Here are 100 books that Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation fans have personally recommended if you like
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When I was researching for my own book Girl Giant and the Monkey King, I was disappointed in how few books there were out there on Asian mythology. Not just because that really limited my ability to find legitimate sources for my novel, but because that meant so many readers were missing out on a complex and rich history of so many wonderful cultures. Since then, lots of books have been published and I’m so glad that I’m able to read and share them with so many others, and I’m looking forward to even more of these books coming out in the future that will give readers glimpses into our lives and stories.
Katie Zhao’s Dragon Warrior series features characters from Chinese mythology and incorporates them into our contemporary world in a fun, humorous adventure. Think Percy Jackson meets Journey to the West. You might recognize some of the same characters from Girl Giant and the Monkey King because Vietnamese and Chinese cultures have lots of similarities! I learned so much while reading this book, was delighted by the crossover characters that showed up in both our stories, and was so inspired, I wish there were more books like it.
"An exhilarating tale. . . Readers will be enthralled." --J.C. Cervantes, New York Times bestselling author of The Storm Runner
A debut novel inspired by Chinese mythology, this middle-grade fantasy follows an outcast as she embarks on a quest to save the world from demons--perfect for fans of Aru Shah and the End of Time and The Serpent's Secret.
As a member of the Jade Society, twelve-year-old Faryn Liu dreams of honoring her family and the gods by becoming a warrior. But the Society has shunned Faryn and her brother Alex ever since their father disappeared years ago, forcing them…
I grew up in Germany and have been living all over the globe since I was 18, including the US. I married a New Yorker 15 years ago. I am drawn to stories that combine both the German and American cultures — two worlds I feel at home in — and as reflected in my debut novel. The next one will take place between the US and East Germany - we had relatives on the other side of the Iron Curtain whom we visited frequently. I will never forget surprising my 17-year-old cousin sitting alone in the garden, crying… over a can of Coke that we had smuggled over the border to him.
Not a hidden gem, for sure — for me, Follett is always the usual suspect to revert to whenever I need to do historical research and find myself too lazy to read a non-fiction book about the period. I’ve read a lot of books about the Stasi, but nothing beats being reminded, through one individual’s account - even if fictional, still based on true events - of how ruthless the Stasi was. Imagine finding out that you’ve been spied on for years by the Stasi - and then to top this off, finding out that the one spying on you was no less than your own husband? Sounds like the German version of the film Sleeping with the Enemy with Julia Roberts playing the abused wife, right? This role in Follett’s novel is played by Rebecca Hofmann, who flees when the Wall goes up in 1961 — causing insurmountable troubles…
Ken Follett's extraordinary historical epic, the Century Trilogy, reaches its sweeping, passionate conclusion.
In Fall of Giants and Winter of the World, Ken Follett followed the fortunes of five international families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they made their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements, and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution-and rock and roll.
East German teacher Rebecca Hoffmann discovers she's been spied on by the Stasi for years and…
I read (and write) biography as much for history as for an individual life story. It’s a way of getting a personalized look at an historical period. When the book is a family biography, the history is amplified by different family members' perspectives, almost like a kaleidoscope, and it stretches over generations, allowing the historical story to blossom over time. The genre also opens a window into the ethos that animated this unique group of individuals who are bound together by blood. Whether it's a desire for wealth or power, the zeal for a cause, or the need to survive adversity, I found it in these family stories.
We all know of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, sisters who, before the Civil War, left their South Carolina home and became well-known abolitionists in the North.
But the family also included their brother Henry, a brutal, slave-holding man, his three children by Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman in his household, and their descendants. Two brothers became part of the post-Civil War Black elite and one descendant, Angelina Weld Grimké, made a name for herself as a poet during the Harlem Renaissance.
In addition to reexamining the legacy of Sarah and Angelina, author Kerri Greenidge reminds readers how families were formed under the sword of slavery and that recovery from its wounds is incomplete, even today.
Sarah and Angelina Grimke-the Grimke sisters-are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Their antislavery pamphlets, among the most influential of the antebellum era, are still read today. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. In The Grimkes, award-winning historian Kerri Greenidge presents a parallel narrative, indeed a long-overdue corrective, shifting the focus from the white abolitionist sisters to the Black Grimkes and deepening our understanding of the long struggle for racial and gender equality.
