100 books like Life-Changing Cross-Cultural Friendships

By Gary Chapman, Clarence Shuler,

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

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Book cover of You Are Special: Volume 1

MelindaJoy Mingo Author Of The Colors of Culture: The Beauty of Diverse Friendships

From my list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by different cultures since I was 14 years old growing up in inner-city Chicago. My passion has given me a curious quest to travel the world and learn about different cultures. My friends have a tagline for me which is ‘From the Hood to Hanoi and All the Stops In Between’ because of my international teaching in Vietnam. As an adult who is now an international professor, sought-out global trainer, and cultural subject matter expert, my passion has increased for bringing an awareness to a broader audience about the beauty of diverse friendships. 

MelindaJoy's book list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity

MelindaJoy Mingo Why did MelindaJoy love this book?

I recommend this children’s book because the theme of learning how to value yourself is relevant for not only young people but also adults.

This great fictional story centered in a tiny city where people spend the day putting either dots or stars on each other depending on what they or don’t like about the person.

There is one fictional character who doesn’t allow anything to stick on her because she knows her own value and worth.

By Max Lucado,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Follow the young Wemmick Punchinello as he discovers the source of his worth-his Creator. This beautifully illustrated tale communicates to children that God loves them regardless of how the world evaluates them. The first in Max Lucado's Wemmicks series.


Book cover of One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love

MelindaJoy Mingo Author Of The Colors of Culture: The Beauty of Diverse Friendships

From my list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by different cultures since I was 14 years old growing up in inner-city Chicago. My passion has given me a curious quest to travel the world and learn about different cultures. My friends have a tagline for me which is ‘From the Hood to Hanoi and All the Stops In Between’ because of my international teaching in Vietnam. As an adult who is now an international professor, sought-out global trainer, and cultural subject matter expert, my passion has increased for bringing an awareness to a broader audience about the beauty of diverse friendships. 

MelindaJoy's book list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity

MelindaJoy Mingo Why did MelindaJoy love this book?

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a story about the redemptive love of a civil rights icon who was brutally beaten, threatened, and who lived through the era of civil rights unrest and huge racism. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and has received notable awards such as a noble peace prize.

His book is a fascinating read about a man who had every reason to hate white people along the journey or racism and civil unrest but instead chose the path of love and forgiveness. He has titled it One Blood as he believes that we all have things in common, even in the midst of suffering and pain, if we allow ourselves to grow through the suffering and become the mirror image of the hate and bitterness that we have received on the journey of life.

By John Perkins,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Dr. Perkins’ final manifesto on race, faith, and reconciliation

We are living in historic times. Not since the civil rights movement of the 60s has our country been this vigorously engaged in the reconciliation conversation. There is a great opportunity right now for culture to change, to be a more perfect union. However, it cannot be done without the church, because the faith of the people is more powerful than any law government can enact.

The church is the heart and moral compass of a nation. To turn a country away from God, you must sideline the church. To turn…


Book cover of See His Glory: A Testimony: Part I

MelindaJoy Mingo Author Of The Colors of Culture: The Beauty of Diverse Friendships

From my list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by different cultures since I was 14 years old growing up in inner-city Chicago. My passion has given me a curious quest to travel the world and learn about different cultures. My friends have a tagline for me which is ‘From the Hood to Hanoi and All the Stops In Between’ because of my international teaching in Vietnam. As an adult who is now an international professor, sought-out global trainer, and cultural subject matter expert, my passion has increased for bringing an awareness to a broader audience about the beauty of diverse friendships. 

MelindaJoy's book list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity

MelindaJoy Mingo Why did MelindaJoy love this book?

This generational read opens with an encounter with suicide that took a supernatural occurrence to escape. From there, readers travel through pages of a child’s near-death experience, surviving flames of a house fire that left her with third-degree burns to encounters that only she can explain. As the author chronicles her process of facing elementary taunts of bullies, to the 30 reconstructive surgeries she endured to regain her mobility, readers uncover a story of the father’s love and the family ties that we can all relate to.

