100 books like The Deceptions

Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown were imprisoned in a detention center for foreign ‘undesirables,’ and to this day we are guilty of locking people up because they are stateless or nationals of another country. Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains, translated by Omid Tofighian, recounts his imprisonment along with fellow refugees on Manus Island. It is a visceral and vivid account, and it speaks in an unrefusable voice. I think it is an act of true human generosity that someone who has suffered so much at our collective hands would still choose to reach out and tell his own story; simply choosing to speak is an act of great hope and belief.

I cannot imagine sitting at the bedside of one of my children in a coma.

Isabel Allende not only did that, but used her grief, fear, pain, hope, optimism, memory, and humor to write an extraordinarily compelling book. We come to know not only Paula, Isabel’s gravely ill daughter, but a colorful cast of characters from the family’s past.

We learn about Chilean history and somehow find ourselves laughing and crying in the same chapter. At least I did. Allende is a master with words – and English is not her first language. Do yourself a favor and read this gem.

Kooshyar Karimi wrote this stunning memoir so beautifully it blew me away. Now a Sydney-based doctor and writer, he grew up as a Jew in Muslim Iran, hiding his origins from a brutal regime, always with a humorous eye. 

It is such a powerful story of survival, torture, and spying, plus forced deceptions and betrayal of others for helping desperate female rape victims. The struggle for redemption and eventual escape make his journey an unforgettable one.  

This wonderfully written true story is told as a wild madcap, can’t put it down, tragic comedy, which is incredibly funny but carries with it an underbelly of loss and heartbreak. 

As he struggles to straddle the demands of his Iraqi-Iranian cultural mix as a refugee in Australia, Osamah makes some disastrous choices, that lead him down a complex maze to the truth of where his own heart lies.

I first met Peter here in Chapel Hill, and we became fast friends. A Holocaust survivor from Prague, Peter often spoke to my classes about his experiences. What made his talks so powerful was his ability to remember what it was like to be an eight-year-old boy living in a city under Nazi occupation, and to tell a story that is humbling, moving, and real. Never have I seen a speaker connect better with young people. Peter first became inspired to begin telling his story to students and others after confronting a Holocaust denier, and his many presentations laid the foundation for this book. Part history, part memoir, A Boy’s Journey is also a story about family and the need for tolerance and empathy in our world today. 

You’ve heard of Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, Eichmann, and Himmler, but what about Heydrich? One of the masterminds of the terrible “final solution,” he was installed as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia under Nazi occupation and was assassinated in 1942 by two Czech patriots parachuted in by the British. I have visited the church in Prague where they were eventually hunted down and killed, so I knew I had to read this novel, and it is a delightful read. Written in short, snappy chapters, the seriousness of the underlying story is lightened by a playful double narrative with the author’s account of his own struggles while writing the book and reflections on the treatment of historical characters in fiction. 

There are several books I could recommend written by adults who were imprisoned as children in Terezin during the war, but this one stands out because of its artwork interspersed with factual accounts of daily life. Indeed, it’s the factual perspective she takes in her descriptions that makes them so heart-wrenching. Her map was my primary tool in writing descriptions of the camp, and her artwork, imitating her writing style, comes across as stark and factual. Written as a diary, not a novel, I cried at the cruelty with which her life unfurled before her. At the same time, however, she manages to capture the beauty of being a child, full of hope and promise. That balance makes the book a jewel.

I believe that I’ve read this short novel three times now. The story follows a son and his father as they walk through the outskirts of gritty, post-Communist Prague, chatting along the way. They, of course, stop at a few pubs as well. Narrated with wry humor and sympathy, their stroll reveals much about generational differences and efforts to remember troubling episodes from the past. Each man describes experiences that could only happen in this city. This novel inspired me to think long and hard about how walking can create a sense of place and belonging, and how walking is so often central to urban life. Most importantly, this book is a true joy to read. 

Under Communism, two hundred thousand spectators gathered every five years to fill the largest concrete stadium in the world, Strahov Stadium, on a hill not far from Prague Castle. Why? To watch tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen perform synchronized gymnastics movements. Why? They were all taking part in a ritual, called the Spartakiad, which tells us much about Communist ideology as it evolved over time. For many participants and spectators, the Spartakiad was also an opportunity to visit their capital city and return with memories that were not part of the Communists’ ideological script. In Roubal’s telling, the Spartakiad also shows that Czechoslovak citizens were not simply cogs in a totalitarian machine. In 1960, for example, performers staying in Prague dormitories forced organizers to remove high-calorie butter cakes with cheese curd. They got beef goulash instead.

Bohemian Gospel is an unusual book. I wasn’t sure I’d like it at first because it has more supernatural and fantasy elements than the novels I typically read, but it is truly stunning. Set in thirteenth-century Bohemia, it features Mouse, another badass heroine, trying to survive in a world filled with dark powers that threaten to destroy her. While this novel isn’t strictly a gothic novel, it has the requisite spooky atmosphere and a compelling heroine in deadly peril. The highest compliment I can pay this book is that when I was reading it I was nearly late for my own book launch because I was so caught up in the story!