Curated Reading List
8 books: stories that open a window onto other cultures.
Eight books that carry you into other homes, histories and ways of belonging, from Tehran to Kerala to Brooklyn. A note on every book, a question to carry while you read, and about 82 hours of reading in all.
Inside
A note from the concierge
Eight books that carry you into other homes, histories and ways of belonging, from Tehran to Kerala to Brooklyn.
Reading across cultures is the gentlest kind of travel. Take these slowly, and let each one change what you notice about your own world.
The Concierge
8 books
Marjan Kamali, 2022
Two girls from very different families become inseparable friends in Tehran, until a betrayal and the turmoil of a changing Iran pull them apart for decades.
Consider: What does friendship demand of the people in The Lion Women of Tehran?
Michelle Zauner, 2021
A musician and writer reconnects with her Korean heritage through food in the wake of her mother's illness and death.
Consider: How does Crying in H Mart handle loss: by facing it, avoiding it, or something in between?
Laetitia Colombani, 2017
Three women in India, Sicily and Canada, each at a breaking point in her own life, are linked in ways they cannot see by something as small as a braid of hair.
Consider: What keeps the people in The Braid going when they might stop?
Etaf Rum, 2019
Across three generations of Palestinian-American women in Brooklyn, each searches for a voice of her own within the strict expectations of family and community.
Consider: Which relationship in A Woman Is No Man would you most like to understand better?
Abraham Verghese, 2023
Across three generations in Kerala, a family shadowed by a mysterious tendency to drown finds its way toward healing through medicine, faith and love.
Consider: Which relationship in The Covenant of Water would you most like to understand better?
Min Jin Lee, 2017
Four generations of a Korean family make their lives in Japan across the twentieth century, held together by stubborn love and quiet endurance.
Consider: Which relationship in Pachinko would you most like to understand better?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2013
A young Nigerian woman builds a life in America while her first love stays behind, and years later their paths cross again in Lagos, each changed by what it costs to belong somewhere.
Consider: What does leaving, or arriving, cost the people in Americanah?
Trevor Noah, 2016
A comedian recalls growing up in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa as the son of a Black mother and a white father, at a time when their relationship was against the law.
Consider: Which relationship in Born a Crime would you most like to understand better?
Practical
Read together, these 8 books come to about 82 hours. That is a comfortable month at roughly 21 hours a week.
If you want more
Readers who love this list tend to enjoy the following. Each is chosen for how closely it shares the mood and themes of the books above.
Sayaka Murata, 2016
A Tokyo woman who has worked in the same convenience store for eighteen years faces mounting pressure to live a more conventional life. Shares literary fiction and thought-provoking with Americanah.
Arundhati Roy, 1997
In Kerala, twin children live through a single devastating season whose consequences echo across their family for decades. Shares literary fiction and melancholy with Pachinko.
Tara Westover, 2018
Raised in a survivalist household in rural Idaho, the author teaches herself enough to reach university, and pays a heavy price for the education. Shares memoir and thought-provoking with Born a Crime.
The books
Two girls from very different families become inseparable friends in Tehran, until a betrayal and the turmoil of a changing Iran pull them apart for decades.
A musician and writer reconnects with her Korean heritage through food in the wake of her mother's illness and death.
Three women in India, Sicily and Canada, each at a breaking point in her own life, are linked in ways they cannot see by something as small as a braid of hair.
Across three generations of Palestinian-American women in Brooklyn, each searches for a voice of her own within the strict expectations of family and community.
Across three generations in Kerala, a family shadowed by a mysterious tendency to drown finds its way toward healing through medicine, faith and love.
Four generations of a Korean family make their lives in Japan across the twentieth century, held together by stubborn love and quiet endurance.
A young Nigerian woman builds a life in America while her first love stays behind, and years later their paths cross again in Lagos, each changed by what it costs to belong somewhere.
A comedian recalls growing up in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa as the son of a Black mother and a white father, at a time when their relationship was against the law.