Read Around North America Challenge

Read at least one book by an author from each country in North America.

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Best books from North America (708)
621.

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
2000: Bright, ambitious fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017: Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa. Now Vanessa finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? -- adapted from jacke... continue

622.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi EN

0 Ratings
Description:
Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after - and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past. But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom soon finds himself unable to resist. For within the crumbling manor&#... continue

623.

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So EN

0 Ratings
Description:
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK WINNER OF THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LGBTQ FICTION Named a Best Book of the Year by: New York Times * NPR * Washington Post * LA Times * Kirkus Reviews * New York Public Library * Chicago Public Library * Harper’s Bazaar * TIME * Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air * Boston Globe* The Atlantic A vibrant story collection about Cambodian-American life—immersive and comic, yet unsparing—that offers profound insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities Seamlessly transitio... continue

624.

The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem EN

0 Ratings
Description:
In a world of forbidden magic and cunning royals, a fugitive queen bargains with her kingdom's greatest enemy and is soon embroiled in a deadly game that could resurrect her scorched kingdom, or leave it in ashes forever. A stunning enemies-to-lovers fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Fourth Wing and The Jasmine Throne. At ten years old, the Heir of Jasad flees a massacre that takes her entire family. At fifteen, she buries her first body. At twenty, the clock is ticking on Sylvia's third attempt at home. Nizahl's armies have laid waste to Jasad and banned magic across the four remaining kingd... continue

625.

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
"Sisters Matilde, Pastora, Camila, and Flor thought they knew each other well, until Flor-inspired by a documentary her daughter Ona made her watch-decides she wants a living wake, a party to bring her family and community together and celebrate the long life she's led, while she's still around to enjoy it. She's not ill, as far as anybody knows, but Flor does have a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. Has she foreseen her own death, or someone else's, or does she have other motives? She refuses to say. But Flor isn't the only person with secrets. Matilde has tried for de... continue

626.
Absolution

Absolution : A Novel by Alice McDermott EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
A riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War, from the renowned winner of the National Book Award. You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives. American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to... continue

627.

America the Beautiful? : One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled by Blythe Roberson EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
The author of How to Date Men When You Hate Men examines Americans' obsession with freedom, travel, and the open road in this funny, entertaining travelogue that blends the humorous observations of Bill Bryson with the piercing cultural commentary of Jia Tolentino. For writer and comedian Blythe Roberson, there are only so many Mary Oliver poems you can read about being free, and only so many times you can listen to Joni Mitchell's travel album Hejira, before you too, are itching to take off. Canonical American travel writers have long celebrated the road trip as the epitome of freedom. But wh... continue

628.

Brave the Wild River : The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Sevigny EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
The riveting tale of two pioneering botanists and their historic boat trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition he... continue

629.

Mobility by Lydia Kiesling EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
A propulsive novel about class, power, politics, and desire by the celebrated author of The Golden State. The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's eyes we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Azerbaijan to America--as the e... continue

630.

Stay True : A Memoir by Hua Hsu EN

0 Ratings
Description:
From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art. “This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come.” —Rachel Kushner, two-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family... continue