88 books like The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By James McBride,

Here are 88 books that The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store fans have personally recommended if you like The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. 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 Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani Author Of The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places

From my list on struggles through the stories of real people.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in New York, the child of New Yorkers, every corner was replete with memories and histories that taught me life values. Walking through these meaningful places, I learned that the multiplicity of people’s stories and struggles to make space for themselves were what made the city and enriched everyone’s lives. The books here echo the essential politics and personal connections of those stories, and all have been deeply meaningful to me. Now, with my firm Buscada, and in my writing and art practice, I explore the way people’s stories of belonging and community, resistance and rebuilding from cities around the globe help us understand our shared humanity.

Gabrielle's book list on struggles through the stories of real people

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani Why did Gabrielle love this book?

It’s hard to know quite where to begin with this book–there is so much to love.

This book tells the story of the Great Migration of African American people out of the South across the United States to Chicago, New York, California, and beyond; it transforms and fills in a crucial part of American history that every American should know to understand our present day. But for me, what I love most starts with the way Isabel Wilkerson cares for people’s stories. 

Wilkerson tells this decades-long, sweeping, under-told story through individual stories that are so detailed and compelling, so thoroughly contextualized with historical research, that I was completely enmeshed in these people’s lives, their struggles, their loves, and their feelings. I cared. In the years since I read it, stories from the book often come to my mind, teaching and guiding me like the words of a beloved relative. 

By Isabel Wilkerson,

Why should I read it?

20 authors picked The Warmth of Other Suns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.

From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official…


Book cover of Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement

Julie Kabat Author Of Love Letter from Pig: My Brother's Story of Freedom Summer

From my list on building compassion around issues of race.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, it was shocking to observe prejudice and bullying. I wanted with all my being to resist, to make things right. I trust that in this I am not alone. Juxtaposed, I remember instances of compassion and still feel grateful. My oldest brother Luke helped me think deeply about these kinds of events. In response, I dedicated myself to a career in music and arts in education. I felt blessed to bring students from different cultures together to build creativity, understanding, and community. I wanted to empower young people to voice their feelings and thoughts in the poetry, stories, and plays they wrote, set to music, and performed. 

Julie's book list on building compassion around issues of race

Julie Kabat Why did Julie love this book?

How could I or anyone, except a bigot, not love John Lewis for his towering integrity, bravery, and authenticity? His commitment to the beloved community: “Good trouble,” he declared, calling himself and his generation to action, to protest. Non-violent resistance was his touchstone––learning how to love in the face of hate.

His sweeping memoir provides an inside, close-up view of the Civil Rights Movement at its height in the 60s. As executive director of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he held fast to his ideals, grappling with the most difficult of questions and obstacles. The beautiful story from his childhood in Alabama, during a storm threatening to upend his aunt’s house, explains the title, Walking with the Wind. I hope to keep walking on the path he set. 

By John Lewis, Michael D'Orso,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An award-winning national bestseller, Walking with the Wind is one of our most important records of the American Civil Rights Movement. Told by John Lewis, who Cornel West calls a “national treasure,” this is a gripping first-hand account of the fight for civil rights and the courage it takes to change a nation.

In 1957, a teenaged boy named John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama for Nashville, the epicenter of the struggle for civil rights in America. Lewis’s adherence to nonviolence guided that critical time and established him as one of the movement’s most charismatic and courageous leaders.…


Book cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

Julie Kabat Author Of Love Letter from Pig: My Brother's Story of Freedom Summer

From my list on building compassion around issues of race.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, it was shocking to observe prejudice and bullying. I wanted with all my being to resist, to make things right. I trust that in this I am not alone. Juxtaposed, I remember instances of compassion and still feel grateful. My oldest brother Luke helped me think deeply about these kinds of events. In response, I dedicated myself to a career in music and arts in education. I felt blessed to bring students from different cultures together to build creativity, understanding, and community. I wanted to empower young people to voice their feelings and thoughts in the poetry, stories, and plays they wrote, set to music, and performed. 

Julie's book list on building compassion around issues of race

Julie Kabat Why did Julie love this book?

