Here are 100 books that Brown Girl in the Ring fans have personally recommended if you like
Brown Girl in the Ring.
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I think about the positive identity development of Native youth all the time and not just because I am an educator and author. I love my Ojibwe language and culture, but I want to turn Native fiction on its head. We have so many stories about trauma and tragedy with characters who lament the culture that they were always denied. I want to show how vibrant and alive our culture still is. I want gripping stories where none of the Native characters are drug addicts, rapists, abused, or abusing others. I want to demonstrate the magnificence of our elders, the humor of our people, and the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Cherie Dimaline's book really spoke to me because, in addition to great story-telling, it sets Native people in a post-apocalyptic setting.
As Native people, we are so often portrayed as ancient rather than modern. So this work connected the ancient and the modern in a novel way. With relatable characters searching for family and community, it was relatable and real even in the world the book describes.
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden-but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
I have always been fascinated with morally grey or complex characters. For me, the sign of a great novel is one where you find yourself talking about the characters as if they were real people you know. I want to experience something when I read, and characters that are flawed, imperfect, or morally grey have always intrigued me because they can take me to places I haven’t (or wouldn’t!) go myself. And, of course, they provide ample grounds for fun discussions with my friends! Sci-fi apocalyptic fiction is fertile ground for such characters, so I’ve tried to pick books you may not have heard of. I hope you like them!
This a beautifully lyrical book. The first chapter winds and twists through different scenes and places, like a gentle lake through a peaceful forest. Emily St John Mantel leads you through the past, present, and future so softly that it takes you a moment to realize the bleakness and horror of the post-pandemic world she’s describing.
I love a story told from multiple points of view, and this one is a masterclass. It weaves different events and characters so precisely that when everything comes to a head in the final chapters, it feels inevitable and natural. I also love a nuanced villain, and (without giving away who) this one is fantastic! I understood their motivation and logic, even as I desperately wanted them to lose.
'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
Now an HBO Max original TV series
The New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction National Book Awards Finalist PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…
I've been in love with ecological writing, the effort to communicate love for and grief over the destruction of the profound beauty of the natural world, since I wrote my first play about rainforest clear-cutting in fifth grade—if not before. In 2016, I started Reckoning, a nonprofit journal of creative writing about environmental justice, because I wanted to encourage others doing this work, to provide an independent platform for it in ways profit-driven traditional publishing wasn't, and to build a community where those writers could share and inspire each other. Seven years later, that community defines me; it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
Christopher Rowe's prose is beautiful, vivid, and engrossing. His vision of a future mid-South dominated by rogue artificial intelligence conceals amid its wild phantasmagoria a surprisingly perceptive tenderness for the ways people cling together as they struggle to adapt and make space for each other in a complex and massively changed world. These stories also communicate an engrossing, evangelical love for bikes and cycling like nothing else I've read.
There are ten stories here including one readers have waited ten long years for: in new novel-la The Border State Rowe revisits the world of his much-lauded story The Voluntary State. Competitive cyclists twins Michael and Maggie have trained all their lives to race internationally. One thing holds them back: their mother who years before crossed the border into Tennessee.
Praise for Christopher Rowe:
"Rowe's stories are the kind of thing you want on a cold, winter's night when the fire starts burning low. Terrific." Justina Robson (Glorious Angels)
"As good as he is now, he'll keep getting better. Read…
I've been in love with ecological writing, the effort to communicate love for and grief over the destruction of the profound beauty of the natural world, since I wrote my first play about rainforest clear-cutting in fifth grade—if not before. In 2016, I started Reckoning, a nonprofit journal of creative writing about environmental justice, because I wanted to encourage others doing this work, to provide an independent platform for it in ways profit-driven traditional publishing wasn't, and to build a community where those writers could share and inspire each other. Seven years later, that community defines me; it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
In this profound and devastating novella, Campbell gives us a complex, multi-generational window on a post-warming, post-collapse world rebuilding itself. A cathedral grown, not built, out of living trees. A masterwork violin made from dying old-growth Sitka spruce that will long outlast the hand of its creator. A decaying library salvaged, its wealth of knowledge distributed to the living hands that need it most. Through these touchstones of human resilience and ingenuity, we're shown a path forward into a new world that doesn't escape loss or ignore it, but is burgeoned up by it into new vitality.
