100 books like La Calle

By Lydia R. Otero,

Here are 100 books that La Calle fans have personally recommended if you like La Calle. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of Tucson Salvage: Tales and Recollections from La Frontera

Tom Zoellner Author Of Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona

From my list on books about Southern Arizona.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a fifth-generation Arizonan, a former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and a lifelong student of the Grand Canyon State. One of my very favorite things to do is travel the backroads of this amazing state and talk with the astonishing people who live there. Along the way, I wrote eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award. My day job is at Chapman University, where I am an English professor. 

Tom's book list on books about Southern Arizona

Tom Zoellner Why did Tom love this book?

Brian Jabas Smith lived a hard life on society’s margins and developed the ability to see people–the forgotten, the filthy, the addicted, and unattractive–that most of us simply look through on our way to someplace else.

In this wonderful book, Smith writes portraits of the invisible people of Tucson, Arizona, most of them down and out, and all of them with stories to tell. But he never slips into mawkishness and doesn’t expect the reader to “do anything” about society’s problems except pay attention to the human beings who take the worst of it.

His graceful and empathetic prose style makes that easy to ride along, and what’s left is a curious glow of hope. Smith is probably the best working journalist in the Southwest today, finding stories where others would never think to look.

By Brian Jabas Smith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Literary Nonfiction. Essays. This book is a chronicle of the overlooked and unsung, a collection of award-winning essays based on Brian Jabas Smith's popular column, "Tucson Salvage."

"A true champion of the dispossessed and forgotten. ... I can't recommend this book highly enough."—Willy Vlautin

"TUCSON SALVAGE is holy work, no doubt about it, but done by a fallen altar boy who truly knows what it's like to feel completely alone and abandoned, all bridges burned, no direction home."—Dan Stuart

"In TUCSON SALVAGE, Brian Jabas Smith deftly delivers us a nuanced collection of field reports from the modern human condition; keenly…


Book cover of Tortillas, Tiswin, and T-Bones: A Food History of the Southwest

Tom Zoellner Author Of Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona

From my list on books about Southern Arizona.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a fifth-generation Arizonan, a former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and a lifelong student of the Grand Canyon State. One of my very favorite things to do is travel the backroads of this amazing state and talk with the astonishing people who live there. Along the way, I wrote eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award. My day job is at Chapman University, where I am an English professor. 

Tom's book list on books about Southern Arizona

Tom Zoellner Why did Tom love this book?

“They came hungry,” begins the first chapter of this delightful look at the gastronomy of America’s desert quarter.

The whole dining table is here: huevos rancheros, tamales, chili, oranges, russet potatoes, rotgut whiskey, the chimichanga (which McNamee calls “a crispy torpedo of goodness”) and the Apache home-brewed beer called tiswin.

It’s one thing to enjoy Southwestern cooking. It’s another to understand its roots.

By Gregory McNamee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tortillas, Tiswin, and T-Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this entertaining history, Gregory McNamee explores the many ethnic and cultural traditions that have contributed to the food of the Southwest. He traces the origins of the cuisine to the arrival of humans in the Americas, the work of the earliest farmers of Mesoamerica, and the most ancient trade networks joining peoples of the coast, plains, and mountains. From the ancient chile pepper and agave to the comparatively recent fare of sushi and Frito pie, this complex culinary journey involves many players over space and time. Born of scarcity, migration, and climate change, these foods are now fully at…


Book cover of Going Back To Bisbee

Tom Zoellner Author Of Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona

From my list on books about Southern Arizona.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a fifth-generation Arizonan, a former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and a lifelong student of the Grand Canyon State. One of my very favorite things to do is travel the backroads of this amazing state and talk with the astonishing people who live there. Along the way, I wrote eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award. My day job is at Chapman University, where I am an English professor. 

Tom's book list on books about Southern Arizona

Tom Zoellner Why did Tom love this book?

I loved this road memoir by one of our most gentle and graceful writers, the poet Richard Shelton, who mentored hundreds of incarcerated writers in Arizona prisons.

He writes of a return to the “delightful maze” of the town of Bisbee, where he first worked as a teacher in 1956, a place where the old copper miner's shacks cling to the hillsides of the Mule Mountains as precariously as the villas on a Mediterranean island, and where the people have shrugged off life's hard punches as insouciantly as a prizefighter.

Resplendent with nature writing, you can practically smell the creosote on the sentences. I think this is one of the most tonally accurate volumes ever written about this region.

By Richard Shelton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Going Back To Bisbee as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of A Desert Harvest: New and Selected Essays

Tom Zoellner Author Of Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona

From my list on books about Southern Arizona.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a fifth-generation Arizonan, a former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and a lifelong student of the Grand Canyon State. One of my very favorite things to do is travel the backroads of this amazing state and talk with the astonishing people who live there. Along the way, I wrote eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award. My day job is at Chapman University, where I am an English professor. 

Tom's book list on books about Southern Arizona

Tom Zoellner Why did Tom love this book?