What are the true costs of racism and the benefits of breaking out of its cage? I deeply admire the way Heather McGhee mines evidence and shows how the construction of race has worked against the interests of everyone, regardless of race. Then, she flips the script and shows compelling evidence for all the ways that we as a people benefit by working together. She calls it the ‘Solidarity Dividend,’ and I love this term she has coined.

She gives living examples of how everyone benefits when we work together to move beyond the zero-sum game, whether in the fields of healthcare, education, housing, employment, voting rights, the safety net, or more. Data-driven but in a refreshing style, McGhee’s book is inspiring!

By Heather McGhee,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The Sum of Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.

WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal

“This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist

Look for…


Book cover of The Time of Our Singing

Julie Kabat Author Of Love Letter from Pig: My Brother's Story of Freedom Summer

From my list on building compassion around issues of race.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, it was shocking to observe prejudice and bullying. I wanted with all my being to resist, to make things right. I trust that in this I am not alone. Juxtaposed, I remember instances of compassion and still feel grateful. My oldest brother Luke helped me think deeply about these kinds of events. In response, I dedicated myself to a career in music and arts in education. I felt blessed to bring students from different cultures together to build creativity, understanding, and community. I wanted to empower young people to voice their feelings and thoughts in the poetry, stories, and plays they wrote, set to music, and performed. 

Julie's book list on building compassion around issues of race

Julie Kabat Why did Julie love this book?

As a musician, I was initially intrigued by the title. I soon realized that Richard Powers would interweave his characters’ love of classical music with complex issues of race within a family. The parents-to-be meet in 1939 at the historic outdoor concert featuring singer Marian Anderson, who really was denied the best concert hall. He is a German-Jewish refugee; she is an African American music student. Can love withstand society’s pressures tearing Whites and Blacks apart? Can the parents’ idealism protect their children?

The narrator moves back and forth between the parents’ and children’s stories, from the 1940s through the 60s, against the backdrop of world and national events. This is a panoramic and subtle novel by an author willing to be vulnerable by entering deeply into his characters’ multicolored skins.

By Richard Powers,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

“The last novel where I rooted for every character, and the last to make me cry.” - Marlon James, Elle

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory and the Oprah's Book Club selection Bewilderment comes Richard Powers's magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely gifted―and divided―family, set against the backdrop of postwar America.

On Easter day, 1939, at Marian Anderson’s epochal concert on the Washington Mall, David Strom, a German Jewish émigré scientist, meets Delia Daley, a young Black Philadelphian studying to be a singer. Their mutual love of music draws them together, and―against all odds and their better judgment―they…


Book cover of Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

Susanna Ashton Author Of A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin

From my list on new discoveries in Black History.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I moved to South Carolina some 25 years ago, I found understanding all the history around me challenging. Even more than that, I found it hard to talk about! Politics and history get mixed up in tricky ways. I worked with students to understand stories about plantation sites, leading me to start reading the words of survivors of captivity. I started reading slave narratives and trying to listen to what people had to say. While sad sometimes, their words are also hopeful. I now read books about our nation’s darkest times because I look for ways to guide us to a better future. 

Susanna's book list on new discoveries in Black History

Susanna Ashton Why did Susanna love this book?

Washington, our first president…Mr. American Freedom himself—was not just a slave owner but a slave hunter. What was his problem, I wondered, as I read about how he and his wife positively obsessed over re-capturing Ona Judge, a woman who escaped from their bondage.

They spent years, money, and some political clout tracking her down and trying to drag her back. They had plenty of other enslaved people! They weren’t short of money! As I read this wild tale of courage and cruelty, I got the message…the Washingtons knew that if a slave could flee the President of the United States, it would demonstrate the hypocrisy of trying to found a nation on liberty that, uh,…..held men, women and children in bondage.

My spoiler for you: They failed. Judge never returned to the Washingtons and lived to tell her own tale about the ugly history of American freedoms. Dunbar’s book…

By Erica Strong Dunbar,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Never Caught as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of "extraordinary grit" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to…


Book cover of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Asale Angel-Ajani Author Of A Country You Can Leave

From my list on badass mothers.

Why am I passionate about this?