Twelve-year-old supernatural sleuth Dotty Morgan becomes embroiled in an ancient conflict between rival Japanese factions, and the timing couldn't be worse. A new girl in town creates jealousy between Dotty and her girlfriend, and her mother invites a nightmare houseguest to stay with them. She must put the drama aside…
In my previous role as a teacher, I often encountered teens who never, ever read outside of school – and hated having to read in school. Finding YA retellings of the classics became an indispensable tool for me in terms of not only linking the past with the present for the young adults in my classes, but also in terms of helping them see themselves in fiction, finding representation there, and discovering their own importance. It opened up whole worlds for all of us, and offered a pathway to a love of reading that I hope they will never forget!
I’m one of those rare English teachers who was never much of a fan of Austen, but Pride is such an incredibly powerful YA read that it had me looking back at the original with fresh eyes when I finished it. A contemporary, diverse retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it tackles issues of race, culture, heritage, and gentrification head-on, all set against the familiar backdrop of first love. Brilliantly showcasing the power and importance of not only the YA genre, but also the original novel which inspired it, I found Pride to be a massively thought-provoking and hugely important twist on the classic. (If I had my way, I’d make it required reading alongside its predecessor!)
In a timely update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic. A smart, funny, gorgeous retelling starring all characters of color.
Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her…
I’m a lecturer at the University of Liverpool who researches 19th century American literature. A year studying in central Pennsylvania sparked my interest in early US writing and led me to a PhD in the subject. I’m fascinated in how American literature of this period both upholds and challenges the founding myths of the nation - liberty, egalitarianism, progress – and how new genres, such as science fiction and the gothic, develop over the century.
Another example of early African American fiction, The Garies and their Friends is the second novel published by a Black American. Following the lives of an interracial couple moving from Savannah to Philadelphia, their middle-class Black friends, and the racism they face, The Garies is one of the first texts to examine free Black life in depth. Writing an anti-racist novel, Webb criticizes the legal structures and extra-legal white supremacist violence that prohibit Black safety and success in the ‘free’ North.
In this novel set in antebellum America, the Garies -- a white southerner, his mulatto slave-turned-wife, and their two children-have moved to Philadelphia from Georgia. Originally published in London in 1857, and never before available in paperback, The Gages and Their Friends was the second novel published by an African American and the first to chronicle the experience of free blacks in the pre-Civil War northeast. The novel anticipates themes that were to become important in later African American fiction, including miscegenation and "passing", and tells the story of the Garies and their friends, the Ellises, a "highly respectable and…
I am the product of biracial parents, and the idea of passing or not has always fascinated me as well as disgusted me. The reasons one would want to pass in this era are much different than the survival aspect my ancestors who passed had to consider in the 19th century. In writing my YA historical novels, being biracial always enters in, no matter the topic, because it is who I am and, in the end, always rears its head for consideration.
RM is famous for steamy romance, but this book was a shift in a more literary direction.
I love the challenges Zale Rowen faces in his dogged attempts to find deadbeat dads in Chicago. His personal struggle is not so much biracial as it is emotional since his own father left him.
The book is excellently written and is a definite page-turner for those who love suspense and want to discover who they are genetically and emotionally. RM is also a personal friend; his inspiration kick-started my fiction writing journey.
Zale Rowan, devoted to his career of tracking down fathers who have abandoned their children and forcing them to own up to their deeds, begins to realize that his reasons for his obsession go beyond what he has let himself believe. By the author of The Harris Men.
Worcester Glendenis is a 12-year-old wannabe private detective. He models himself on his hero, the fictional private eye Philip Marlowe, of course without the booze, cigarettes, and violence. After all, he is only twelve.
He's a likable and smart kid with two pesky 7-year-old twin sisters, and a Mum and…
I am a multicultural published author from California. I attended different schools growing up, reading classic literature that I couldn't relate to, resulting in becoming a reluctant reader. I didn't live in historical time periods. My skin was a lighter shade of brown. In my world, I met kids from diverse backgrounds, who spoke slang and had personal hardships. Where were the books like that? That's why I wrote Graffiti Girl. To share a realistic, multicultural approach so the reluctant reader could have characters they could see themselves in. That's why I chose these books, in no specific order, that share contemporary, urban stories involving people of different cultures, who face unique hardships.
Half Mexican baseball athlete, Danny is trying to find his place between cultural identities. The writing is straight forward and the relationships and slang are real. This book deals with friendships, family, cultural identity, and dreams. An identifiable story for readers trying to find their place in a diverse world. I loved it!
