Cultural/Regional

Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan

Aljaz Cosini is leading a group of tourists on a raft tour down Tasmania’s wild Franklin River when his greatest fear is realized—a tourist falls overboard. An ordinary man with many regrets, Aljaz rises to an uncharacteristic heroism, and offers his own life in trade. Trapped under a rapid and […]

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Betty, Tiffany McDaniel

“A girl comes of age against the knife.” So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence–both from outside the family, and […]

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The Veins of the Ocean, Patricia Engel

Set in the vibrant coastal and Caribbean communities of Miami, the Florida Keys, Havana, Cuba, and Cartagena, Colombia, with The Veins of the Ocean Patricia Engel delivers a profound and riveting Pan-American story of fractured lives finding solace and redemption in the beauty and power of the natural world, and […]

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The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones

This book follows four childhood friends ten years after an elk hunt gone wrong. Some of them leave the rez, while others stay, and the spirit of Elk Head Woman is seeking revenge against them all. The book has blood and gore, thrilling chase scenes and suspenseful psychological horror. But […]

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Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger

Little Badger’s debut novel, “Elatsoe”… is a young adult fantasy about a 17-year-old Lipan Apache girl who can awaken the ghosts of dead animals and sets out to solve her cousin’s murder. –New York Times Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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Crooked Hallelujah, Kelli Jo Ford

Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine–a mixed-blood Cherokee woman– and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma’s Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn’t easy, and Reney feels […]

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Dr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest, Rebel Girls

From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist from Kenya. Wangari lives in a magical place in rural Kenya where the soil is rich for planting, the trees abundant, and the […]

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Animal’s People, Indra Sinha

Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People looks at the Bhopal gas explosion in India – one of the most horrific environmental disasters of the 20th-century. A poisonous gas leak from a US-owned pesticide plant killed several thousand people and injured more than half a million. –The Independent Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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Forbidden Fruit, Stanley Gazemba

The idea for Forbidden Fruit came to me in the expansive garden of an old colonial bungalow in Nairobi’s Lavington Estate, where I was then working as a gardener. Although the book was first published in Kenya in 2002 as The Stone Hills of Maragoli, it reverted to its working […]

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The Octopus and I, Erin Hortle

A stunning debut novel set on the Tasmanian coast that lays bare the wild, beating heart at the intersection of human and animal, love and loss, and fear and hope. Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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The Seed Thief, Jacqui L’Ange

Jacqui L’Ange’s debut novel, The Seed Thief, will be made into a film. According to The Reading List, rights to the novel have been bought by indie producer Rodrigo Chiaro for an “international co-production, with links to Brazil, Panama, Europe, Singapore, as well as South Africa.” –Brittle Paper Sometimes the thing you […]

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The Deep Blue Between, Ayesha Harruna Attah

Twin sisters Hassana and Husseina’s home is in ruins after a brutal raid. But this is not the end but the beginning of their story, one that will take them to unfamiliar cities and cultures, where they will forge new families, ward off dangers and truly begin to know themselves. […]

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Blaze Island, Catherine Bush

Climate change is both an external and internal phenomenon in Catherine Bush’s brilliant new novel, Blaze Island. Set on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, its cast of characters includes a renegade climate scientist and his young daughter Miranda. They are self-made castaways who can’t get far enough away […]

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Seasonal Series, Ali Smith

Echoing Keats’s famous ode, the book is punctuated by placid country scenes of grain being harvested, birds flying south, days growing shorter and nights longer and colder. So familiar is this picture of autumnal transformation that readers are easily lulled into a false sense of comfort. But it slowly becomes […]

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Limbo: A Novel about Jamaica, Esther Figueroa

Flora Smith, Jamaican scientist and head of tiny NGO Environment Now, dedicates her life to getting Jamaicans to care about the natural environment. At the opening of Limbo, Flora is confronted by the nagging reality of not having enough money to keep her organization afloat. When sand is stolen from […]

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