We take our sunsets seriously in Arizona, enough that we put a variation of one on our state flag. But Bruce Berger's book made me rethink how I look at the smeared colors in the evening sky.

Look not west, he says, but to the mountains in the east: the “decreasing wavelengths and cooling colors–vermillion to salmon to plum” on the slopes that provide a lightbox to the garish display at your back.

This is only the start. In finely wrought prose befitting the author’s other career as a pianist, he renders the harsh beauty of the Southwest in a set of twenty essays that draw a portrait of landscape and memory.

By Bruce Berger,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything

Kristin Cashore Author Of Winterkeep

From my list on mysteries—and solutions—you never saw coming.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a reader and writer, I work with a pretty broad definition of “mystery.” You’ll find my own novels in the fantasy section of the bookstore, but my books are mysteries too — and romances, and tales of adventure, and intimate character studies, and reflections on our reality, no matter how fantastical the worlds in which they take place. I love melding genres! So when I think of my favorite mysteries, I try not to limit myself to the mystery section of the bookstore. Few things make me happier than discovering partway through a book that a mystery has been building that I didn’t even notice.

Kristin's book list on mysteries—and solutions—you never saw coming

Kristin Cashore Why did Kristin love this book?

The less I say about the plot of this book, the better your reading experience will be. I avoided reading the flap copy, and I recommend you do too. What I can promise you is this: a book set in Arizona and firmly grounded in the reality of racism and deportation in the USA, mixed together with spirituality, mythology, sci-fi pop culture, a surprising solution to a mystery, and, just possibly, aliens from outer space. Plus, beautiful writing! This is one of those books with super short chapters, each of which is a little gem. I loved it.

By Raquel Vasquez Gilliland,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“In a world where we are so often dividing ourselves into us and them, this book feels like a kind of magic, celebrating all beliefs, ethnicities, and unknowns.” —The New York Times Book Review

Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Roswell by way of Laurie Halse Anderson in this astonishing, genre-bending novel about a Mexican American teen who discovers profound connections between immigration, folklore, and alien life.

It’s been three years since ICE raids and phone calls from Mexico and an ill-fated walk across the Sonoran. Three years since Sia Martinez’s mom disappeared. Sia wants to…


Book cover of And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border

Michael Blake Author Of Justice, Migration, and Mercy

From my list on understanding what’s happening at the border.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a political philosopher who lives in Seattle. I teach and write about political ethics, and the ways in which moral concepts change when they get applied to the relationships between states—and to the complicated borders that define where states end. I tend to write about what puzzles me, and many of these puzzles come from my personal life; I’m a migrant myself, and the experience of migrating to the United States led me to write about what sorts of values a country can rightly pursue through migration policyand what sorts of things, more generally, it can and can’t do to migrants themselves.  

Michael's book list on understanding what’s happening at the border

Michael Blake Why did Michael love this book?

Neiwert’s book focuses on the horrifying case of Shawna Forde, an anti-migration activist who ended up murdering a child on the Arizona border in an attempt to steal money to fund her activism. It’s sometimes easier to understand the politics of the borderlands by focusing on particular people who inhabit and cross the borders; Neiwert let me see the complex politics of the Arizona border, and the ways in which those politics can curdle into a murderous rage.

By David Neiwert,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked And Hell Followed With Her as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It began with a frantic 911 call from a woman in a dusty Arizona border town. A gang claiming to be affiliated with the Border Patrol had shot her husband and daughter. It was initially assumed that the murders were products of border drug wars ravaging the Southwest until the leader of one of the more prominent offshoots of the Minutemen movement was arrested for plotting the home invasion as part of a scheme to finance a violent antigovernment border militia. And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing to the Dark Side of the American Border is award-winning journalist David Neiwert's…


Book cover of Troublesome Border

Benjamin C. Montoya Author Of Risking Immeasurable Harm: Immigration Restriction and U.S.-Mexican Diplomatic Relations, 1924-1932

From my list on understanding the complicated history of Mexican immigration to the United States.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interest in diplomatic history began in earnest when I read A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918, during my undergraduate education. I was fascinated by how nations interacted with each other over time. The pairing of immigration history came much later, during my doctoral program. I was drawn to how immigration historians discussed not just the dynamics of the movement of people, but the nature of nationality and nation, citizen and foreigner, citizenship and personhood. Studying immigration pointed me to Mexican history, which inspired me to ask the question that formed the basis of Risking Immeasurable Harm: how did tensions over immigration affect U.S.-Mexican relations?

Benjamin's book list on understanding the complicated history of Mexican immigration to the United States

Benjamin C. Montoya Why did Benjamin love this book?

I love this book because it was one of the first scholarly works to consider what is now commonly accepted among researchers of US-Mexican relations: that borders are fluid.

This thin volume gives a concise history of the US-Mexico border. It treats border zones as distinct, rather than peripheral, spaces in the nation. In the case of the United States and Mexico, the border region is neither American nor Mexican but rather an amalgamation of both. The implicit statement being, of course, that treating the physical border between the two countries as rigid and categorical is fallacious.