See His Glory, unravels the broken pieces of this burn survivor’s past to reveal a most beautiful work…her story. What I really love the most about this author and the story is how she highlights the love she experienced from different people through her suffering. She described one of the lessons she has learned along her journey is the universal language of love…

By Analiese Barnes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Have you ever contemplated suicide, been bullied or rejected? Ever felt so ugly, you wondered how anyone could love you? If you have ever felt ashamed, abandoned and hopeless, know that you are not alone. My testimony of how Jesus Christ walked through my pain and left his mark on me in ways you will only read to believe, has been written just for you to know that there is hope in darkness and purpose in your deepest pain.


Book cover of Gracism: The Art of Inclusion

MelindaJoy Mingo Author Of The Colors of Culture: The Beauty of Diverse Friendships

From my list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by different cultures since I was 14 years old growing up in inner-city Chicago. My passion has given me a curious quest to travel the world and learn about different cultures. My friends have a tagline for me which is ‘From the Hood to Hanoi and All the Stops In Between’ because of my international teaching in Vietnam. As an adult who is now an international professor, sought-out global trainer, and cultural subject matter expert, my passion has increased for bringing an awareness to a broader audience about the beauty of diverse friendships. 

MelindaJoy's book list on capturing how we learn to celebrate diversity

MelindaJoy Mingo Why did MelindaJoy love this book?

In this book, the author does not allude that we need to ignore attributes such as class, race, ethnicity, etc. We don’t have to be color-blind to accept people who are of a different race or ethnicity. We just need to extend respect, care, empathy, and love while acknowledging that we haven’t always gotten it right with different cultures.

He presents a great case for grace and being a bridge builder in our communities.

By David A. Anderson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

ECPA Christian Book Awards "The parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor." 1 Corinthians 12:23 When people deal with color, class or culture in a negative way, that's racism. But the answer is not to ignore these as if they don't matter. Instead, we can look at color, class and culture in a positive way. That's gracism. Pastor David Anderson responds to prejudice and injustice with the principle of gracism: radical inclusion for the marginalized and excluded. Building on the apostle Paul's exhortations in 1 Corinthians 12 to honor the weaker member, Anderson presents a…


Book cover of Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World

Cheri Swalwell Author Of Sisters in Christ: Defeat the Enemy One Powerful Prayer At a Time

From my list on how to build a Sister in Christ relationship (and why you want one!).

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve had other Sisters in Christ, but it wasn’t until God introduced me to an amazing woman that I truly started to understand what it meant to be a Sister in Christ. A Sister in Christ is someone who encourages you, speaks the truth in love, and always points you back to God’s truths. She laughs with you, cries with you, and simply loves to do life with you. Sisters in Christ was born from this amazing friendship. To have this type of relationship is truly a blessing from God that needs to be shared in a community of fellow believers. 

Cheri's book list on how to build a Sister in Christ relationship (and why you want one!)

Cheri Swalwell Why did Cheri love this book?

It talks about finding Sisters in Christ without referring to them as Sisters in Christ.

Wants you to focus on your five specific close relationships where you share everything. She explores these five “paths to connection” close, safe, protected, deep, and committed. She gave some great examples from her own life and one of the things that awed me the most was how close their small group in their new church was; to the point of discussing their finances with each other.

She said it brought real peace to their marriage because nothing was hidden, all was laid bare in front of people who truly wanted their success. Comes to the point of needing sisters in Christ from a different angle that I enjoyed and was really engaging. 

By Jennie Allen,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE ECPA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD • The author of Get Out of Your Head offers practical solutions for creating true community, the kind that’s crucial to our mental and spiritual health.

