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Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 30 Jun 2020, 11:08
by anoushka_thakur
I want to read a book that discusses various cultural stories. Fiction/Non- fiction any book that portrays culture in an interesting way!
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 10 Jul 2020, 17:25
by audreads
Hello Anousha_Thakur!
This is such an interesting recommendation request! I've actually been trying to diversify my reads and include more cultures, so I have some that might interest you:
Fiction:
-Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram - showcases Iranian culture from the point of view of a teen boy struggling with his identity and depression.
-Severance by Ling Ma - showcases Chinese culture in a semi-post-apocalyptic America with flashbacks to childhood memories in China
-A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard - British Deaf culture as depicted through two teens (one who is selectively mute and the other who is Deaf) falling in love
-The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon - Korean American and Jamaican American culture coming together as two teens fall in love the day before the latter is to be deported to Jamaica, a country she's "from" but has never been to
-My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite - set in Nigeria and follows two sisters, one who has a penchant for murdering her boyfriends in what she claims to be self-defense and the other who helps her clean up, but also fears that her sister may be going after the man she's been in love with
-The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani - a translated novel set in France following a wealthy family who hires a nanny to look after their children only for some suspicious things to start happening as the nanny and the family grow closer
Non-Fiction:
-From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty - a mortician travels across the world, learning about and recounting to the reader how various cultures handle the dying, dead, and grief
-The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida - a translated memoir from a thirteen-year-old Japanese boy sharing his experience with having a non-verbal form of autism
-The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean's Defector Story by Hyeonseo Lee - a translated memoir from a North Korean woman who escaped her country to gain freedom, but in doing so, left behind her family; after decades of passing for Chinese in China, she decides to embark on a mission to rescue her family and bring them to South Korea
Hope you find one you like, though I should mention that most of these deal with heavier topics, so if you're someone who needs trigger warnings, I would recommend you look them up beforehand. Happy reading!
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 15 Jul 2020, 07:49
by rik17
audreads wrote: ↑10 Jul 2020, 17:25
Hello Anousha_Thakur!
This is such an interesting recommendation request! I've actually been trying to diversify my reads and include more cultures, so I have some that might interest you:
Fiction:
-
Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram - showcases Iranian culture from the point of view of a teen boy struggling with his identity and depression.
-
Severance by Ling Ma - showcases Chinese culture in a semi-post-apocalyptic America with flashbacks to childhood memories in China
-
A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard - British Deaf culture as depicted through two teens (one who is selectively mute and the other who is Deaf) falling in love
-
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon - Korean American and Jamaican American culture coming together as two teens fall in love the day before the latter is to be deported to Jamaica, a country she's "from" but has never been to
-
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite - set in Nigeria and follows two sisters, one who has a penchant for murdering her boyfriends in what she claims to be self-defense and the other who helps her clean up, but also fears that her sister may be going after the man she's been in love with
-
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani - a translated novel set in France following a wealthy family who hires a nanny to look after their children only for some suspicious things to start happening as the nanny and the family grow closer
Non-Fiction:
-
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty - a mortician travels across the world, learning about and recounting to the reader how various cultures handle the dying, dead, and grief
-
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida - a translated memoir from a thirteen-year-old Japanese boy sharing his experience with having a non-verbal form of autism
-
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean's Defector Story by Hyeonseo Lee - a translated memoir from a North Korean woman who escaped her country to gain freedom, but in doing so, left behind her family; after decades of passing for Chinese in China, she decides to embark on a mission to rescue her family and bring them to South Korea
Hope you find one you like, though I should mention that most of these deal with heavier topics, so if you're someone who needs trigger warnings, I would recommend you look them up beforehand. Happy reading!
Thank you so much audreads for this long and detailed list!
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 31 Jul 2020, 08:03
by Disquisitive
For a great cultural book, I recommend the crime fiction novel Second Sister by Chan Ho-Kei, translated into English by Jeremy Tiang. It's set in Hong Kong, and I found the cultural background fascinating. The book is about a young woman whose younger sister dies. Her death looks like suicide - but is it?
The book vividly depicts everyday life in Hong Kong, which I found very interesting. The exciting plot also made it very memorable detective novel.
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 19 Sep 2020, 03:56
by Bigwig1973
Lines and Shadows by Joseph Wambaugh. It's about border patrol in Mexico and California
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Teens
House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It's about Siberian prisoners a long time ago
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It's about an African/white woman and how she tries to fit into the world
Indian Lawyer by James Welch. Similar theme to Their Eyes Were Watching God but Native American and Caucasian
Germinal by Zola. It's a book about miners and the conditions they endured
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli It's about rules for royalty. In my personal opinion, it's how to make a small Italian fellow write a book to please what one might assume is probably a kings mistress to help her cope with her inability to decide whether or not Dostoevky's "extraordinary man" and Nietzsche's "superman" are going to win. Like Disney's stuffed animal "Stitch" from "Lilo and Stitch" waiting to have the button pushed so he can declare, "I cannot, I have nothing to wear". Regardless, it's still a good book and well-written, and not very long
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 26 Oct 2020, 08:09
by gab_variable
Hi, Anoushka! Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a great multigenerational take on Korean culture around the time of the Japanese occupation.
Re: Anyone who can recommend a good cultural book?
Posted: 12 Nov 2020, 14:50
by Eriny Youssef
My name is Red.
The God of Small Things.
Children of the Jacaranda Tree.