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Handpicked by Dorothy October 2017 |
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The only thing I like better than reading is recommending books to others for them to read! I enjoy most any type of book, but usually am drawn to crime procedurals, narrative nonfiction (especially about history), mysteries with a humorous bent, books set in Chicago or written by Chicago authors and memoirs. Come in and let's talk about books!
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Immigration stories: Take a walk in their shoes |
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The far away brothers : two young migrants and the making of an American life
by Lauren Markham
An urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration follows the harrowing journey of a pair of teenaged twins from El Salvador who were forced by gang violence to see safety and a better life in the United States, an endeavor marked by family estrangement, a mounting coyote debt and America's complicated immigration policies.
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The devil's highway : a true story
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Describes the harrowing May 2001 attempt of twenty-six men to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, a region know as the Devil's Highway, detailing their harrowing ordeal and battle for survival against impossible odds on a trek that cost fourteen lives.
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Angela's ashes : a memoir
by Frank McCourt
The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.
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Yes, chef : a memoir
by Marcus Samuelsson
The Top Chef: Masters winner and James Beard Award-winning proprietor of Harlem's Red Rooster traces his Ethiopian birth, upbringing by an adoptive family in Sweden and rise to a famous New York chef, sharing personal insights into his challenges as a black man in a deeply prejudiced industry.
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The newlyweds : a novel
by Nell Freudenberger
Leaving her Bangladesh home to marry a New Yorker who wooed her online, Amina finds the marriage challenged by secrets and her struggles to find a place for herself in America.
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The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughter's memories and feelings
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Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, where they face the toughest decisions of their lives.
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Into the beautiful North : a novel
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Working in a Mexican taco shop while dreaming of the father who left their family to work in the United States, nineteen-year-old Nayeli struggles with a realization that most of the men in her village have left to pursue work in the north, a situation for which she endeavors to recruit seven men to repopulate her hometown and protect it from bandidos. .
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My Ántonia
by Willa Cather
A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl.
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What is the what : the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng : a novel
by Dave Eggers
A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award traces the story of two child Sudanese civil war refugees and their witness to the devastation that has torn their homeland, a time during which one struggles to understand what is happening and the other joins the rebel army.
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