49 books like Insurrecto

By Gina Apostol,

Here are 49 books that Insurrecto fans have personally recommended if you like Insurrecto. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Taste of Sugar

Diane Lefer Author Of Out of Place

From my list on for recovering erased history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Soon after 9/11, I had dinner with several American scientists worried about how new security measures would affect international collaborations and foreign-born colleagues. Since science rarely if ever comes up in discourse about the War on Terror, that set me off. I’m always drawn to whatever gets overlooked. I was born in one international city – New York – and have lived in another – Los Angeles – for over 20 years. I’ve spent time on four continents and assisted survivors of violent persecution as they seek asylum – which may explain why I feel compelled to include viewpoints from outside the US and fill in the gaps when different cultural perspectives go missing.

Diane's book list on for recovering erased history

Diane Lefer Why did Diane love this book?

Through friendships with Borinqueñxs and interest in the island, I don’t consider myself wholly ignorant about Puerto Rico. Like the Philippines, Puerto Rico was claimed by the US following the Spanish American War, but once again, when I tried to learn more about that era, I ran into a brick wall. Marisel Vera recovers that history while offering all the pleasures of a traditional family saga. She brings the reader close to the daily lives and loves of a family of coffee farmers who struggle first under Spanish rule and then the system established by the US. Vera also taught me something I’d never heard of: the deceptive recruitment that carried newly impoverished but still hopeful Puerto Ricans off to Hawaii to labor in the sugar fields. 

By Marisel Vera,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Taste of Sugar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Marisel Vera emerges as a major new voice in contemporary fiction with this "capacious" (The New Yorker) novel set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Up in the mountainous region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their coffee farm from the creditors. When the great San Ciriaco hurricane of 1899 brings devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured along with thousands of other puertorriquenos to the sugar plantations of Hawaii, where they are confronted by the hollowness of America's promises of prosperity. Depicting the roots of Puerto Rican alienation and exodus, which…


Book cover of I'll Be Right There

Diane Lefer Author Of Out of Place

From my list on for recovering erased history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Soon after 9/11, I had dinner with several American scientists worried about how new security measures would affect international collaborations and foreign-born colleagues. Since science rarely if ever comes up in discourse about the War on Terror, that set me off. I’m always drawn to whatever gets overlooked. I was born in one international city – New York – and have lived in another – Los Angeles – for over 20 years. I’ve spent time on four continents and assisted survivors of violent persecution as they seek asylum – which may explain why I feel compelled to include viewpoints from outside the US and fill in the gaps when different cultural perspectives go missing.

Diane's book list on for recovering erased history

Diane Lefer Why did Diane love this book?

I fall hard for novels about intense friendships and loyalty. I’ve never been to Korea, but it was easy for me to relate to the protagonist, Jung Yoon, whose personal growth is influenced by her study of European culture, much as my own immersion in Latin American culture continues to inform my life. 

Here again, a gap in most Americans’ knowledge gets filled in. Shin’s haunting and poetic novel offers a bracing account of the student protests in South Korea in the ’80s, with repression, deaths, and disappearances at the hands of the US-supported dictatorship. The politics are eye-opening, but just a backdrop to the characters’ pursuit of love, friendship, intellectual development, and the tender way they must mourn many other losses as they grow up and apart.

By Kyung-Sook Shin, Sora Kim-Russell (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I'll Be Right There as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Both a coming-of-age story and a love story, I'LL BE RIGHT THERE follows four friends who meet in the 1980s, at university in Seoul. Times are tough - South Korea is still a military dictatorship - and the group cling to each other, falling in and out of love. As they face personal loss and political uncertainty their paths diverge - mysterious deaths occur and secrets are revealed. Steeped in heartache, this novel is a delicate examination of youthful passions, tragedy, and political turmoil Like PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER, I'LL BE RIGHT THERE combines utterly universal, resonant themes with an…


Book cover of The German Mujahid

Diane Lefer Author Of Out of Place

From my list on for recovering erased history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Soon after 9/11, I had dinner with several American scientists worried about how new security measures would affect international collaborations and foreign-born colleagues. Since science rarely if ever comes up in discourse about the War on Terror, that set me off. I’m always drawn to whatever gets overlooked. I was born in one international city – New York – and have lived in another – Los Angeles – for over 20 years. I’ve spent time on four continents and assisted survivors of violent persecution as they seek asylum – which may explain why I feel compelled to include viewpoints from outside the US and fill in the gaps when different cultural perspectives go missing.