Newbery Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Matt de la Peña's Mexican WhiteBoy is a story of friendship, acceptance, and the struggle to find your identity in a world of definitions.
Danny is tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five mile an hour fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound, he loses it.
But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him.…
I am a librarian and have published several short stories, and a couple of young adult novels, including a teen romance. But back in the day, when I was a quiet bookish teen who lived in used books stores and libraries, I would devour Judy Blume books like potato chips! To this day, I am still a sucker for a great romance no matter the age of the characters, whether they are in high school or teaching high school. Throw in a tropical beach or a wealthy architect slumming it on Nantucket and I’m all in. (Nora Roberts is the Queen of All Romance; I will challenge you to a duel on that fact!)
Maddy (a biracial black Asian teen) suffers from a rare illness that has made her allergic to literally everything! A modern-day “bubble girl,” the illness has kept her confined in her house for 15 years, her only company being her mom and her nurse. But when hot new neighbour Olly moves in across the street everything changes. Maddy falls in love and vows to leave the house and sneak away with Olly…cue the huge plot twist! No spoilers from me, but you will want to race to the end. Oh, and beware of the movie version, classic example of “the book was better.”
Everything, Everything is now a major motion picture starring Amanda Stenberg from The Hunger Games and Love Simon's Nick Robinson.
A #1 New York Times Bestseller!
'Loved this book!'- Zoella
Maddy is allergic to the world; stepping outside the sterile sanctuary of her home could kill her. But then Olly moves in next door. And just like that, Maddy realizes there's more to life than just being alive. You only get one chance at first love. And Maddy is ready to risk everything, everything to see where it leads.
'Powerful, lovely, heart-wrenching, and so absorbing I devoured it in one…
I can’t guess how many great poems I have committed to memory. In waiting rooms, or in the checkout line, I recite them to myself. In this way, poetry helps me not only understand the world we live in, but live in it without going crazy. And while I love all poetry, I’ve always found that poetry in traditional forms—with meter and rhyme—is easier to remember. That’s one reason why I’ve always been drawn to formal verse. In my own poetry, I strive to uphold that tradition, while inventing new forms that spring organically from the subject at hand. I trust these books will demonstrate I’m not alone.
This book, justly honored with the Pulitzer Prize, surprised me with its formal range and intensity of experience.
Trethewey is celebrated as a chronicler of our collective history, but I was far more taken with the poems of personal history—and, more specifically, personal loss. The poems that examine the absence left by her mother’s untimely death are, to me, the defining poems of the book. These often exemplify her gift for presenting the most telling detail or selecting the word that will resonate on the broadest level.
Let me hone in on one poem, “Myth,” a recasting of the Orpheus story. What astonished me about this poem was the formal structure. It consists of two sections of nine lines, each arranged in terza rima stanzas. The second section rewrites the first half—in reverse! The effect is to convey the experience of descending into the darkness of the underworld and then…
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey's elegiac Native Guard is a deeply personal volume that brings together two legacies of the Deep South. The title of the collection refers to the Mississippi Native Guards, a black regiment whose role in the Civil War has been largely overlooked by history. As a child in Gulfport, Mississippi, in the 1960s, Trethewey could gaze across the water to the fort on Ship Island where Confederate captives once were guarded by black soldiers serving the Union cause.? The racial legacy of the South touched Trethewey's…
Much laughter is born out of sadness. Humor can be a way to cope or even reinvent our realities in ways that bring relief—and release. There's a misconception that “serious literature” should be humorless; crack a smile and you’re a fraud. However, the worlds and characters that emerge from this way of thinking do not ring true to me. Who among us hasn’t joked to help deal with sorrow? Or to satirize the outrageous? Or simply because life--however brutal—is also sometimes funny? The more a writer allows laughter to intermingle with tears, the more I believe in the story, and the more I enjoy it. That is why I wrote a “funny-sad” novel, The Australian.
Oreo (originally published in 1974, then out of print, and finally repopularized by Harriette Mullen and republished in 2000), a satirical novel by Fran Ross, a journalist and, briefly, a comedy writer for Richard Pryor, is widely considered to be “before its time.” This aching and hilarious, experimentally structured story is about a girl, Oreo, with a Jewish father and a Black mother, who ventures to New York City to find her father only to discover there are hundreds of Sam Schwartzes in the phonebook, and then goes on a quest to find him.
Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering…