A NOVELLA-LENGTH EXPANSION OF THE 2020 THEODORE STURGEON MEMORIAL AWARD WINNER
A professor in pandemic isolation rescues books from the flooded and collapsing McPherson Library. A man plants fireweed on the hillside of his depopulated Vancouver Island suburb. An aspiring luthier poaches the last ancient Sitka spruce to make a violin for a child prodigy. Campbell's astonishing vision pulls the echoing effects of small acts and intimate moments through this multi-generational and interconnected story of how a West coast community survives the ravages of climate change.
I've been in love with ecological writing, the effort to communicate love for and grief over the destruction of the profound beauty of the natural world, since I wrote my first play about rainforest clear-cutting in fifth grade—if not before. In 2016, I started Reckoning, a nonprofit journal of creative writing about environmental justice, because I wanted to encourage others doing this work, to provide an independent platform for it in ways profit-driven traditional publishing wasn't, and to build a community where those writers could share and inspire each other. Seven years later, that community defines me; it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
Another short novel about people forging community in a world rendered almost unrecognizable by climate collapse and the devastating consequences of environmental injustice, this one provides a close focus on what it's like to be young, lost, and angry in the ruins of choices made before you were born. Nobody trying to live forward in these uncertain times should be without that perspective. As a parent struggling to come to terms with sending a kid out to grow up in this world, I know I've been desperate for it, and Mohamed's intensely close point of view makes it impossible not to inhabit. It's scary, but essential.
A novella set in post–climate disaster Alberta; a woman infected with a mysterious parasite must choose whether to pursue a rare opportunity far from home or stay and help rebuild her community
The world is nothing like it once was: climate disasters have wracked the continent, causing food shortages, ending industry, and leaving little behind. Then came Cad, mysterious mind-altering fungi that invade the bodies of the now scattered citizenry. Reid, a young woman who carries this parasite, has been given a chance to get away — to move to one of the last remnants of pre-disaster society — but…
I've been in love with ecological writing, the effort to communicate love for and grief over the destruction of the profound beauty of the natural world, since I wrote my first play about rainforest clear-cutting in fifth grade—if not before. In 2016, I started Reckoning, a nonprofit journal of creative writing about environmental justice, because I wanted to encourage others doing this work, to provide an independent platform for it in ways profit-driven traditional publishing wasn't, and to build a community where those writers could share and inspire each other. Seven years later, that community defines me; it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
A ridiculously fun and eerily prescient folktale, about the rise of a Robin Hood figure and the community that rallies around her in a droughted, post-warming Portland, Oregon, I can basically never not recommend this book. Like Brown Girl in the Ring, this is one of the books that made me want to read and write about speculative community-building and environmental justice. Parzybok's clever, inviting prose makes this substantial novel a deceptively fast and joyful read, and I'm never not sad when it's over.
"Parzybok does this thing where you think, 'this is fun!' and then you are charmed, saddened, and finally changed by what you have read. It's like jujitsu storytelling."—Maureen F. McHugh, author of After the Apocalypse
In drought-stricken Portland, Oregon, a Robin Hood-esque water thief is caught on camera redistributing an illegal truckload of water to those in need. Nicknamed Maid Marian—real name: Renee, a twenty-something barista and eternal part-time college student—she is an instant folk hero. Renee rides her swelling popularity and the public's disgust at how the city has abandoned its…
As both a high school teacher and an activist, I am preoccupied by the world we are leaving to the next generation. And as a long-time Toronto resident, I also just love seeing my city get destroyed in fiction, which is far more cathartic than watching it get bungled up in real life. I am drawn to the type of story that exposes the wounds that run deep in our political, economic, and social structures. The best dystopian fiction shines a mirror on our history and our present, and brings the experiences of marginalized voices—for whom the apocalypse is not merely theoretical—to a broader audience.
As Rebecca Roanhorse put it, Indigenous people on Turtle Island have already survived an apocalypse.
So it’s not surprising that my favourite apocalypse novel centres around a remote Anishinaabe community struggling to survive after a distant and never-fully explained calamity. It’s a prescient story, especially in light of real-life catastrophe that arrived only two years after its publication.
