Here are 100 books that The Ungrateful Refugee fans have personally recommended if you like
The Ungrateful Refugee.
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I enjoy thrillers of all kinds. Creating a good thriller for a middle-grade or young-adult audience is challenging and fun. These stories offer opportunities for unexpected situations, making for an action-packed page-turner full of twists and turns. Creating characters that are full of surprises and promise, with obstacles that unleash mayhem–whether in dreams or reality–the task is to create wonder for the reader. There is plenty to amaze and ways to fill a mind with wonder. Plus, every good narrative includes some educational aspects–about extraordinary things–all of which serve to change the lives or expand the horizons of everyone involved. Here are several stories that did that for me.
The instant I saw the marvelous illustrations of plump little hippo-trolls floating on clouds, I was captivated by their fun-loving world of wonder-full adventures.
This book is about moments of discovery that add richness to our lives–like when Moomintroll ventures to the top of a mountain with his friend, Snufkin, and they discover a hat–the “Hobgoblin’s hat”–which supposedly has magical powers. Or when the Hattifatteners, ghost entities, steal Hemulen’s barometer. Or when everything the moomintrolls need can be found in moominmamma’s purse.
Well, you can imagine the sort of fun and childish interplay of these curious characters as they make enchanting discoveries full of awe and whimsey while spreading kindness and fun-folly in and around Moomintroll Valley.
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A beautiful collectors' edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, a fold out map and gorgeous endpapers
In case you didn't know, the Moomins are kind, loyal and welcoming creatures with smooth round snouts, who live in a tall blue house shaped like an old stove in a valley in the forests of Finland. They love sunshine and sleep right through the winter, when the snow turns their…
I’m a professor at Cambridge University, and following years of training in ancient languages and linguistics, I am currently running a research project on the visual aspects of writing systems. Recently, I’ve become passionate about using research on ancient languages and writing to try to help communities today who are in danger of losing their linguistic traditions (I've started an Endangered Writing Network)–which is why the fragility of human culture is high on my agenda. Ultimately, I’d like the world to be a better place for my baby son to grow up in, and I hope to use my academic work to help people in some small way.
This story has always struck me as a quest to identify and regain humanity, as its hero repeatedly faces strange and powerful obstacles to his voyage home. I first read it as a child and then again, but in Greek, as a student—a time in life when anyone is trying to find their feet as a human being!
Perhaps the most comforting thing is that amongst all the gods and monsters and cursing and fighting, eating habits often characterize the work’s characters. Odysseus is always looking for sitophagoi, bread eaters, i.e. civilized people who make their own food, rather than man-eating monsters. I can identify with a hero looking for nice people to share a nice meal with.
The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home in a strange world.
This vivid new translation-the first by a woman-matches the number of lines in the Greek original, striding at Homer's sprightly pace. Emily Wilson employs elemental, resonant language and an iambic pentameter to produce a translation with an enchanting "rhythm and rumble" that avoids proclaiming its own grandeur. An engrossing tale told in a compelling new…
I’m an anthropologist and writer who has published more than fifty books, ranging from novels and essays to academic monographs and textbooks. I am passionate about trying to make the world a slightly better place, and I am convinced that we need to think differently about the good life and the economy in order to get out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves into. Economic anthropology offers alternative perspectives on the world and the human condition. It's far less obscure than it sounds.
If there is one foundational text in economic anthropology, this is it. The French anthropologist Mauss showed, in this 1924 book, that gift exchange is the glue that connects people in communities with no formal authority. He is perfectly aware that there are no free gifts, but shows that all economic transactions have a moral element: They create social obligations, they connect us to each other.
Since its first publication in English in 1954, The Gift, Marcel Mauss's groundbreaking study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure, has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts.
