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Recommended cultural books (59)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. If you are into cultural here are some cultural books from United States of America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.

41.

The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson EN

0 Ratings
Description:
From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street comes an astonishing new novel. A lyrical exploration of love and loss, The Birds of Opulence centers on several generations of women in a bucolic southern black township as they live with and sometimes surrender to madness. The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over mental illness and illegitimacy. Meanwhile, single mother Francine Clark is haunted by her dead, lightning-struck husband and forced to fight agai... continue

42.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison EN

Rating: 5 (10 votes)
Description:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace. In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of h... continue

43.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller EN

Rating: 4 (8 votes)
Description:
Arthur Miller's depiction of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumour, The Crucible is a powerful indictment of McCarthyism and the 'frontier mentality' of Cold War America, published in Penguin Modern Classics. Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history' - and the American anti-communist purges led by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating... continue

44.

The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee by Stewart Lee Allen EN

0 Ratings
Description:
"Absolutely riveting . . . Essential reading for foodies, java-junkies, anthropologists, and anyone else interested in funny, sardonically told adventure stories." —Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential Full of humor and historical insights, The Devil’s Cup is not only ahistory of coffee, but a travelogue of a risk-taking brew-seeker. In this captivating book, Stewart Lee Allen treks three-quarters of the way around the world on a caffeinated quest to answer these profound questions: Did the advent of coffee give birth to an enlightened western civilization? Is coffee the substance ... continue

45.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton EN

0 Ratings
Description:
First published in 1905, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities. Lily Bart, beautiful, witty and sophisticated, is accepted by 'old money' and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears thirty, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her in the luxury she has come to expect. Whilst many have sought... continue

46.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
In this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These twenty-two interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, wh... continue

47.

The Midwest Survival Guide : How We Talk, Love, Work, Drink, and Eat . . . Everything with Ranch by Charlie Berens EN

0 Ratings
Description:
From comedian and journalist Charlie Berens, creator of the viral comedic series "The Manitowoc Minute"--a hilarious full-color guide to Midwestern culture. Someone once said, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," but that guy was from Brooklyn. Midwesterners say sorry at least fifty different ways. They'll even interchange it with hello...and goodbye. Speaking of goodbyes, those can last for hours in the Midwest...sometimes days if you're not prepared. That's where The Midwest Survival Guide comes in. It will keep some poor soul from missing their flight to Burbank because an epic Mi... continue

48.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck EN

Rating: 3 (7 votes)
Description:
“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” One of Steinbeck’s most taught works, The Pearl is the story of the Mexican diver Kino, whose discovery of a magnificent pearl from the Gulf beds means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife Juana cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. This classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck examines the fallacy of the American dream, and illustrates the fall from innocence e... continue

49.

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
When the janitor teaches Beth Harmon how to play chess, she discovers a way to escape every day life in the orphanage. It soon becomes clear that she has talent as she goes on to play in championships.

50.

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson EN

Rating: 4.8 (5 votes)
Description:
"Compelling . . . The Seed Keeper invokes the strength that women, land, and plants have shared with one another through the generations." --ROBIN WALL KIMMERER