Diane's book list on for recovering erased history

Diane Lefer Why did Diane love this book?

For decades, Holocaust denial was widespread in Arab countries. That’s beginning to change, and Sansal’s harrowing novel – inspired in part by a Nazi officer who escaped to Algeria and became a hero in the war for independence aids in writing that history back into consciousness. We gain extraordinary intimacy with two brothers as they contend in different ways with the challenges of North African immigrant life in France, the massacre by the Algerian military that claims the lives of their parents, and the discovery of their father’s horrific past. Sansal was attacked for comparing Islamist fundamentalism to the Holocaust and for visiting Israel, but I think it’s clear his intent is to condemn any ideology based on an unyielding and violent intolerance of difference.   

By Boualem Sansal, Frank Wynne (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

“[A] masterly investigation of evil, resistance and guilt, billed as the first Arab novel to confront the Holocaust” from the Nobel Prize–nominated author (Publishers Weekly).

Banned in the author’s native Algeria, this groundbreaking novel is based on a true story and inspired by the work of Primo Levi.

The Schiller brothers, Rachel and Malrich, couldn’t be more dissimilar. They were born in a small village in Algeria to a German father and an Algerian mother and raised by an elderly uncle in one of the toughest ghettos in France. But the similarities end there. Rachel is a model immigrant—hard working,…


Book cover of The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories

Diane Lefer Author Of Out of Place

From my list on for recovering erased history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Soon after 9/11, I had dinner with several American scientists worried about how new security measures would affect international collaborations and foreign-born colleagues. Since science rarely if ever comes up in discourse about the War on Terror, that set me off. I’m always drawn to whatever gets overlooked. I was born in one international city – New York – and have lived in another – Los Angeles – for over 20 years. I’ve spent time on four continents and assisted survivors of violent persecution as they seek asylum – which may explain why I feel compelled to include viewpoints from outside the US and fill in the gaps when different cultural perspectives go missing.

Diane's book list on for recovering erased history

Diane Lefer Why did Diane love this book?

I couldn’t possibly leave out Danielle Evans’ story collection when the title novella portrays just the kind of cultural erasure and recuperation I’ve been blathering on about. The protagonist, Cassie, is an obscure federal employee charged with correcting historical inaccuracies and omissions in public places and textbooks. Her mission intersects in Wisconsin with that of an old frenemy as both investigate an arson murder from 1937. Throughout the collection, these stories delight me line by line, with beautifully wrought prose, insight, and wit. Evans tackles fake news and current controversies about race, including fissures within the Black community, while always focusing on the personal dilemmas of her vividly alive characters. I am in awe of her talent. 

By Danielle Evans,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'Sublime short stories of race, grief, and belonging . . . an extraordinary new collection'
New Yorker

'Evans's new stories present rich plots reflecting on race relations, grief, and love'
New York Times, Editor's Choice

'Brilliant . . . These stories are sly and prescient, a nuanced reflection of the world we are living in'
Roxane Gay

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak…


Book cover of Fairest: A Memoir

Zoë Bossiere Author Of Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir

From my list on coming of age memoirs about trans kids actually written by trans people.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I didn’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. Even without the language to describe who I really was, I was always on the lookout for stories about other people who felt like I did—for stories, in other words, like the ones on this list. But I never found them. As the books below beautifully illustrate, the spectrum of transgender experience, and our childhoods in particular, are so rich and diverse. My hope is for these and other books like Cactus Country to encourage more trans and queer people to tell their stories so that kids like us can find characters that represent them. 