A brilliant example of the comparative method, The Gift presents the first systematic study of the custom―widespread in primitive societies from ancient Rome to present-day Melanesia―of exchanging gifts. The gift is a perfect example of what Mauss calls a total social phenomenon, since it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions. He sees the gift exchange as related to individuals and groups as much as…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I’m a writer originally from the UK, but now usually found elsewhere in the world. Currently, I’m based in Sofia, Bulgaria. I have always been fascinated by the subtle art of connecting with strangers, and by the complex ways that human beings forge bonds with those they don’t know. I have an MA in anthropology and a PhD in philosophy. Hello, Stranger is my thirteenth book, and in August 2021 was selected by BBCRadio 4 to be the book of the week.
The idea of cosmopolitanism goes back to ancient Greece when the ancient philosopher Diogenes the Cynic claimed that his home—his city or his polis—was the cosmos as a whole.
In this humane, wise book, Appiah brings together philosophy, literature, and stories from his own life to update the ancient idea of cosmopolitanism, and to ask why it matters today. Along the way, he sets out a vision for how we can live better—more openly and more hospitably—in a world where almost everybody we meet is a stranger.
Drawing on a broad range of disciplines, including history, literature, and philosophy-as well as the author's own experience of life on three continents-Cosmopolitanism is a moral manifesto for a planet we share with more than six billion strangers.
I am the Chief Legal Officer at a US publicly traded company. Although I was born in Iran, I immigrated to the US from Iran at age ten. When I was three years old, my father’s side of the family tried to take my brother and me away from my mother after my father passed away. She fought a custody battle and lawsuit and eventually was forced to flee Iran with us during the revolution. I am passionate about the Iranian Revolution, my relationship with my very strong and remarkable mother who has been a mentor to me, as well as family relationships within Iranian families.
I love the transparency with which the author describes her family, immigrants who moved to Southern California in the 1970s.
At times, she mocks her family, but ultimately, it is endearing how she describes family love and how tradition can overcome everyday life for immigrants. By including her Uncle, she depicts how much, in the Iranian culture, an extended family can be involved in everyday life. She writes with a great deal of humor, making a heavy topic seem quite light.
NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER • Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir
This Random House Reader’s Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner!
“Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant immigrant embrace of America.”—San Francisco Chronicle
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no…
I have gone through the refugee experience, and it has shaped me. I grew up queer in Syria, became a man in Egypt, a refugee in Lebanon, then an author in Canada. At the expense of romanticizing something so deeply painful, I do believe that the experience has made me a better man. It matured me, offered me a deep connection with others within my community, and built an unmatched appreciation of my culture of home back in Syria and my culture of diaspora here in Canada. As a fiction writer, I am obsessed with writing queer stories about immigration.
This book was a safe haven for me. I was feeling uninspired to write nonfiction and unable to focus on the memoir that I had tasked myself with writing. I wanted to write something meaningful and vulnerable yet somehow keep my power and agency to myself.
Truthfully, this book felt like a safety net. Habib manages to write about her upbringing as a Muslim woman and her relationship to her queerness while also allowing the story to meander between power and vulnerability. It taught me a lot, and I am thankful I got to read it.
CANADA READS 2020 WINNER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER ONE OF BOOK RIOT'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL QUEER BOOKS OF ALL TIME
How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don't exist?
Samra Habib has spent most of their life searching for the safety to be themself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, they faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From their parents, they internalized the lesson that revealing their identity could put them…
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
I have gone through the refugee experience, and it has shaped me. I grew up queer in Syria, became a man in Egypt, a refugee in Lebanon, then an author in Canada. At the expense of romanticizing something so deeply painful, I do believe that the experience has made me a better man. It matured me, offered me a deep connection with others within my community, and built an unmatched appreciation of my culture of home back in Syria and my culture of diaspora here in Canada. As a fiction writer, I am obsessed with writing queer stories about immigration.
I read this book back in 2018. As a Syrian writer, I was feeling quite lonely at the time, singular in the publishing community. Someone told me they heard about this book on NPR, and I jumped on it.