The first time I learned that I was raised by a “bad” mother was when I was in the first grade. The teachers complained that my mother hadn’t shown up for parent-teacher conferences and never could get me to school on time. But I knew what they did not, that my mother worked a lot and was raising kids all her own and yet still had time to take us to the library to read books that were well beyond the ones at school. Because of my highly iterant life raised by a bookish and neglectful mother, I have always been interested in the relationship between children and their less-than-perfect mothers.

Asale's book list on badass mothers

Asale Angel-Ajani Why did Asale love this book?

This book takes the idea of “badass” to another level of meaning and measure.

Here, Hattie is a mother of twelve children of various stories and in some ways, a stand-in for all mothers who made the migration north from the deep south of the United States. She’s tough but loving and endures the kind of struggles that would knock many people down.

It’s a book that keeps you turning the pages. 

By Ayana Mathis,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'I can't remember when I read anything that moved me quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.' Oprah Winfrey

'Mathis traces the fates of Hattie's 12 children and grandchildren over the course of the 20th century . . . [it] is remarkable.' Sunday Times

'Ms. Mathis has a gift for imbuing her characters' stories with an epic dimension that recalls Toni Morrison's writing.' New York Times

Fifteen years old and blazing with the hope of a better life, Hattie Shepherd fled the horror of the American South on a dawn train bound for Philadelphia.…


Book cover of Forge

Jean C. O'Connor Author Of The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution

From my list on bringing to life the American Revolutionary War.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in New England, I discovered a passion for the historical landmarks around me. My grandmother’s home in Andover, MA, had a plaque on the front door, declaring Lafayette made a speech from its front steps. In my grandmother’s journal, I discovered the story of the Lovells: Master John Lovell, Loyalist, of the Boston Latin School, and his son James Lovell, teacher at the school and patriot. Imagining the conflicts that must have brewed between them, I knew I had to write The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution. An English and history teacher, I wove historical background into study of literature.

Jean's book list on bringing to life the American Revolutionary War

Jean C. O'Connor Why did Jean love this book?

Laurie Halse Anderson masterfully helps us see the dilemmas of those who endured the Revolutionary years, from a young runaway slave to soldiers at General Washington’s winter camp at Valley Forge. For younger readers, Forge gives the experience of surviving the bitter cold and hunger of the winter camp for both the fearful runaway slave, Curzon, posing as a freedman and soldier in Washington’s army, and his friend Isabel. You can feel the cold seeping into your rag-bound feet and taste the sand in your rock-baked flatbread, hunger pangs tormenting you as you read.

By Laurie Halse Anderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Forge 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?

“One of the best novels they have ever read.” —Kirkus Reviews

Curzon navigates the dangers of being a runaway slave in this keenly felt second novel in in the historical middle grade The Seeds of America trilogy from acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson.

Blistering winds. Bitter cold. And the hope of a new future.

The Patriot Army was shaped and strengthened by the desperate circumstances of the Valley Forge winter. This is where Curzon the boy becomes Curzon the young man. In addition to the hardships of soldiering, he lives with the fear of discovery, for he is an escaped…


Book cover of Philadelphia Fire

Natalie Pompilio Author Of Walking Philadelphia: 30 Walking Tours Exploring Art, Architecture, History, and Little-Known Gems

From my list on fiction set in the City of Brotherly Love.

Why am I passionate about this?

My usual answer, when someone asks me where I live in Philadelphia, is: “Have you seen the Rocky movies, where he’s running through that open fruit/vegetable market? I’m three blocks from there.” I’ve called Philadelphia home for more than 20 years. I’m clearly a big fan, having now written four books about the city. I include a reference to the city’s most famous fictional character in my children’s alphabet book Philadelphia A to Z. In More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell, I got to tell stories about the country’s largest public art program. In This Used To Be Philadelphia, I told the then and now stories of dozens of city locations.

Natalie's book list on fiction set in the City of Brotherly Love

Natalie Pompilio Why did Natalie love this book?

This book couldn’t be set anywhere else. In 1985, a stand-off between city authorities and members of the MOVE organization ended when a state police helicopter dropped two bombs on MOVE’s West Philadelphia headquarters. Eleven people died, including five children, and more than 60 homes were destroyed. Two residents of the house – a 13-year-old boy and an adult woman – survived the conflagration. 