“My dear friend Jennie Allen shows us how to make true emotional connections with the right people so that our authentic relationships can be healthy for all.”—Lysa TerKeurst, author of It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way
 
In a world that’s both more connected and more isolating than ever before, we’re often tempted to do life alone, whether because we’re…


Book cover of Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

Daromir Rudnyckyj Author Of Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in Global Finance

From my list on how anthropology helps us understand the economy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm an economic anthropologist and teach classes and conduct research in this area. Economic anthropology is different from economics in that it questions many of the things that economics takes for granted. For example, most economists assume that allocating goods through the market by buying and selling is the best way to organize human communities. Economic anthropologists have shown, in contrast, that many societies have been organized according to other exchange principles. In fact, some of the oldest communities in the world, such as Sumer and Babylon, based their economies around elaborate systems of redistribution, in which every citizen was guaranteed food shares.

Daromir's book list on how anthropology helps us understand the economy

Daromir Rudnyckyj Why did Daromir love this book?

We often think of national identity as fixed: one is either Canadian or American, British or Chinese, Australian or Indian. 

The Olympic games come along and people pick up a flag to which they apparently belong. In contrast, Ong shows how economic globalization—the integration of production systems, financial activities, and labour markets across national borders—has created a situation in which national belonging is far from fixed and is instead flexible.

She documents, on the one hand, how individuals strategically obtain citizenship from more than one country and use citizenship for goals both personal and economic. On the other hand, she also documents how nation-states are using flexible definitions of citizenship to foster their own ambitions for economic growth.  

By Aihwa Ong,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Few recent phenomena have proved as emblematic of our era, and as little understood, as globalization. Are nation-states being transformed by globalization into a single globalized economy? Do global cultural forces herald a postnational millennium? Tying ethnography to structural analysis, Flexible Citizenship explores such questions with a focus on the links between the cultural logics of human action and on economic and political processes within the Asia-Pacific, including the impact of these forces on women and family life.
Explaining how intensified travel, communications, and mass media have created a transnational Chinese public, Aihwa Ong argues that previous studies have mistakenly…


Book cover of On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate

Stephen Fredman Author Of A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of Objectivist Poetry

From my list on blending Jewish history with a personal quest.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, one of my great joys is recommending books to others. I was able to indulge this joy consistently while teaching at a university, introducing students to authors and books and topics they otherwise might never have encountered. I find this same excitement in my own writing, searching for ways to reveal to others the magnificent wealth I find in modern poetry and in the brilliant concepts of poetic thinking.

Stephen's book list on blending Jewish history with a personal quest

Stephen Fredman Why did Stephen love this book?

A renowned teacher of expository writing, Perl is invited to Austria to offer a course on how to teach the Holocaust. Although her mother warned her that as a Jew she should never enter a German-speaking country, Perl decides to accept.

She writes with brutal honesty about the troubled and often profound relationships she establishes with her Austrian students. Her explorations of difficult and sometimes excruciating issues are conducted with a spirit of love and openness toward her students and herself. This is the most ethically engaged book I have read about the profession of teaching.

By Sondra Perl,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An award-winning teacher takes a journey into alien territory: Austria, Hitler's birthplace, and the territory of her own hatred. A teaching memoir that offers a pedagogy of hope.


Book cover of Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection

Michael A. Lange Author Of Meanings of Maple: An Ethnography of Sugaring

From my list on explore how people make meaning and knowledge.

Why am I passionate about this?

I study culture. Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by what people think, feel, believe, have, and do. I’ve always wondered why people need things to be meaningful. Why do people need an explanation for why things happen that puts the meaning outside their own minds? I wanted to get beyond the need for things to be meaningful by themselves, so I began looking into meaning-making as a thing we do. Once I realized the process was infinitely more interesting and valuable, I read books like those on my list. I hope they spark you as much as they have me. 

Michael's book list on explore how people make meaning and knowledge

Michael A. Lange Why did Michael love this book?

I love this book because Tsing walks me through an increasingly complex, increasingly comprehensive understanding of how people think, feel, and make meaning and how that process is fundamental to understanding who we are as a species.

