63 books like Sacred Smokes

By Theodore C. Van Alst,

Here are 63 books that Sacred Smokes fans have personally recommended if you like Sacred Smokes. 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 There There

Rajat Narula Author Of Azalea Heights

From my list on race, ethnicity, and belief system collisions.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an immigrant in the United States, I have been fascinated by the dynamics between races and cultures—both in the country and globally. As I travel extensively (63 countries so far), I experience some of the biases firsthand—sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I have come to realize that despite the difference in the color of our skin—and the clothes we wear—we are more alike than different.  

Rajat's book list on race, ethnicity, and belief system collisions

Rajat Narula Why did Rajat love this book?

I loved the book because it’s an insightful window into the challenges of a troubled community, the native Indians, who are still haunted by the painful past and face an uncertain future. I loved how the writer picks the thread of stories of many characters who have chosen to live outside reservations and then knits them all together in the end.

Unique characters with unique stories and strong evocative writing make There There a remarkable debut.  

By Tommy Orange,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **

One of Barack Obama's best books of 2018, the New York Times bestselling novel about contemporary America from a bold new Native American voice

'A thunderclap' Marlon James
'Astonishing' Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
'Pure soaring beauty' Colm Toibin

Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and hoping to reconnect with her estranged family. That's why she is there. Dene is there because he has been collecting stories to honour his uncle's death, while Edwin is looking for his true father and Opal came to watch her boy Orvil dance.

All of…


Book cover of City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why did Coll love this book?

LaPier and Beck’s book is the perfect backstory to Van Alst’s.

Chicago, built on the lands of the Three Fires Council, has a long history as an Indigenous metropolis, from activism around the famous 1893 World’s Fair to the building of urban Indian organizations. The authors show how Indigenous people are everywhere in the archives. 

By Rosalyn R. LaPier, David R. M. Beck,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association

In City Indian Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck tell the engaging story of American Indians who migrated to Chicago from across America to work and emerged as activists. From the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to the 1934 Century of Progress Fair, American Indians in Chicago voiced their opinions about political, social, educational, and racial issues.
City Indian focuses on the privileged members of the American Indian community in Chicago: doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers, and entertainers. During the Progressive Era more than any other time in the city's…


Book cover of Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality: Stories of American Indian Relocation and Reclamation

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why did Coll love this book?

Rather than focusing on historical archives, this book is based on years of face-to-face research in and with urban Indigenous communities. Deftly describing the urban politics of identity, Jacobs provides insights into the ways in which Indigenous people manage senses of self and community in the twenty-first-century city.

By Michelle R. Jacobs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Contemporary accounts of urban Native identity in two pan-Indian communities
In the last half century, changing racial and cultural dynamics in the United States have caused an explosion in the number of people claiming to be American Indian, from just over half a million in 1960 to over three million in 2013. Additionally, seven out of ten American Indians live in or near cities, rather than in tribal communities, and that number is growing.
In Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality, Michelle Jacobs examines the new reality of the American Indian urban experience. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over two and a…


Book cover of Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why did Coll love this book?

This edited collection of cutting-edge essays by scholars from across North America captures the profound diversity of Indigenous urban experience.

Ranging from Indigenous cities that existed prior to European arrival through the colonial period to the recent past, this anthology explodes the notion that Indigenous and urban histories have little to do with each other.

By Kent Blansett (editor), Cathleen D. Cahill (editor), Andrew Needham (editor)

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From ancient metropolises like Pueblo Bonito and TenochtitlAn to the twenty-first century Oceti Sakowin encampment of NoDAPL water protectors, Native people have built and lived in cities-a fact little noted in either urban or Indigenous histories. By foregrounding Indigenous peoples as city makers and city dwellers, as agents and subjects of urbanization, the essays in this volume simultaneously highlight the impact of Indigenous people on urban places and the effects of urbanism on Indigenous people and politics.

The authors-Native and non-Native, anthropologists and geographers as well as historians-use the term "Indian cities" to represent collective urban spaces established and regulated…


Book cover of On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City

Johannes Lenhard Author Of Making Better Lives: Hope, Freedom and Home-Making among People Sleeping Rough in Paris

From my list on understanding poverty today, from the bottom up.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an anthropologist and studied homelessness in Paris and London for the last decade. I was drawn into the world of people on the streets when I moved to London and started observing their parallel world. I spent almost a year with people on the street in London and two years in Paris. I volunteered in day centers, safe injection facilities, and soup kitchens and slept in a homeless shelter. Since I finished my first book on my observations in Paris, I have advised both policymakers on homelessness and written countless journalistic articles. My goal is always to provide a clearer picture of homelessness through the eyes of the people themselves. 

