Here are 100 books that When We Were Orphans fans have personally recommended if you like
When We Were Orphans.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I think about the positive identity development of Native youth all the time and not just because I am an educator and author. I love my Ojibwe language and culture, but I want to turn Native fiction on its head. We have so many stories about trauma and tragedy with characters who lament the culture that they were always denied. I want to show how vibrant and alive our culture still is. I want gripping stories where none of the Native characters are drug addicts, rapists, abused, or abusing others. I want to demonstrate the magnificence of our elders, the humor of our people, and the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
I love this book because it has a gripping story that keeps you guessing and flipping pages. I also love it because it showcases a strong, female, Native protagonist solving a mystery and acting with agency, power, and knowledge of self. It does a lot to disrupt the victim narratives about Indigenous people we have often seen in literature.
I also love this one because Angeline Boulley is really connected to her own Native community, and it shows up in the work. It gives you a window into Ojibwe culture rather than an imagining of the culture.
A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK!
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
“One of this year's most buzzed about young adult novels.” ―Good Morning America
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time Selection Amazon's Best YA Book of 2021 So Far (June 2021) A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection An Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Books of…
I grow bored reading the same thing over and over, so I don’t. My favorite books challenge me, teach me, blow the walls out, and expand my horizons. I want books to take me to unexpected places and show me worlds existing and otherwise that I never dreamed could be out there. I’ve never been a fan of genre literature that strictly “follows the rules” for that reason. Some of the books on this list are from genres, but they still differ from the predictable. I want to be surprised, and then you’ll hold my attention for the entire novel, and I’ll refer back to it for years.
Barbara Kingsolver’s magnum opus follows a Georgia missionary family’s self-destruction in the dark jungles of the Belgian Congo. The story is narrated by the mother and four daughters as the father, Nathan Price, leads his family to a remote village where they live squalid lives.
In a series of misadventures, he is resolute and foolish, attempting to lead the natives to Christ. Through poverty, culture clashes, and even death, the American women learn to depend on the villagers as Nathan blindly attempts to shove them into an Americanized form of Christianity. Kingsolver’s epic is an engrossing study of how destructive blind, stubborn, prejudiced faith can become. It is, at times, heartbreaking and painfully realistic.
Kingsolver is not afraid to question Christians' motives and show the dark side of Christianity. Yet, she is also respectful of the faith and especially respectful of the African villagers. After reading this story, I found…
**NOW INCLUDING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF DEMON COPPERHEAD: THE NEW BARBARA KINGSOLVER NOVEL**
**DEMON COPPERHEAD IS AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-ORDER**
An international bestseller and a modern classic, this suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and their remarkable reconstruction has been read, adored and shared by millions around the world.
'Breathtaking.' Sunday Times 'Exquisite.' The Times 'Beautiful.' Independent 'Powerful.' New York Times
This story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
They carry with them everything they believe they will…
Growing up, I hardly ever saw books written by people who looked like me, about people who looked like me. When I did, the Asians were often side characters, typecast as nerds (and not in a good way). I didn’t get to see Asians being “cool” kids, and I definitely didn’t see them as love interests. When I went to a performing arts boarding school, it was the first time I wasn’t the only Asian student in my class, and it was life-changing. I think if I had had these books when I was a kid, it would’ve been easier to be confident about who I was.
I loved this book because it wrestles with accepting and loving your family, your culture, and, ultimately, yourself. It’s the story of Gogol Ganguli and two generations of the Ganguli family. I could relate to Gogol’s struggles as someone who constantly feels in-between.
Throughout the book, Gogol straddles names, families, and cultures in his journey to find himself. As a child of immigrants myself, I was moved by how Gogol’s parents became more “American” while also deeply missing their family and home country on the other side of the world. Full of intimate character interiority, this book brims with insightful observations about the immigrant experience.
'The Namesake' is the story of a boy brought up Indian in America.
'When her grandmother learned of Ashima's pregnancy, she was particularly thrilled at the prospect of naming the family's first sahib. And so Ashima and Ashoke have agreed to put off the decision of what to name the baby until a letter comes...'
For now, the label on his hospital cot reads simply BABY BOY GANGULI. But as time passes and still no letter arrives from India, American bureaucracy takes over and demands that 'baby boy Ganguli' be given a name. In a panic, his father decides to…
In 2038 a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicenter for the Fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.
David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier,…
I’m a second-generation TCK. I was born in Peru and grew up in Chile and Panama, as well as the US. My YA novel, The Means That Make Us Strangers, explores some of my own experience moving crossculturally as a teenager.
