 

In college, I took a course called The History of Mexico. The course book used by Professor Macias (if I remember his name correctly) was a small book, less than 200 pages, called The Compact History of Mexico. What a wonderful course and wonderful book. 

I have not looked at the book in years, even though I ordered a copy when writing this. I felt like a child reading the book, being told a different story than I had been told over the years, providing to me – a black student – the why and how history and both sides of a story are so important. Always feeling left out of the discussion, hearing a distorted… show more.

This short novel is by a Mexican writer and takes place underground. At first, we cannot tell who is living and who is dead, but we eventually accept the fact that the characters are ghosts. 

The ghosts come and go, remembering their past lives together. They remind each other of the events of the Mexican Revolution that they lived through, and they especially remember the strongman in the village. Pedro Páramo runs things with an iron hand, and he also pines for a woman who is beyond his control—the only thing he wants that he can’t have.

The voices in this novel are like a chorus of whispers breathing the picture of a poor village. I love the beauty and mystery of the writing. Many Mexicans consider this their greatest novel, and for all readers, it is a small masterpiece. 

I was given this as a present and what a wonderful present it was. Deborah Turbeville is a wonderful photographer whose work I admire. Her fashion photography was innovative, imaginative and so creative.

This book, a visual diary of her house and time in Mexico is filled with her signature blurred images, from black and white portraits to colourful interiors. It goes against everything we learn in Interiors but it’s magical, evocative, and gothic.

When Cece’s older sister is kidnapped by a powerful, dark criatura, she must travel into Devil’s Alley and become a bruja to save her. To me, what makes this book special is Cece’s big, all-encompassing heart. She loves deeply and while it’s her heart that gets her into trouble, but it’s also what ultimately saves her. This was an incredibly meaningful theme to read into a book! I highly recommend this book as an escape; step into Cece’s life to glimpse the shadowy magic of the criaturas and also to experience the deeply moving love in her world.