Almost a Woman


Esmeralda Santiago - 1998
    At thirteen, Negi yearns for her own bed, privacy, and a life with her father, who remains in Puerto Rico. Translating for Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York's prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she yearns to find balance between being American and being Puerto Rican. When Negi defies her mother by going on a series of hilarious dates, she finds that independence brings its own set of challenges.At once a universally poignant coming-of-age tale and a brave and heartfelt immigrant's story, Almost a Woman is Santiago's triumphant journey into womanhood.  "A universal tale familiar to thousands of immigrants to this country, but made special by Santiago's simplicity and honesty." --The Miami Herald"A courageous memoir. . . . One witnesses. . .the blessings, contradictions and restraints of Puerto Rican culture." --The Washington Post Book World

The Butcher


Nathan Burrows
    She was wrong. The first time Norwich’s most hapless food inspector, Emily Underwood meets butcher Frank Pinch, he’s not got much at all in his display counters. But what he does have is a rather unusual plan to restock his shelves. The next time they bump into each other, he’s won an award for his sausages but is running out of meat.Can Frank keep up production of his unusually tasty sausages? Will Emily discover the source of Frank’s award wining meat? And what will happen the next time she tries to inspect his butchers shop? Book 1 in the Rub-a-Dub trilogy, this deliciously British dark comedy will change the way you look at sausages forever.

Americanah: A Novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Conversation Starters


Daily Books - 2016
    It also shows some insight into the problems of immigrants and racial issues in the United Kingdom through the eyes of Ifemelu’s first boyfriend, Obinze. The book also deals with the economic problems in Nigeria due to corruption and the lack of will of the government and the wealthy people to bring about change. Ifemelu is a Nigerian girl who gets tired of the constant strikes in her university and goes abroad to complete her education. Her experiences in both Nigeria and the United States form the basis of the book.   A Brief Look Inside: EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER than the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive, and the characters and its world still live on. Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to.. Create Hours of Conversation: • Foster a deeper understanding of the book • Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups • Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately • Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before Disclaimer: This book you are about to enjoy is an independent resource to supplement the original book, enhancing your experience. If you have not yet purchased a copy of the original book, please do before purchasing this unofficial Conversation Starters. Download your copy today for a Limited Time Discount: $3.99 ($4.99) Read it on your PC, Mac, iOS or Android smartphone, tablet and Kindle devices.

Dominicana


Angie Cruz - 2019
    But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.

The Tattooed Soldier


Héctor Tobar - 1998
    Antonio Bernal is a Guatemalan refugee haunted by memories of his wife and child murdered at the hands of a man marked with a yellow tattoo. Not far from Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria extends his arm and reveals a tattoo--yellow pelt, black spots, red mouth. It is the mark of the death squad, the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army. A chance encounter ignites a psychological showdown between these two men who discover that the war in Central America has followed them to the quemazones, the "great burning" of the Los Angeles riots.

The Book of Unknown Americans


Cristina Henríquez - 2014
    But upon settling at Redwood Apartments, a two-story cinderblock complex just off a highway in Delaware, they discover that Maribel's recovery--the piece of the American Dream on which they've pinned all their hopes--will not be easy. Every task seems to confront them with language, racial, and cultural obstacles.At Redwood also lives Mayor Toro, a high school sophomore whose family arrived from Panamá fifteen years ago. Mayor sees in Maribel something others do not: that beyond her lovely face, and beneath the damage she's sustained, is a gentle, funny, and wise spirit. But as the two grow closer, violence casts a shadow over all their futures in America.Peopled with deeply sympathetic characters, this poignant yet unsentimental tale of young love tells a riveting story of unflinching honesty and humanity that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be an American. An instant classic is born.

Dumb Money


Daniel Gross - 2009
    Companies are shutting down and laying off workers, 401ks are melting away, and the government is spending $700 billion dollars to bail out banks and financial institutions -- and that's only the beginning. The financial services industry, and the many industries that depend on it -- from housing to cars -- is in intensive care. So what happened? How did we get to this point of financial disaster? Is the economy just a huge, Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme? It is a complicated and confusing story -- but Daniel Gross of Newsweek has a special gift for making complicated matters easy to understand and even entertaining. In Dumb Money, he offers a guide to the debacle and to what the future may hold. This is not so much a book about who did what, though that's part of the story. Rather, it pieces together the building blocks of the debt-fueled economy, and distills the theory and personalities behind our late, lamented easy money culture. Dumb Money is a book that finally lays it all out in an engaging way, and might just help people invest their money smartly until the gloom passes.

Orangutan: A Memoir


Colin Broderick - 2009
    Fewer still have emerged from the darkest depths of alcoholism—from the perpetual fistfights and muggings, car crashes and blackouts—to tell the harrowing truth about the modern Irish immigrant experience.Orangutan is the story of a generation of young men and women in search of identity in a foreign land, both in love with and at odds with the country they've made their home. So much more than just another memoir about battling addiction, Orangutan is an odyssey across the unforgiving terrain of 1980s, '90s, and post-9/11 America.Whether he is languishing in the boozy squalor of the Bronx, coke-fueled and manic in the streets of Manhattan, chasing Hunter S. Thompson's American Dream from San Francisco to the desert, or turning the South into his beer-soaked playground, Broderick plainly and unflinchingly charts what it means to be Irish in America, and how the grips of heritage can destroy a man's soul. But brutal though Orangutan may be, it is ultimately a story of hope and redemption—it is the story of an Irish drunk unlike any you've met before.