I’ve been a fan of Elizabeth Wein’s since I read her bestselling YA thriller Code Name Verity, and I was thrilled to discover she herself is a TCK. In this novel, two adopted siblings (one white, one Black), move from the US to Ethiopia in the 1930s, just before Ethiopia’s war with Italy. TCKs will relate to Teo and Em’s struggle with not feeling fully at home in any one place. Like all of Elizabeth Wein’s books, there is plenty of airplane-flying adventure to keep readers on the edge of their seats!
"Think of the sky!" Delia gave Momma's hands a shake. "Think of the sky in Ethiopia! What will it be like to fly in Africa?"
This New York Times bestseller is a story of survival, subterfuge, espionage and identity.
Rhoda and Delia are American stunt pilots who perform daring aerobatics to appreciative audiences. But while the sight of two girls wingwalking - one white, one black - is a welcome novelty in some parts of the USA, it's an anathema in others. Rhoda and Delia dream of living in a world where neither gender nor ethnicity determines their life. When…
Nick Albert is British, but for close to 20-years, he has lived in a ramshackle farmhouse in the rural west of Ireland with his wife and several unruly but affectionate dogs. He's the author of the bestselling comedy memoir series, Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds, and the twisty thriller Hunting the Wrecking Crew. Nick is a voracious reader with an eclectic collection of books, and for a good reason. In a recent interview, he gave this advice to aspiring authors, "Before you write, read. Read a lot. Read what you enjoy. Read the kind of books you would like to write, but be sure to observe the author's craft as you read. Take note of how they mix dialogue with narration, how they paint their pictures, and how they guide your mind. Try to look beyond the words to understand how the story was constructed. Do all this and more before you put pen to paper."
Introducing Elvis Cole, L.A. Private Eye, who, along with his business partner Joe Pike, features in 18 books. Cole is a literate, wisecracking Vietnam vet who is determined to never grow up. Pike is a former Marine, quiet, ruthless, and deadly.
When Ellen Lang enters Elvis Cole's Disney-Deco office, she's lost her husband and her young son. The case seems simple enough, but Elvis isn't thrilled. Neither is his enigmatic partner and firepower, Joe Pike. Their search down the seamy side of Hollywood's studio lots and sculptured lawns soon leads them deep into a nasty netherworld of drugs, sex, and murder.
I am an avid reader and devour books of all types, but for pure entertainment I love a good thriller. These are the kind of books I read on planes and at the beach, and these are the kinds of books I shared with my late father. I contributed a piece on Rudyard Kipling’s Kim to the collection Thrillers: 100 Must Readsand am a member of the International Thriller Writers. While I write thrillers professionally, I remain a passionate reader of the genre and love to share the brilliant stories that kept me reading late into the night.
Connolly weaves taut crime thrillers that I have great trouble putting down once I start reading. Charlie Parker and the rest of the regular cast are beautifully rich characters I care about, which explains the 19 books in this series on my shelf. What sets Connolly apart is an undercurrent of supernatural evil that arcs through these crime stories. In The Black Angel, the shroud that conceals what the reader likely sensed in the early novels is pulled back a little to reveal an underworld of darkness beneath the stories. Charlie Parker is the detective you want on the case when there is more than just a crime and The Black Angelis a milestone in the series.
EVIL TAKES MANY FORMS. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR CHARLIE PARKER HUNTS THEM ALL.
The Black Angel is not an object. The Black Angel is not a myth. The Black Angel lives.
A young woman goes missing from the streets of New York. Those who have taken her believe that nobody cares about her, and that no one will come looking for her. They are wrong. She is linked to the killer Louis, the man who stands at the right hand of private detective Charlie Parker, and Louis will tear apart anyone who stands in the way of his attempts to find her.…
Edge of the Known World is a near-future love and adventure story about a brilliant young refugee caught in era when genetic screening tests like 23AndMe make it impossible to hide a secret identity. The novel is distributed by Simon & Schuster. It is a USA Today Bestseller and 2024…
I loved bars before I could drink. Maybe it was a steady diet of Cheers reruns as a child. Or perhaps it was growing up in Los Angeles, a city without a center, a city of cars, a city that seemed—at least when I was a child—to lack real community. Bars, in my imagination, provided that. So when I started actually finding myself in bars—and often working in them—I also found myself writing fiction, and those bars ended up in that fiction. In each of my novels, a bar is a gathering place for those wanting a church sans theology, a place, where, yes, everyone knows your name.
Crime novels, like bars, live or die on their vibe. The plot may have rat-sized holes and the ending might spill into deux ex machina, but if you dig the atmosphere, you’ll forgive almost any narrative sin. Not that The Mexican Tree Duck commits any worthy of confession. You’re in safe hands with CW Sughrue, part-time PI and owner of the Hell Roaring Liquor Store and Lounge up in Montana. What I love about Crumley is the lovely, complex language that pours out like gin into a martini glass. “The first time I set foot in the Hell Roaring as the sixties drifted, late as usual and dying, into the seventies, I found that soft autumn light filling the magic afternoon easiness of the bar.”