Much apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction focuses on gritty bands of survivors, but Rice provides a scenario that is much more in keeping with how communities actually act during disasters, contrasting the acts of care and mutual aid with the haunting slow decay of the world and the threat posed by violent outsiders.
It’s a multilayered, stunningly crafted realist take on how to keep surviving after the world ends.
Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award
Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award
2020 Burlington Library Selection; 2020 Hamilton Reads One Book One Community Selection; 2020 Region of Waterloo One Book One Community Selection; 2019 Ontario Library Association Ontario Together We Read Program Selection; 2019 Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group Reads; 2019 Amnesty International Book Club Pick
January 2020 Reddit r/bookclub pick of the month
“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival…
As both a high school teacher and an activist, I am preoccupied by the world we are leaving to the next generation. And as a long-time Toronto resident, I also just love seeing my city get destroyed in fiction, which is far more cathartic than watching it get bungled up in real life. I am drawn to the type of story that exposes the wounds that run deep in our political, economic, and social structures. The best dystopian fiction shines a mirror on our history and our present, and brings the experiences of marginalized voices—for whom the apocalypse is not merely theoretical—to a broader audience.
Another Toronto post-apocalyptic novel (sorry, but we are the centre of the universe, after all).
Hernandez’ dystopia is also caused by climate catastrophe, ushering in a fascist dictatorship that imprisons BIPOC, disabled, and queer people in labour camps. This relentless story exposes the lie of Canadian politeness and civility, the fraught politics of allyship, and the complicity and banality of evil required to maintain authoritarian structures.
It’s a grim read and often its reach exceeds its grasp, but woven through it is queer joy and resilience and I admire that it doesn’t pull its punches.
The author of the acclaimed novel Scarborough weaves an unforgettable and timely dystopian tale about a near-future, where a queer Black performer and his allies join forces to rise up when an oppressive regime gathers those deemed "Other" into concentration camps.
Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labour camps.
In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of…
In childhood, I memorized the Encyclopedia’s human anatomy pages, leading the family physician to explain, “Children like this become doctors or writers.” Good call, Doc! I wrote 14 of the 92 entries in my high school’s annual literary magazine (the most by one student). In college I earned a Bachelor’s, two Associates and Intercollegiate Press Association awards for Journalism and photography. I followed that with years of photography, photographic surveillance, 14 years of law firm litigation support, a temporary appointment as an SBA Paralegal Specialist, and 7 years of contract compliance at RadioShack headquarters. And, of course, my debut novel took 20 years of 8 drafts—I’m methodical that way.
Few novels epitomize excellence in as many areas as Ayn Rand’s book. I don't know if it was because it never came up during the years of my formal education, but I put off reading it for years after I became vaguely aware of it. And then I read it twice.
One might think of it in terms of being part one of Orwell’s 1984. The two books are nowhere near similar, but whereas 1984 is a dystopian future without regard for how society would get to such a point, Atlas Shrugged is the embryonic steps that could lead to an Orwellian future.
The most remarkable aspect of it, is its portrayal of an economic downtrend imposed upon free-market capitalism and its resulting impact on the country. The crux of Rand’s novel is that if the giants of industry shrugged—or rather just walked away from the imposition of tyranny—everything…
Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex. Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who…
From early on, I found myself captivated by the concept of a dystopic future for humanity. Years later, a 20+ year police career cemented the notion that people are not inherently good and that if a dystopic future is at all possible–we as a species will make it a reality. My love of science fiction, especially all forms of dystopia, combined with a hard-earned street-level grit and a love of action. Whether writing solo or with my amazing co-author, Dr. Gareth Worthington, I often inject these elements into my stories. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I did!
I’m an action guy. It drives me. So when you have a very well-developed sci-fi dystopia that asks tough questions about consumerism, corporate power, and our growing addiction to tech, and it’s loaded with action, I’m in.
This is that book, and while the actual writing is not always to my specific taste, the overall presentation is masterful. And did I mention action-packed? Looking back, Stephenson’s depiction of our addiction to technology is basically prophetic. Put this one on your list.
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators
Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.
Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30…
