Here are 100 books that What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky fans have personally recommended if you like
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As a female grown up in a working-class neighborhood in East Naples (Italy), and as an academic researching political ecologies in Italy, Brazil, and the USA, I am especially interested in how sex/gender, class/work, and race/coloniality are intersected in people’s lives, and especially in how this shapes their perceptions and experiences of environmental problems. This approach has led me to look for the connections between labor and the environment both within and beyond waged/industrial work and formal trade unions, including the unpaid housework and subsistence production done in working-class, peasant, Black, and Indigenous communities and the social movements that represent them.
Though the book is set in a fictional neighborhood at the eastern periphery of Naples (Italy), many–including myself–have recognized it as Rione Luzzatti, the place where I spent most of my childhood and puberty, from 1972 to 1982.
This is not the colorful Naples known to tourists, but rather a place where the silent majorities struggle to stay afloat, or even rise up above their pre-established place in the class and gender order, like the two main characters of the story do, each one in her own special way.
I could not help identifying myself with the narrating character Lenú a and her struggles for keeping together intellectual creativity, friendship, love, and motherhood–and with her need to never completely let go of her working-class origins.
OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE
NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES
GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY
58 WEEKS ON THE BOOKSELLER'S TOP 20 ORIGINAL FICTION BESTSELLERS LIST
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015
43 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS DEALS
Now in B-format Paperback
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but…
I was a child who was very dissatisfied with the idea that this world, with its rules and routines, is all there is. Sunday school filled me with a fear of hell, and heaven sounded boring, a lot of people wearing white and singing. This forced me into the world of fairy and folktales: spirits, tricksters, masquerades, elves, werecreatures, and merpeople. It was all so exciting and, more than that, comforting. The just were rewarded, and the wicked were punished within the timeframe of the story, not later when they died.
My default stance in life is ‘Meh,’ which infuriates my children, but it's pretty hard to get a rise out of me because I've seen some shit.
Nigeria is such a dysfunctional country full of laughter, sunshine, secrets, and puppeteers; it made everything in this book seem feasible. Like, if you stretch my country out like taffy we'd get to a mad stage that everyone would still shrug off and accept.
Rosewater is the start of an award-winning trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging voices.
*Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, winner *Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, winner
Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless -- people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.
Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care…
I was a child who was very dissatisfied with the idea that this world, with its rules and routines, is all there is. Sunday school filled me with a fear of hell, and heaven sounded boring, a lot of people wearing white and singing. This forced me into the world of fairy and folktales: spirits, tricksters, masquerades, elves, werecreatures, and merpeople. It was all so exciting and, more than that, comforting. The just were rewarded, and the wicked were punished within the timeframe of the story, not later when they died.
I haven't read it in twenty years, having been introduced to Tutuola's work as part of my undergrad degree. It's a book full of ghosts and the sort of mind that perceives and interacts with them. It basically epitomises the saying, 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,' but is the palm-wine drinkard a fool, brave, desperate, or just very, very drunk when he wanders off on his quest through the spirit world? Or is he all of the above?
This classic novel tells the phantasmagorical story of an alcoholic man and his search for his dead palm-wine tapster. As he travels through the land of the dead, he encounters a host of supernatural and often terrifying beings - among them the complete gentleman who returns his body parts to their owners and the insatiable hungry-creature. Mixing Yoruba folktales with what T. S. Eliot described as a 'creepy crawly imagination', The Palm-Wine Drinkard is regarded as the seminal work of African literature.
'Brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching.' Dylan Thomas, Observer
'Tutuola's art conceals - or rather clothes - his purpose,…
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…
I was a child who was very dissatisfied with the idea that this world, with its rules and routines, is all there is. Sunday school filled me with a fear of hell, and heaven sounded boring, a lot of people wearing white and singing. This forced me into the world of fairy and folktales: spirits, tricksters, masquerades, elves, werecreatures, and merpeople. It was all so exciting and, more than that, comforting. The just were rewarded, and the wicked were punished within the timeframe of the story, not later when they died.