Zoë's book list on coming of age memoirs about trans kids actually written by trans people

Zoë Bossiere Why did Zoë love this book?

Fairest by Meredith Talusan is an incisively observant memoir of class, ability, and whiteness, among many other subjects.

I was so enthralled by Talusan’s compelling story about living with albinism and passing as white, first in the Philippines as a child, which led to a television acting career, and later in the United States as an adult. Talusan’s deft descriptions of her journey from childhood stardom to her education at Harvard to her eventual coming out and transition hooked me from the first page and made this book so difficult to put down.

By Meredith Talusan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction

"Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review

"A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A love story with the heart of Austen classics and a reflective journey of becoming that shift our own perceptions of romance, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.

Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to…


Book cover of Between Empires: Martí, Rizal, and the Intercolonial Alliance

Ignacio López-Calvo Author Of The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance

From my list on Asian-Latin American exchanges.

Why am I passionate about this?

Extensive research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry has given me a comprehensive understanding of the development of Transpacific studies. For the last decade, my research has focused, for the most part, on South-South intercultural exchanges and cultural production by and about Latin American authors of Asian descent. I have written five books dealing with these topics: 2008 Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (2009), The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (2013), Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Writing Tusán in Peru (2014), Japanese Brazilian Saudades: Diasporic Identities and Cultural Production (2019), and The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (forthcoming).  

Ignacio's book list on Asian-Latin American exchanges

Ignacio López-Calvo Why did Ignacio love this book?

Between Empires compares the anti-imperial literature and history of two former Spanish colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, but this time focusing on the late-nineteenth-century “intercolonial alliance” and, more specifically, on the oeuvres of two nationalist authors and national heroes: the Cuban José Martí and the Filipino José Rizal. Hagimoto explores a transpacific collective consciousness of resistance as well as the shared historical ties between Latin America and the Philippines. What I found more exciting about this book was that it reveals how, led by two national heroes and martyrs, there was still, well after the end of the Manila Galleon transpacific route, an end-of-nineteenth-century anti-colonial alliance between two far-away countries united by a shared history of colonial domination and oppression.

By Koichi Hagimoto,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Between Empires as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1898, both Cuba and the Philippines achieved their independence from Spain and then immediately became targets of US expansionism. This book presents a comparative analysis of late-nineteenth-century literature and history in Cuba and the Philippines, focusing on the writings of Jose Marti and Jose Rizal to reveal shared anti-imperial struggles.


Book cover of Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945

Bruce E. Johansen Author Of So Far from Home: Manila's Santo Tomas Internment Camp, 1942-1945

From my list on World War II civilian prisoners of the Japanese.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a professor of Communication, Environmental, and Native American Studies, Bruce E. Johansen taught, researched, and wrote at the University of Nebraska at Omaha from 1982 to 2019, retiring to emeritus status as Frederick W. Kayser research professor. He has published 55 books in several fields: history, anthropology, law, the Earth sciences, and others. Johansen’s writing has been published, debated, and reviewed in many academic venues, among them the William and Mary Quarterly, American Historical Review, Current History, and Nature, as well as in many popular newspapers and magazines. He's married to Patricia E. Keiffer, whose father, mother, and older sister were interned in the camp. Patricia was born there shortly before liberation.

Bruce's book list on World War II civilian prisoners of the Japanese

Bruce E. Johansen Why did Bruce love this book?

This is evidence of the enduring appeal of the Santo Tomas story. More than half a century after the events that it describes, Cogan makes good use of interviews and printed sources. The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines is especially valuable for its scholarly tone and comprehensive nature. It described the lives of internees in several camps.

