Read Around North America Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in North America.
Best books from North America (1215)
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Simone's Place by Glenville Lovell EN
Country: North America / 
Barbados
Barbados
Description:
The play is a story of love, acceptance and the need for connection and belonging. Though it focuses on issues of gender identity, the question of class is ever present. The central character is the transgender owner of the club/bar Simone's Place where she performs Nina Simone jazz standards as Lady Simone. Simone has become advisor/healer to many of the broken souls who drink and hang around the bar; at the same time she is most in need of love and healing herself. The central figure's paradox binds and balances the play as each character struggles with the dilemma of trying to be free in an... continue
43.
River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer EN
Country: North America / Barbados
Barbados
Description:
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a “celebration of motherhood and female resilience” (The Observer). “A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined”—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Real Simple, Goodreads, AARP, Boston.com, BookBub and BookRiot Her search begins with an ending.… The master of the Providence plantation ... continue
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In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming EN
Country: North America / Barbados
Barbados
Description:
In a sleepy fishing village in 1930s Barbados, nine-year-old G. leads a life of quiet mischief. While the village lies tranquil in the shadow of its English landlord, Mr Creighton, and his towering house on the hill, G. makes his own fun, crab catching, teasing preachers, and playing among the pumpkin vines. Yet from this world of boyish pursuits, the precocious G. finds himself slowly awakening to strange goings-on in adult society. All around him, sudden bursts of violence - a devastating flood on the morning of his birthday; the headmaster unduly flogging his schoolmates on Empire day - hin... continue
46.
Tropic Death by Eric Walrond EN
Country: North America / Barbados
Barbados
Description:
Finally available after three decades, a lost classic of the Harlem Renaissance that Langston Hughes acclaimed for its “hard poetic beauty.” Eric Walrond (1898–1966), in his only book, injected a profound Caribbean sensibility into black literature. His work was closest to that of Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston with its striking use of dialect and its insights into the daily lives of the people around him. Growing up in British Guiana, Barbados, and Panama, Walrond first published Tropic Death to great acclaim in 1926. This book of stories viscerally charts the days of men working stone qu... continue
47.
The Burning Bush Women & Other Stories by Cherie Jones EN
Country: North America / Barbados
Barbados
Description:
In these truthful and strange, funny and tragic stories set in Barbados and the USA, Cherie Jones weaves paths through the joys and suffering of women's lives - from breast cancer, madness and abortion to love, magic and a deep connectedness between women.
48.
The Question by Austin Clarke EN
Country: North America / Barbados
Barbados
Description:
By the Giller Prize-winning author of "The Polished Hoe A finalist for the Governor General's Award When a man and a woman meet on a summer day, they begin a conversation that will change both their lives. As their words weave a web of intimacy, the man finds himself drawn into recollections of his childhood on an island in the Caribbean, and to reflections on his life in Toronto. But who is she, this woman he meets at a party? What is behind her dark secrets? What can anyone know about another - really? As their relationship hurtles forward, he gradually finds himself part of a strange triang... continue
49.
Country: North America / 
Belize
Belize
Description:
Subtle yet rich descriptions of culture, society, and family life in Belize adorn Zee Edgell’s beautifully narrated story of a short time in the life of 14-year-old Beka Lamb. Through flashbacks, points on politics and independence are animated, since the political struggles for independence in Belize reflect Beka’s own developing maturity and need to assert herself. Two main features of this heartwarming story are Beka’s penchant for lying and her relationship with her older friend Troycie, whose troubling choices lead her down a self-destructive path. The pride of winning an essay contest at... continue
50.
On Heroes, Lizards and Passion : Seven Belizean Short Stories by Zoila Ellis EN
Country: North America / Belize
Belize
Description:
"Seven short stories vividly depicting different facets of Belize's reality. From the country's rural areas to New York City, we accompany Belizean women and men as they go through the joys and hardships of life. Zoila Ellis demonstrates a definite ability to perceive and reproduce situations and characters, heightening the emotional impact of everyday events and rendering them into fine literature"--Page 4 of cover