One night up in Montana, C.W. Sughrue sets his seedy bar’s pricey jukebox in front of an oncoming freight train. When predictable results ensue, he needs to find a way to make some money and pay back the jukebox company. So even though Sughrue’s officially retired from P.I. work, he picks up one small-time case involving some kidnapped fish. That fishy trail leads to a much bigger case involving a Texas politician's kidnapped wife, a valuable piece of pre-Columbian pottery, and a single mother who packs guns and stolen goods in her infant son's…
I was passionate about anthropology in the 1970s when I was in my twenties and am still passionate about anthropology in the 2020s in my seventies. Throughout the years I have expressed my passion for anthropology in university classrooms, in public lectures, and in the 16 books I have published. As my mind has matured, I understand more and more fully just how important it is to write powerfully, cogently, and accessibly about the wisdom of others. In all my books I have attempted to convey to the public this fundamental wisdom, none more so than in my latest book, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times.
Walter Mosely is one of my favorite fiction writers. His Easy Rollins mysteries, of which Cinnamon Kiss is a prime example, describe with great skill the cultural texture of street life among African Americans in Los Angeles.
He does so through sensuous descriptions of LA neighborhoods, gripping dialogue, and creative construction of character. In so doing he evokes the practical wisdom of urban street life—a model for writing about contemporary wisdom.
New York Times bestseller Walter Mosley's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest ever challenge.
It is the Summer of Love as CINNAMON KISS opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armoured car. It's further outside the law than Easy has ever travelled, but his daughter Feather needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch.
Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric,…
Have you ever pretended to be a superhero? What was your special ability? Mine was always the ability to talk to animals. What an amazing world that would be if I could chat with the squirrel nesting in my shed or the stray cat trotting through my yard! Animals of all kinds have always been part of my world, from my own pets to animals that came through rescue ranches where I volunteered. So it’s no wonder that I seek them out in fiction. For my own books, my love for cats and dogs was easy to translate into a love for dragons and hellhounds.
Heather G. Harris reimagines fae creatures of all kinds in her Other Realm series. Unflappable Jinx finds herself plunged into a world she didn’t even know existed where political machinations between wizards, dragons, vampires, and werewolves cause deadly consequences. The background world building in Glimmer of the Other is subtle and yet robust. Jinx is a hero that I can truly root for, caught up in a slow-burn romance that was just right. And she has a hellhound for a pet. Who doesn’t love a wickedly cute hellhound?
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time.
I’m Jinx. As a private investigator, being a walking, talking lie detector is a useful skill – but let’s face it, it’s not normal. You’d think it would make my job way too easy, but even with my weird skills, I still haven’t been able to track down my parent’s killers.
When I’m hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar – yet my gut tells me there’s more to this case than a party girl gone wild. Firstly, she’s a bookish…
In addition to being an author, I’m an avid reader, averaging about a book a week. While I enjoy a good historical fiction or NYT bestseller, my go-to is mystery and suspense, and has been since the day my mother first introduced me to Nancy Drew. I’m especially drawn to cold case mysteries, multiple POVs, and complex plots and characters, but I can dive headfirst into a fast-paced beach read with equal pleasure. As a writer by profession, I truly believe reading is the best teacher and I have learned from, and enjoyed, every one of these recommendations immensely. It’s my hope that you'll discover a new-to-you author and love the book you choose.
Grafton takes a rare departure from her usual singular narrative by P.I. Kinsey Millhone, alternating with POVs between “present day (1987)” Kinsey’s investigation and flashbacks by 1953 characters. The case is that of flirtatious Violet Sullivan who disappeared in 1953, leaving behind a young daughter, Daisy, and husband, Foley. Thirty-four years later, Daisy is looking for closure. Did her mother leave of her own volition? Is she still alive and living the good life? Or did she meet with a bad end? The premise of a disappearing mother can take many different paths, and Millhone handles each scenario in turn as she delves deep into the past…all without the aid of a cell phone and internet.
California private investigator Kinsey Millhone is hired to solve a decades-old cold case in this "undeniably entertaining" (Los Angeles Times) #1 New York Times bestseller from Sue Grafton.
Cases don't get much colder than that of Violet Sullivan, who disappeared from her rural California town in 1953, leaving behind an abusive husband and a seven-year-old named Daisy. But PI Kinsey Millhone has promised the now adult Daisy she'll try her best to locate Violet, dead or alive. All signs point to a runaway wife-the clothes that disappeared; the secret stash of money Violet bragged about; the brazen flirtations she indulged…