By Frances B. Cogan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

More than five thousand American civilian men, women, and children living in the Philippines during World War II were confined to internment camps following Japan's late December 1941 victories in Manila. Captured tells the story of daily life in five different camps-the crowded housing, mounting familial and international tensions, heavy labor, and increasingly severe malnourishment that made the internees' rescue a race with starvation. Frances B. Cogan explores the events behind this nearly four-year captivity, explaining how and why this little-known internment occurred. A thorough historical account, the book addresses several controversial issues about the internment, including Japanese intentions toward…


Book cover of Empire's Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper

Susan Blumberg-Kason Author Of Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong

From my list on rediscovered women's history with badass book covers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Susan Blumberg-Kason and I write books about strong women who have a strong sense of place. I think we are all partly defined by where we live and I enjoy examining how our environment informs our choices. My first book centers around someone I know very well—me! My memoir, Good Chinese Wife, takes place in my favorite city—Hong Kong—the place where I came of age and married for the first time, as well as China and a few cities in the US. I’m also a sucker for a good cover and I absolutely love my Good Chinese Wife cover!

Susan's book list on rediscovered women's history with badass book covers

Susan Blumberg-Kason Why did Susan love this book?

Isabel Rosario Cooper was not just a movie starlet during the golden age of Hollywood; she was also preyed on by General MacArthur. The book shows just how difficult it was for Asian American actors to make it in Hollywood and leads one to wonder if things have really changed that much today.

By Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Empire's Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Empire's Mistress Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez follows the life of Filipina vaudeville and film actress Isabel Rosario Cooper, who was the mistress of General Douglas MacArthur. If mentioned at all, their relationship exists only as a salacious footnote in MacArthur's biography-a failed love affair between a venerated war hero and a young woman of Filipino and American heritage. Following Cooper from the Philippines to Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, where she died penniless, Gonzalez frames her not as a tragic heroine, but as someone caught within the violent histories of U.S. imperialism. In this way, Gonzalez uses Cooper's life as a…


Book cover of Angels of the Pacific: A Novel of World War II

Catherine A. Hamilton Author Of Victoria's War

From my list on inspired by heroic women from around the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a native Oregonian of Polish descent, I was born in the small town of Sweet Home, Oregon. After finishing high school, I moved to Portland where I graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a Master’s degree in psychology. I spent twelve years as a psychotherapist, publishing over a dozen articles. After joining a writing group and trying my hand at fiction, my stories, articles, and poems have been published in magazines and newspapers—including Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Oregonian, Catholic Sentinel, Dziennik Związkowy, and The Polish American Journal. My debut novel, Victoria’s War, won CIBA’s Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and was #1 Best Seller on Amazon Kindle Unlimited in German Historical Fiction.

Catherine's book list on inspired by heroic women from around the world

Catherine A. Hamilton Why did Catherine love this book?

I loved this enchanting WWII story about two heroic women: Tess, an orphan turned US Army nurse, and Flor, a Filipina university student living in glamorous Manila where Tess is stationed. These resilient women face unimaginable challenges with hope and humility. Hooper’s storytelling amazed me from the moment I started reading.

Hooper’s Angels of the Pacific spoke to my heart like the music of great composers, revealing an unforgettable and little-known chapter of WWII history, inspired by the true story of 78 American nurses who were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in Bataan. Hooper masterfully brings to life this awe-inspiring tale of sisterhood, bravery, sacrifice, and love.

I highly recommend this book!

By Elise Hooper,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Angels of the Pacific as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Absolutely riveting. A stay-up-all night read about two very different women who discover just how strong they can be-and just how much they'll dare-during the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. This story of endurance and sisterhood will have you turning pages late into the night." -Lauren Willig, New York Times bestselling author

If you loved Beantown Girls by Jane Healey and Hazel Gaynor's When We Were Young & Brave, then you won't want to miss critically acclaimed author Elise Hooper's powerful new novel of the Angels of Bataan, nurses held as prisoners during the occupation…


Book cover of The Taste of Sugar
Book cover of I'll Be Right There
Book cover of The German Mujahid

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Interested in the Philippines, Japan, and Douglas MacArthur?

The Philippines 49 books
Japan 516 books