Johannes' book list on understanding poverty today, from the bottom up

Johannes Lenhard Why did Johannes love this book?

This book is a story about gangs in Chicago and one woman’s personal involvement in researching them. It is a sad book but also one full of surprises, family stories, and romance.

I learnt so much about what it means to be black and poor today. Goffman was as closely involved as was possible for a white, female grad student and pushed the boundaries of what good journalism and research needs to do today. 

By Alice Goffman,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Jeffrey Dunn Author Of Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance

From my list on big imagination and creative punch.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it. 

Jeffrey's book list on big imagination and creative punch

Jeffrey Dunn Why did Jeffrey love this book?

I love story collections where a writer has nothing to lose. The writer tries out ideas, and when imagination goes off the rails, we all go for a ride. This book has a central voice, Victor, who takes us to the carnival. There is Thomas, the storyteller whose imagination destabilizes like an LSD trip, but when Victor, Thomas, and their friends all take hallucinogens, everyone’s a Thomas.

As the stories unfold, somebody’s waiting for Crazy Horse, Jesus, Qualchan, or Coyote, and maybe they come, and maybe they don’t. It all boils down to “Survival = Anger x Imagination. Imagination is the Only Weapon on the Reservation” (150), an equation worth the price of admission.

By Sherman Alexie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Alexie’s prose startles and dazzles with unexpected, impossible-to-anticipate moves. These are cultural love stories, and we laugh on every page with a fist tight around our hearts.”—The Boston Globe

“Poetic and unremittingly honest . . . The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is for the American Indian what Richard Wright’s Native Son was for the black American in 1940.”—Chicago Tribune

Sherman Alexie’s celebrated first collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, established its author as one of America’s most important and provocative voices. The basis for the award-winning movie Smoke Signals, it remains one of his…


Book cover of Black Boy

Marita Golden Author Of Migrations of the Heart

From my list on why memoir can be both literature and art.

Why am I passionate about this?

Marita Golden is an award-winning author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her books include the novel The Wide Circumference of Love and the memoirs Migrations of the Heart, Saving Our Sons, and Don’t Play in the Sun One Woman’s Journey Through the Color Complex. She is the recipient of many awards including the Writers for Writers Award from Barnes & Noble and Poets and Writers, an award from the Authors Guild, and the Fiction Award for her novel After, from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, been featured as a question on Jeopardy!, and is a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee. 

Marita's book list on why memoir can be both literature and art

Marita Golden Why did Marita love this book?

In the introduction to the first edition of Black Boy, Richard Wright acknowledges that while inspired by his life the book is both a record of his life and an imagined autobiography of all the “black boys” he knew who like him came of age in the segregated south.

Wright’s book is an early example of the use of creative nonfiction techniques that make this memoir gripping, suspenseful, deeply psychological, and a testimony to the power of dreams and the will to prevail against adversity.

By Richard Wright,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Black Boy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago

Benjamin Markovits Author Of Imposture

From my list on historical fiction about famous writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was fourteen years old, my family moved from Texas to London for a year, and I started going to a little second-hand book shop around the corner. It was run by a long-haired Canadian, who always smoked a pipe. There were only three or four aisles, plus a cluttered backroom. You could pick up a 19th-century edition of the complete works of Shelley, with uncut pages, for two pounds. One volume led to another, in the same way that one friendship can lead to another, or introduce you to a new circle of people. Twenty-odd years later, I decided to write a novel about some of these writers.  

Benjamin's book list on historical fiction about famous writers

Benjamin Markovits Why did Benjamin love this book?

Simone de Beauvoir met Nelson Algren in Chicago in 1947.

A couple of years later, his novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award, and a few years after that De Beauvoir won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel The Mandarins, which featured a character based on Algren. They became famous literary lovers, involved in a complicated triangle with De Beauvoir’s long-time partner Sartre.