I also love this book because it debunks the almost predetermined ways in which borders are viewed. Instead of prescribed lines on a map that make perfect sense on the ground, borders are moving (sometimes literally, often times figuratively), and fashioned by various demographic, economic, political, and military factors. A foundational book for…

By Oscar J. Martinez,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Now available: Troublesome Border, Revised Edition!Martínez reviews the history of the border region and reveals the web of relationships that link one side with the other, delineating the social, economic, and cultural predicaments of its population to emphasize the estrangement between the "binational" periphery of each nation and the core societies. Troublesome Border offers readers an understanding of the border through the events most crucial to its development, and provides an opportunity to reassess the true nature of its unique problems.


Book cover of Ander and Santi Were Here

Paul Michael Winters Author Of Together in a Broken World

From my list on queer people living their best lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a time when it was nearly unheard of to be out in high school. This led to a very lonely and isolating childhood, with few role models and almost no queer fiction. I'm dedicated to making it easier for the next generation by providing joyful stories about queer people living their best lives. My stories feature proud queer people, where being queer is simply an aspect of their personalities and doesn't dominate the plot. People imitate art, and by providing positive examples of happy queer people, I hope to make the world a more accepting place, one story at a time.

Paul's book list on queer people living their best lives

Paul Michael Winters Why did Paul love this book?

I love a book that pushes my boundaries and allows me to see things from a different perspective in an intimate way, and this book certainly does that.

It features Ander, a non-binary main character who deals with issues of racism and immigration. Despite the heavy topics, the book is filled with tender moments, a wonderful look at Mexican American culture, and is largely a joyous and emotional love story. 

By Jonny Garza Villa,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Ander and Santi Were Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

The Santos Vista neighbourhood of San Antonio, TX is all Ander Lopez has ever known. The smell of pan dulce, the laughter of kids hitting a pinata at the park, the mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And, especially, their job at the family's taqueria. So as the days count down on their gap year until the day they'll leave for art school in Chicago, their head is filled with one relentless question: am I really ready to leave it all behind?

Their family, however, has the opposite worry: to keep them from becoming complacent, they "fire" Ander…


Book cover of The Yellow Handkerchief

Melisa Fernández Nitsche Author Of Cantora: Mercedes Sosa, the Voice of Latin America

From my list on Hispanic and Latino heritage children's book.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author and illustrator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a Latin American, I think it's important to have books with stories about our realities and culture that feature Latino people as the protagonists. I hope you enjoy my recommendations!

Melisa's book list on Hispanic and Latino heritage children's book

Melisa Fernández Nitsche Why did Melisa love this book?

If you are like me, you enjoy stories about grandparents. This book is about a granddaughter's relationship with her grandmother, and the embarrassment she feels about the yellow handkerchief her grandmother uses.

I love everything Cynthia Alonso illustrates, and this book is no exception. The illustrations are playful and colorful, depicting the bond between these two characters in a beautiful way. I also like that the text includes some Spanish words.

In the end, the character realizes that her grandmother's yellow handkerchief makes her unique, and the legacy is passed on, a beautiful takeaway.

By Donna Barba Higuera, Cynthia Alonso (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Yellow Handkerchief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A child confronts conflicting feelings of embarrassment and love for her Mexican abuela in this moving, personal story from Newbery- and Pura Belpre Award-winning author Donna Barba HigueraMy abuela wears an old yellow handkerchief that her grandmother gave to her.I don't like the yellow handkerchief.When a young girl feels ashamed of her family for being "different" and subconsciously blames her abuela, she gradually grows to not only accept but also love the yellow handkerchief that represents a language and culture that once brought embarrassment.Inspired by the personal experiences of award-winning author Donna Barba Higuera and expressively illustrated by Cynthia Alonso,…


Book cover of Mexikid

Christopher Stanton Author Of Nick Pope

From my list on graphic novels personal stories set in the past.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested in creators who convey intensely personal stories through dynamic visuals, whether it be animation, illustrations, or comics. And even better: tales of people who lived in the past! Although trained in screenwriting and creative writing, I started making art twenty years ago–and that gave me a newfound respect for those folks who combine great stories and memorable drawings. Nowadays, I can’t read enough graphic novels! 

Christopher's book list on graphic novels personal stories set in the past

Christopher Stanton Why did Christopher love this book?

This hooked me by page two–and I knew right away it was a classic! It’s got specific humor (including plenty of rad mid-1970s references) and characters who are immediately endearing. There are plenty of fascinating cultural and sociological details that I soaked up like a sponge. And it perfectly navigates changing tones, including poignant, hilarious and comforting. That's no easy feat! 

By Pedro Martín,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Mexikid as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

An unforgettable graphic memoir about a Mexican American boy's family and their adventure-filled road trip to bring their abuelito back from Mexico to live with them that National Book Award Finalist Victoria Jamieson calls "one of those books that kids will pass to their friends as soon as they have finished it."

Pedro Martin has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito-his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Mexican Americans, urban planning, and Arizona?

Urban Planning 56 books
Arizona 69 books