What wonderful suggestions you have all given!  I won’t be publishing lists every day, but especially because we are celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States today, diversity in literature seems especially important.

The books, stories and poems recommended by the readers here run the gamut from Black, Native American, Caribbean, Latino, Asian, White, male and female writers, and are fiction and memoirs about cultural, mental health, religion and gender issues.  And the stories are wondrous, funny, romantic, mysterious……you name it.  All worth giving a try.

This list is in no particular order.

1. Sky Burial by Xue Xinran
2. Haruki Murakami – Japanese author
3. Khalad Hosseni – Khaled Hosseini, Afghan born American novelist and physician
4. Eating Bull by Carrie Rubin
5. A Girl Name Zippy by Haven Kimmel
6. Langston Hughes
7. Erica Spindler
8. Leonard Pitts Jr.
9. Sherman Alexie – a Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Indigenous American author

Okay, here is the last one.  The description left in the comment section of my article An Embarrassing Personal Admission was so great, that I’m writing the whole thing here. Almost Iowa wrote “My favorite novel from You-Can’t-Get-Anymore-Diverse-Than-This department is The Suffrage of Elvira by V.S. Naipal. It is an older book, written in 1957, but the blend of Hindi-Muslim-African-Carib-Spanish culture yields a spicy stew of humor.”

I have only read a few of these books/authors.  They are here because they are recommended.  They are not necessarily appropriate for students, so use your discretion if you are looking for books for high school students.

Happy reading, and thank you all for giving the rest of us ideas for interesting literature from such a large range of authors and genres.  Please continue to recommend and to read some of the books listed here.

I value your opinion.