Charlotte Marshall Mysteries Box Set


Becky Johnson - 2015
    Your chance to own the books readers call thrilling and engrossing. Run A decades old mystery and a deadly game of cat and mouse will change Charlotte Marshall forever. Charlotte has a good life: friends, family, a successful career. Her perfect life is destroyed when research for a book and a connection from her past plunges her into the middle of her worst nightmare. On the run, with no one to trust, Charlotte begins to unravel the work of a sadistic murderer. Afraid and alone, she will learn the meaning of trust and just when to run. Stand Charlotte Marshall survived a nightmare. But moving forward past the trauma is a daily battle. Self-defense training, a high security home, and a trusted circle of family and friends help her improve. But fear still lives. Charlotte can’t lean on ritual and routine forever. She must stand on her own. Desperate to move on Charlotte finds hope in volunteering with FindMe, an organization dedicated to finding people who are missing and helping their families. Her first case ends up being more than she bargained for and Charlotte soon learns that a little hope can be a dangerous thing. She is strong. She is smart. But new threats come. A new danger lurks. Someone evil wants to destroy her. The FBI has no answers. A man is missing. His family deserves the truth. But Charlotte is not alone in this new quest. Her sparring partner, Skeet, is far more complicated than he appears. Together they search for a missing man and discover that death is never far away. Death haunts, the truth taunts, and answers are just out of reach. Charlotte will have to choose to stand and fight or to give in to the fear that waits for her. Redemption Charlotte Marshall’s life changed dramatically when she uncovered a serial killer and narrowly escaped alive. With Lawrence Pheares gone, relationships more validated and trusted than ever, and a new book just aching to be written, careless bliss should have been just around the corner. But when her car is bombed and her worst intuitions realized, a dangerous game of revenge begins to unravel, and for the elusive killer with dark secrets, this time its personal. With all she loves threatened and time running out, Charlotte must outwit her deadliest adversary yet before evil can destroy all she holds dear. A fast-paced, suspenseful, cat-and-mouse story with shocking twists around ever page turn, Redemption keeps the heart pounding and intrigue building for both experienced Charlotte Marshall fans and those new to the series alike.

In the Midst of Winter


Isabel Allende - 2017
    Richard Bowmaster—a 60-year-old human rights scholar—hits the car of Evelyn Ortega—a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala—in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor’s house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz—a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile—for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.Exploring the timely issues of human rights and the plight of immigrants and refugees, the book recalls Allende’s landmark novel The House of the Spirits in the way it embraces the cause of “humanity, and it does so with passion, humor, and wisdom that transcend politics” (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post). In the Midst of Winter will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

City of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands


Dan Werb - 2019
    Epidemiologist and Canadian National Magazine Award winner Dan Werb's CITY OF OMENS, a public-health true-crime narrative in which an investigation into the skyrocketing murder rates of Tijuana's women opens up a striking new lens into immigration, the drug war, human trafficking, and the US-Mexico border.

Death of a Revolutionary: Che Guevara's Last Mission


Richard L. Harris - 1970
    Harris offers a balanced look at the man behind the legend and the circumstances that created him and shaped his choices.

The Tortilla Curtain


T. Coraghessan Boyle - 1995
    Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: he a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Mexican illegals Cándido and América Rincón desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine. And from the moment a freak accident brings Cándido and Delaney into intimate contact, these four and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding.

Voyages


Cathy A. Small - 1997
    This book includes one of the sanest and most convincing arguments that I have read for experimentation in the writing of ethnography, which is supported by the text itself as an exemplar of a modest, theoretically unpretentious experiment that works very well indeed." George E. Marcus, Rice University"While a few Californians may be aware of the Tongan immigrant population in their midst, most Americans are unaware that the United States is a major terminus for the people of Tonga, an island nation in the South Pacific. Small examines Tongan migration to the United States in a 'transnational' perspective, stressing that many of the new migrant populations seem successfully to manage dual lives, in both the old country and the new. To that end, she describes life in contemporary Tongan communities and in U.S. settings." Library JournalThis book documents the momentous social phenomena of mass migration from agricultural ex-colonies and ex-protectorates to the industrial world. Cathy A. Small provides the poignant perspective of one extended family and one village in the Kingdom of Tonga, an independent island nation in the South Pacific which has lost one third of its population to migration since the mid-1960s. Moving between Tonga and California, Small chronicles the experiences of a family from the village of 'Olunga. Some members stayed and some migrated to California, in successive waves in the 1960s-1990s. Through their lives, she presents a striking picture of Tongan culture in the United States. Returning to 'Olunga with family members and their American-born children, Small shows what happened to village life and to kin relationships thirty years after migration began.