But Cowie’s novel brings to life the ordinary intimacies and misunderstandings of their love affair – the title comes from de Beauvoir’s confusion about the time difference between Paris and Chicago. Caught up in the details of day-to-day life, people, even brilliant writers, don’t always have the time or vision to make real decisions about how they want to live, or who they want to love. It’s a brilliant book. 

By Douglas Cowie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sharp and intimate, Douglas Cowie’s reimagining of the turbulent love affair between Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren asks what it means to love and be loved by the right person at the wrong time. Chicago, 1947: on a freezing February night, France’s feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir calls up radical resident novelist Nelson Algren, asking him to show her around. After a whirlwind tour of dive bars, cabarets and the police lockup, the pair return to his apartment on Wabansia Avenue. Here, a passion is sparked that will last for the next two decades. Their relationship intensifies during intoxicating…


Book cover of Finding Langston

Ellen Mulholland Author Of This Girl Climbs Trees

From my list on middle grade dealing with death, dying, and grief.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with life and death. As a child, my own life was fairly mundane and even joyful. However, I went through loss like most. We lost two dogs when I was maybe seven or nine. Then my beagle Suzy, who we had the longest, was struck by a car on a rainy day. A few years later, my grandfather passed from cancer. Watching my mother grieve stuck with me. It shaped me—how I cared about life, how I longed to understand it. Once I decided to write stories for children, I knew it could be a safe place to explore my hidden feelings.

Ellen's book list on middle grade dealing with death, dying, and grief

Ellen Mulholland Why did Ellen love this book?

This is a warm hug book. The kind that sneaks up on you when you’re reading words. Langston is a lovable main character. His story is rich with family, tradition, loss, and poetry. He is eleven when his mother dies, and his dad decides they must leave Alabama. So many changes for this boy as he is bullied and deals with segregation in 1940s Chicago. But he discovers the library that welcomes all. Such a sweet story and perfect for younger middle grade readers.

By Lesa Cline-Ransome,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Finding Langston as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

When eleven-year-old Langston's father moves them from their home in Alabama to Chicago's Bronzeville district, it feels like he's giving up everything he loves.

It's 1946. Langston's mother has just died, and now they're leaving the rest of his family and friends. He misses everything--Grandma's Sunday suppers, the red dirt roads, and the magnolia trees his mother loved.

In the city, they live in a small apartment surrounded by noise and chaos. It doesn't feel like a new start, or a better life. At…


Book cover of The Bollywood Bride

Saz Vora Author Of My Heart Sings Your Song

From my list on Asian and South Asian cultures.

Why am I passionate about this?

My debut duet came out of necessity to handle the grief of losing our first child almost thirty years ago. As part of my writing journey, I searched for stories by people like me, migrants who draw on their upbringing and living with their heritage in their adopted country. One thing I came across was the use of the language, the food, and the many family gatherings and music. I enjoyed reading of people from all communities and liked exploring new cultures and these books do just that for me. They take me to families who embrace the joy of their life in a foreign land.

Saz's book list on Asian and South Asian cultures

Saz Vora Why did Saz love this book?

Dev’s book is an escape into the exuberance of migrant families from India. Ria is a reclusive Bollywood actress, who betrays Vikram, her childhood sweetheart, to protect him from the same fate as her father. Ten years later, Ria returns to Chicago for her cousin Nik’s wedding, knowing she will meet Vik again. For Ria, the loving embrace of her family and found family provides the safety and love she needs to reassess her life in Bollywood. For Vik meeting Ria again brings back all the pain he thought he had recovered from after her betrayal. In the two weeks, Ria and Vik rekindle the love they have both denied. A beautifully written story of migrants who embrace their life in America but still hold on to their Indian heritage.

By Sonali Dev,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"A fresh new voice." --Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author

Ria Parkar is Bollywood's favorite Ice Princess--beautiful, poised, and scandal-proof--until one impulsive act threatens to expose her destructive past. Traveling home to Chicago for her cousin's wedding offers a chance to diffuse the coming media storm and find solace in family, food, and outsized celebrations that are like one of her vibrant movies come to life. But it also means confronting Vikram Jathar.

Ria and Vikram spent childhood summers together, a world away from Ria's exclusive boarding school in Mumbai. Their friendship grew seamlessly into love--until Ria made…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Chicago, gangs, and American Indians?

Chicago 392 books
Gangs 27 books
American Indians 230 books