Popular North American Cultural Books
Find cultural books written by authors from North America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (48)
31.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison EN
Country: North America / 
United States of America
United States of America
Description:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace. In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its... continue
32.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Arthur Miller's depiction of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumour, The Crucible is a powerful indictment of McCarthyism and the 'frontier mentality' of Cold War America, published in Penguin Modern Classics. Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history' - and the American anti-communist purges led by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating... continue
33.
The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat EN
Country: North America / 
Haiti
Haiti
Description:
We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”--or torturer--s an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes wit... continue
34.
The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy EN
Country: North America / 
Barbados
Barbados
Description:
'Inventive, excellent ... a pure pleasure to read' THE TIMES In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados. In this compelling debut, an unknowable legacy passes through generations of one family living on the beautiful island of Barbados. There is Iapetus, a lonely soul haunted by the memory of his father; his son Atlas, dreaming of a life far removed from his reality; Atlas's daughter Calypso, struggling to find her place in an unforgiving society; and her son Nautilus, grappling with various parts of a comp... continue
35.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline EN
Country: North America / 
Canada
Canada
Description:
In this futuristic dystopian novel for teens, the Indigenous people of North America are on the run in a fight for survival.
36.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” One of Steinbeck’s most taught works, The Pearl is the story of the Mexican diver Kino, whose discovery of a magnificent pearl from the Gulf beds means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife Juana cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. This classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck examines the fallacy of the American dream, and illustrates the fall from innocence e... continue
37.
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
When the janitor teaches Beth Harmon how to play chess, she discovers a way to escape every day life in the orphanage. It soon becomes clear that she has talent as she goes on to play in championships.
38.
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
"Compelling . . . The Seed Keeper invokes the strength that women, land, and plants have shared with one another through the generations." --ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
39.
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
In this powerful and timely novel, National Book Award winning author Louise Erdrich explores how the burdens of history, and especially identity, appropriation, exploitation, and violence done to human beings in the name of justice, manifest in ordinary lives today. Revolving around a small independent bookstore in contemporary Minneapolis, The Sentence follows a turbulent year in the life of a strong though vulnerable Ojibwe woman named Tookie. After serving part of an outrageously long sentence, Tookie, who "learned to read with murderous attention" while in prison, naturally gravitates tow... continue
40.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin. The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest no... continue