Smutty ghost sex. I had no business reading this book at nine or whatever, but I had an appetite and the aptitude, and my parents were either too trusting or indifferent because SMUTTY GHOST SEX.
I can't remember much else about it, nor can I get a copy, but for nine-year-old me, it was forbidden and titillating.
I was a child who was very dissatisfied with the idea that this world, with its rules and routines, is all there is. Sunday school filled me with a fear of hell, and heaven sounded boring, a lot of people wearing white and singing. This forced me into the world of fairy and folktales: spirits, tricksters, masquerades, elves, werecreatures, and merpeople. It was all so exciting and, more than that, comforting. The just were rewarded, and the wicked were punished within the timeframe of the story, not later when they died.
I grew up reading fairy tales from other lands and taking our own oral stories back home for granted. At the very least, our stories belonged to dark, scary places.
This book changed all that. It was magical! It showed me new Igbo mythology and made my culture appealing and heroic. What's not to love?
I am invested in how women juxtapose the day-to-day with the bizarre. I am curious about how women balance their lives with the insoluble and how this contributes to the fluidity of their identities. I live with women, I work with women, I shop with them, eat with them, sit next to them on the bus, I am friends with women, laugh with them, I pray with them, I am these women. In whichever format my work takes shape–whether subtle or direct, either as a performer, writer, designer, or community catalyst, I am committed to intentionally making space for womanhood. Please enjoy my book list.
I’ve read this book at least twice. The specificity of Sefi Atta's language makes me feel like I can reach into the pages and sit next to the characters as their lives unfold.
Her writing is very immersive, drawing you in and making everything in that world real and imaginable, painful yet livable. In this book, she explores the complexities of womanhood, even with certain privileges and regardless of status.
Everything Good Will Come introduces an important new voice in contemporary fiction. With insight and a lyrical wisdom, Nigerian-born Sefi Atta has written a powerful and eloquent story set in her African homeland. It is 1971, a year after the Biafran War, and Nigeria is under military rule—though the politics of the state matter less than those of her home to Enitan Taiwo, an eleven-year-old girl tired of waiting for school to start. Will her mother, who has become deeply religious since the death of Enitan’s brother, allow her friendship with the new girl next door, the brash and beautiful…
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse…
I am invested in how women juxtapose the day-to-day with the bizarre. I am curious about how women balance their lives with the insoluble and how this contributes to the fluidity of their identities. I live with women, I work with women, I shop with them, eat with them, sit next to them on the bus, I am friends with women, laugh with them, I pray with them, I am these women. In whichever format my work takes shape–whether subtle or direct, either as a performer, writer, designer, or community catalyst, I am committed to intentionally making space for womanhood. Please enjoy my book list.
The thing I love most about this book is how Lola weaves the story expertly in a way that you sympathize with each woman.
I loved the women in this book. Each one has its eccentricities, and each woman defines and redefines her autonomy. Only fantastic storytelling can center a patriarch and have the women crowning the day.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is a scandalous, engrossing tale of sexual politics and family strife in modern-day Nigeria. Lola Shoneyin's bestselling novel bursts on to the stage in a vivid adaptat ion by Caine Award-winning playwright Rotimi Babatunde.
"Men are like yam, you cut them how you like."
Baba Segi has three wives, seven children, and a mansion filled with riches. But now he has his eyes on Bolanle, a young university graduate wise to life's misfortunes. When Bolanle responds to Baba Segi's advances, she unwittingly uncovers a secret which threatens to rock his patriarchal household to…
I am invested in how women juxtapose the day-to-day with the bizarre. I am curious about how women balance their lives with the insoluble and how this contributes to the fluidity of their identities. I live with women, I work with women, I shop with them, eat with them, sit next to them on the bus, I am friends with women, laugh with them, I pray with them, I am these women. In whichever format my work takes shape–whether subtle or direct, either as a performer, writer, designer, or community catalyst, I am committed to intentionally making space for womanhood. Please enjoy my book list.