MOVE members believed in racial justice, animal rights, and a back-to-nature lifestyle. The group frequently clashed with neighbors and city leaders. On the day of the bombing, police had gone to the MOVE home to evict those living there. 

As a newspaper reporter, I twice interviewed two police officers on the scene who helped young Birdie Africa as he fled the burning home. The first words Birdie said to the officers were, “Don’t shoot me.” Two decades after the bombing, the police officers were still haunted…

By John Edgar Wideman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In 1985 police bombed a West Philadelphia row house. Eleven people died and a fire started that destroyed sixty other houses. John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel.

At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighbourhood and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event, a young boy seen running from the flames.

One of Wideman's most ambitious and celebrated works, Philadelphia Fire is about race, life and survival in urban America.


Book cover of The Sphas: The Life and Times of Basketball's Greatest Jewish Team

R.D. Rosen Author Of Tough Luck: Sid Luckman, Murder, Inc., and the Rise of the Modern NFL

From my list on Jews and sports.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author whose works have spanned several genres, from mysteries (I won an Edgar for Strike Three You’re Dead), to psychology (I coined the word “psychobabble” and wrote a book about it), to humor (Bad Cat and Bad Dog were both bestsellers), and, more lately to nonfiction, including Such Good Girls, true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust. I have worked in television as a comedian, writer, and producer, and as a senior editor in the publishing industry, but my first and enduring love is the magic of writing.

R.D.'s book list on Jews and sports

R.D. Rosen Why did R.D. love this book?

The little-known story of promoter Eddie Gottlieb’s South Philadelphia Hebrew Association team begins in the 1920s when professional basketball in this country was often played in a cage-encircled court to protect the athletes from the rabid fans in Philly and other cities in the hard-scrabble Eastern League. The unathletic Gottlieb kept the SPHAs at the top of the pack, along with Harlem’s all-Black Renaissance team. The story ends in the 1940s when helped organize the whites-only Basketball Association of American, the forerunner to the NBA. Gottlieb, who coached the original Philadelphia Warriors, spent the last 30 years of his life preparing each NBA season’s schedule by hand with a pencil and a legal pad.

By Doug Stark,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The history of the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association's basketball team and the legends it spawned


Book cover of Heat and Light

Fran Hawthorne Author Of I Meant to Tell You

From my list on ordinary people drawn into social activism.

Why am I passionate about this?

Was it the environmental movement, which burgeoned as I was growing up? Or remnants of Sunday School teachings? For whatever reason, I deeply believe that I have a responsibility to give back to the world more than I take. There are many ways to give back, as my characters Miranda and Russ explore in my novel I Meant to Tell You. In my nonfiction, I’ve investigated the healthcare and financial industries, and also suggested steps we can take in our everyday lives as consumers, parents, and investors. When I’m not writing, I’m organizing environmental clean-ups, collecting supplies for refugees, and phoning public officials.

Fran's book list on ordinary people drawn into social activism

Fran Hawthorne Why did Fran love this book?

I live in the same world where too many modern novels (including mine!) take place—a world of professionals and students, people whose hands get dirty only if we’re repotting our tomato plants. So it’s wonderfully eye-opening to enter the setting of this book, along with farmers, prison guards, nurses, and other rural folks who are actually living out the current debate over natural-gas fracking. While the gas-company officials are clear villains, the townspeople on both sides are portrayed with compassion and complexity. Who are the “good guys” and “bad guys” when a prison guard sells his mineral rights to the frackers for the cash to start a dairy farm? Or when a gas driller has an affair with a woman whose husband died of environmental cancer? 

By Jennifer Haigh,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh returns to the Pennsylvania town at the center of her iconic novel Baker Towers in this ambitious, achingly human story of modern America and the conflicting forces at its heart-a bold, moving drama of hope and desperation, greed and power, big business and small-town families. Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill or…


Book cover of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Book cover of Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
Book cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

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Interested in Pennsylvania, African Americans, and Jewish history?

Pennsylvania 91 books
African Americans 810 books
Jewish History 481 books