Each chapter gives me a basic yet profound bit of insight into people as meaning makers, and each chapter flows from the one(s) previous, all building toward the sort of “holy crap, I get it!” culmination that leaves me wanting to go back and read it again and again.

Tsing makes the complicated understandable and the obscure accessible. 

By Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. In both cases, it is friction that produces movement, action, effect. Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a "clash" of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world. She focuses on one particular "zone of awkward engagement"--the rainforests of Indonesia--where in the 1980s and the…


Book cover of Figuring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide

Barbara B. Adams PsyD Author Of Women, Minorities, and Other Extraordinary People: The New Path for Workforce Diversity

From my list on workforce diversity that won’t piss you off.

Why am I passionate about this?

I don’t have a passion for the diversity, equity, and inclusion topic. I have an obligation. When I didn’t see or understand the horrific injustice of systemic oppression, I couldn’t do anything about it. Now that I see it, I cannot ignore it. I’ve become an expert through my work in organizational development. I work with technology, healthcare, financial services and educational services clients around the globe, and in 2016 I founded GAR (Gender, Age, Race) Diversity Consulting. Prior to GAR, I was a director in the National Diversity and Inclusion office at Kaiser Permanente, and I worked for many years as a global management and technology consultant with American Management Systems, Inc (now CGI). 

Barbara's book list on workforce diversity that won’t piss you off

Barbara B. Adams PsyD Why did Barbara love this book?

Workplaces are increasing in diversity, making it essential for workers to understand the nuances of cross-cultural relationships. This book delves into those nuances in a way that is practical, insightful, and fun. The author begins by introducing the four stages of cultural awareness, then builds by providing workbook opportunities for the reader to develop often profound insight. The author remarkably shows no bias toward one culture over another, which heightens the book's value. It’s also a terrific read for global travelers to gain an understanding and appreciation of places and people visited.

By Craig Storti,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Here is the ultimate, self-instructional cross-cultural training manual. Craig Storti, author of The Art of Crossing Cultures, The Art of Coming Home, Incident at Bitter Creek and Cross-Cultural Dialogues, brings his wealth of knowledge and his creative mind to this exceptional new resource.

Figuring Foreigners Out is designed for anyone who wants to help in "figuring out" the behavior of someone from another culture. Educators, trainers and individuals will profit from this user-friendly workbook. readers can work through exercises which are vintage Storti - on their own, or in a training group.

Concepts at the heart of intercultural communication are…


Book cover of So You Want to Talk about Race

Wendy-O Matik Author Of Redefining Our Relationships: Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships

From my list on to ignite the revolution and smash patriarchy.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a rebellious woman who is passionate about words and the revolutionary force of books, I know the power of stories. Stories are the seeds that give life to your purpose. Stories give you a reason to fight the good fight, care about something bigger than yourself, and want to be a part of social justice and positive change. The daily grind can kick you down, but a good story can remind you that there's still time to rise up, speak truth to power, help others less fortunate, and commit to what you value most. The books that I’m recommending are meant to be your personal guide to what really matters most in life to you.

Wendy-O's book list on to ignite the revolution and smash patriarchy

Wendy-O Matik Why did Wendy-O love this book?

If you seriously care about racial healing, you have to read this book. White people are so damn afraid to say the wrong thing or to offend anyone when it comes to the topic of race, that we end up not saying anything at all. And silence is death to a movement. If you care about Black and Brown lives, then this book will shake you up in a good way, and remind you of the importance of being a good listener to the concerns of people of color. When you listen, you can have empathy. When you have empathy, you can start to be a part of the racial reckoning and healing that’s starting to take place in our nation.

By Ijeoma Oluo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked So You Want to Talk about Race as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

n So You Want to Talk About Race, editor-at-large of The Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.

Oluo is an exceptional writer with a rare ability to be straightforward, funny, and effective in her coverage of sensitive, hyper-charged…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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