If minds were gardens, Okwiri Odour’s would be lush and strange, monochromatic, and with a tinge of color. I loved the absolute tenderness with which she wrote her characters.
I loved that the strangeness of things in this book made me both chuckle and question the possibility of worlds.
'Magical, beguiling... Carries echoes of Toni Morrison's Beloved' Guardian
A Vulture 'Book We Can't Wait to Read in 2022'
They had not lost anyone that year, or the ones they had lost were not worth remembering...
Set in the fictional Kenyan town of Mapeli, Things They Lost tells the story of four generations of women, each haunted by the mysterious curse that hangs over the Brown family. At the heart of the novel is Ayosa Ataraxis Brown, twelve years old and the loneliest girl in the world.
Okwiri Oduor's stunningly original debut novel sings with Kenyan folklore and myth as…
When writing about friendships, it was important for me to highlight the highs and the lows of friendships. This approach takes the reader on a journey with the main character as she remembers the good times while she navigates through the tough times. By sprinkling in humor, a story that could sway to the serious side and stay there is suddenly entertaining and balanced, giving the main character’s plight depth and the reader an engrossing experience.
This book has such an intriguing and powerful premise.
Molly is best friends with three women who are seemingly different. These three frenemies have only one thing in common and that is their mutual friend Molly.
When Molly passes away, her last wish is for these women to meet for brunch once a month for a year.
It’s the mysterious gifts Molly leaves each of them that leads them on a journey of self-discovery and exhibits how much Molly understood each of her friends.
And a standing brunch date may be more beneficial than they think.
"Poignant, funny, and smart, Brunch and Other Obligations is a must-have for contemporary women's fiction shelves. Readers will want to watch for what Nugent does next."
-Booklist
"A thoroughly upbeat and fully entertaining novel from cover to cover."
-Midwest Book Review
"Brunch and Other Obligations is women's fiction at its finest! A tender, witty, heartfelt novel that had me laughing out loud in one chapter and reaching for tissues in the next. With humor, heart, and hope, Nugent reminds us that, once in a lifetime, if we're very, very lucky, we just might find a friend who knows us better…
What happens when you’re face-to-face with a truth that shakes you? Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there?
Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question—what Homer called passing through The…
There is no place that I find more truth from women than in the books we write, especially memoirs. Starting with my mother, and continuing through my education at Harvard and Wharton, and workplaces including Johnson & Johnson and The Washington Post, women have always fascinated me. Women’s roles are changing rapidly, but not rapidly enough in many ways. From discovering our beauty and sexuality as adolescents to becoming mothers, to navigating the corporate or entrepreneurial climb, to aging while female…it’s all much richer and far more manageable when we tell the truth to each other rather than hiding behind a mask of perfectionism, false chumminess, or cattiness.
Cathi Hanauer and I were editors together at Seventeen Magazine in New York City in our 20s. She tried, unsuccessfully, to convince me not to leave the magazine to marry an abusive man. I obviously regretted not listening to her – but I did get great material to write my memoir. I read The Bitch in the House one snowy Christmas Day lying in front of the fireplace as my three young children played with their presents around me. I recognized myself in the essays about the experience of being female in America, and the book inspired me to corral 26 moms in my own essay collection. I’m forever grateful to Cathi for assembling a group of badass truthtellers with great stories to tell.
Virginia Woolf introduced us to the “Angel in the House”, now prepare to meet... The Bitch In the House.
This e-book includes an exclusive excerpt from The Bitch is Back: Older, Wiser, and Getting Happier, a second collection of essays from nine of the contributors featured in The Bitch in the House and from sixteen captivating new voices.
Women today have more choices than at any time in history, yet many smart, ambitious, contemporary women are finding themselves angry, dissatisfied, stressed out. Why are they dissatisfied? And what do they really want? These questions form the premise of this passionate,…