The book is a reversal of my own story. The author, a Syrian born in the US, travels back to Syria to search for her grandmother’s home. The observations feel authentic, and the storytelling feels meaningful. I was quite engrossed by the narrative; I could barely put the book down.
At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians-the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds-who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country. Restoring her family's home as the country comes apart, she learns how to speak the coded language of…
I have gone through the refugee experience, and it has shaped me. I grew up queer in Syria, became a man in Egypt, a refugee in Lebanon, then an author in Canada. At the expense of romanticizing something so deeply painful, I do believe that the experience has made me a better man. It matured me, offered me a deep connection with others within my community, and built an unmatched appreciation of my culture of home back in Syria and my culture of diaspora here in Canada. As a fiction writer, I am obsessed with writing queer stories about immigration.
I want to end this list on a strong note: this book by an immigrant to New York felt personal to me. Navigating life in New York is a dream for many immigrants, one that, realistically, I know I shouldn’t keep, but emotionally, I’m still connected to.
Still, this book carries more than just the background of NYC, it also has such a strong case against the idea that undocumented immigrants have nothing of value for the US. After reading this book, I kinda wanted Dan-el to be my friend.
An undocumented immigrant’s journey from a New York City homeless shelter to the top of his Princeton class
Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy, he arrived in the United States legally with his family. Together they had traveled from Santo Domingo to seek medical care for his mother. Soon the family’s visas lapsed, and Dan-el’s father eventually returned home. But Dan-el’s courageous mother decided to stay and make a better life for her bright sons in New York City.
Without papers, she faced tremendous obstacles. While Dan-el was only in grade school, the family joined…
I began writing Ali’s incredible international odyssey as a film, but once I discovered the epic breadth of his journey, I decided on a book first.
For 3 years I worked intensely with Ali. Not only was it a passionate and personal epic tale about love and loss, overcoming insurmountable odds, endurance and survival, but it hit a chord with readers from all walks of life, bringing understand to why people fled their countries, and help to change attitudes on refugees from fear to compassion. After three years on the road with the book I have now completed the screenplay.
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.
Whilst many stories have come out of Iran in the last few decades, nothing matches the grittiness of this portrayal of life in the crumbling alleyways and damp cellars of an Iranian slum district--the extreme poverty and desperation, and the regular betrayals and compromises, even within families, in the fight for survival. Born on the back seat of a police car in the subzero temperatures of a bleak and icy winter's night, Karimi summons extraordinary and unwavering dedication throughout his childhood to break free of this hopeless existence, culminating in the achievement of his dream to become a surgeon. But…
When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.…
I’ve been fascinated with the topic of immigration since childhood. My father is an immigrant, and my mother grew up overseas. My first job after college was working for a youth program for immigrant and refugee kids in Chicago. Now, I am a professor who teaches and writes about migration law. I find stories about how moving across borders shapes people’s lives to be endlessly interesting, bringing up themes of belonging, home, memory, trauma, and identity. I also think that the topic of global migration is intimately linked to questions of justice and equality and requires us all to reckon with the ways in which the colonial past shapes the present.
I couldn’t stop listening to this book. This autobiographical tale of a girl who flees Iran, grows up in the United States, and migrates to Europe is powerful and poignant in a way only a really good story can be. It perfectly captures the sense of being from multiple places but never truly at home. Nayeri has also written excellent nonfiction on the topic of migration and refuge, but this book has stayed with me and remains one of my favorite novels.
“Rich and colorful… [Refuge] has the kind of immediacy commonly associated with memoir, which lends it heft, intimacy, atmosphere.” –New York Times
The moving lifetime relationship between a father and a daughter, seen through the prism of global immigration and the contemporary refugee experience.
An Iranian girl escapes to America as a child, but her father stays behind. Over twenty years, as she transforms from confused immigrant to overachieving Westerner to sophisticated European transplant, daughter and father know each other only from their visits: four crucial visits over two decades, each in a different international city. The longer they are…
