Books like 'A Mind Spread Out on the Ground'
Readers who enjoyed A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical psychological social-commentary indigenous-mc poc-mc politics colonization poverty family journey
-
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAt the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage... -
![Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh by James Alexander Thom]()
Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh by James Alexander Thom
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsRich, colorful and bursting with excitement, this remarkable story turns James Alexander Thom's power and passion for American history to the epic story of Tecumseh's life and give us a heart-thumping novel of one man's magnificent destiny--to unite his people in the struggle to save their land and their way of life from the relentless press of the white settlers... -
![Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSugar Street is the third and concluding volume of the celebrated Cairo Trilogy, which brings the story of Al-Sayid Ahmad and his family up to the middle of the twentieth century.Aging and ill, the family patriarch surveys the world from his housewares's latticed balcony, as his long-suffering wife once did... -
![The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi]()
The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn the spirit of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi and Shilpi Somaya Gowda comes this powerful debut from a talented new voice—a sweeping, emotional journey of two childhood friends in Mumbai, India, whose lives converge only to change forever one fateful night...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family journey poc-mc social-commentary abuse action-adventure audiobook -
-
![Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis is a sweeping and evocative portrait of both a family and a country struggling to move toward independence in a society that has resisted change for centuries. Set against the backdrop of Britain's occupation of Egypt immediately after World War I, Palace Walk introduces us to the Al Jawad family... -
![A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi]()
A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn her twelfth year, Kirabo, a young Ugandan girl, confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small village of Nattetta—her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts, but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family indigenous-mc journey poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker]()
Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPossessing the Secret of Joy is the story of Tashi, a tribal African woman who lives much of her adult life in North America. As a young woman, a misguided loyalty to the customs of her people led her to voluntarily submit to the tsunga's knife and be genitally mutilated (pharoanoically circumcised)... -
![The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar]()
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsSet in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years... -
![In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier, Michaela Washburn]()
In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier, Michaela Washburn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTwo young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind... -
![The Spider's House by Paul Bowles, Francine Prose]()
The Spider's House by Paul Bowles, Francine Prose
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in Fez, Morocco, during that country's 1954 nationalist uprising, The Spider's House is perhaps Paul Bowles's most beautifully subtle novel, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations... -
![Splendor in the Grass by adapted from the screenplay by William Inge F. Andrew Leslie, William Inge]()
Splendor in the Grass by adapted from the screenplay by William Inge F. Andrew Leslie, William Inge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsF. Andrew Leslie, adapted from the screenplay by William Inge, Inge, William, Leslie, F...Categorized as:
family coming-of-age social-commentary romance classics fiction drama literary-fiction -
![The Widow's War by Sally Cabot Gunning]()
The Widow's War by Sally Cabot Gunning
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMarried for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts—running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed... -
![How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić]()
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor young Aleksandar - the best magician in the non-aligned states and painter of unfinished things - life is endowed with a mythic quality in the Bosnian town of Višegrad, a rich playground for his imagination. When his grandfather dies, Aleks channels his storytelling talent to help with his grief... -
![A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa]()
A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the country goes through various political upheavals from colony to socialist republic to civil war to peace and capitalism, the world outside seeps into Ludo's life through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of someone peeing on a balcony, or a man fleeing his pursuers...Categorized as:
colonization journey poc-mc politics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult -
-
![Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o]()
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya...Categorized as:
colonization coming-of-age journey poc-mc politics 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi]()
The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTranslated by Darryl SterkOn a quest to explain how and why his father mysteriously disappeared twenty years ago, a writer embarks on an epic journey in search of a stolen bicycle and soon finds himself immersed in the strangely overlapping histories of the Japanese military during World War II, Lin Wang, the oldest elephant who ever lived, and the secret world of antique bicycle collectors in... -
![The Princess by Wendy Holden]()
The Princess by Wendy Holden
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPrincess Diana was the most famous woman in the world, celebrated across the globe for her poise and glamour. But before stepping out of the royal carriage at St. Paul's Cathedral she spent nineteen years as the shy, awkward Lady Diana Spencer...Categorized as:
politics family coming-of-age historical-fiction fiction historical audiobook womens-fiction -
![A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe]()
A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn evocative historical novel set in 1930's Indochine, about the American wife of a Michelin heir who journeys to the French colony in the name of family fortune, and the glamorous, tumultuous world she finds herself in—and the truth she may be running from.On a humid afternoon in 1933, American Jessie Lesage steps off a boat from Paris and onto the shores of Vietnam... -
![Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela]()
Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens the legacy they've built for decades... -
![The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa]()
The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the Japanese military invades 1930s Manchuria, a young girl approaches her own sexual coming of age. Drawn into a complex triangle with two boys, she distracts herself from the onslaught of adulthood by playing the game of go with strangers in a public square--and yet the force of desire, like the occupation, proves inevitable...Categorized as:
coming-of-age journey poc-mc politics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure book -
![The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair]()
The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret... -
![The Simple Past by Driss Chraïbi]()
The Simple Past by Driss Chraïbi
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Simple Past came out in 1954, and both in France and its author’s native Morocco the book caused an explosion of fury... -
![The Crazed by Ha Jin]()
The Crazed by Ha Jin
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsProfessor Yang, a respected teacher of literature, has had a stroke and it falls to Jian Wan - who is also engaged to Yang's daughter - to care for him. It initially seems a simple duty until the professor begins to rave, pleading with invisible tormentors and denouncing his family.. -
![Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates]()
Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
Rated: 3.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFifteen years ago, in 1975, Genna Hewett-Meade's college roommate died a mysterious, violent, terrible death. Minette Swift had been a fiercely individualistic scholarship student, an assertive—even prickly—personality, and one of the few black girls at an exclusive women's liberal arts college near Philadelphia... -
-
![The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee]()
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA powerful new exploration about the self-destructive bargain of white supremacy and its rising cost to all of us--including white people--from one of today's most insightful and influential thinkers.Heather C. McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public...Categorized as:
poc-mc politics poverty social-commentary 21st-century audiobook contemporary female-author -
![Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi]()
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Rated: 4.53 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIn this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti–Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and anti-racists...Categorized as:
colonization poc-mc politics social-commentary 20th-century 21st-century audiobook civil-war -
![Warmth of Other Suns, The: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles]()
Warmth of Other Suns, The: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America... -
![In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers]()
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsYeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape. Park’s family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal, practically medieval... -
![Warmth of Other Suns, The: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles]()
Warmth of Other Suns, The: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America... -
![Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr.]()
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr.
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA collection of sermons by this martyred Black American leader which explains his convictions in terms of the conditions and problems of contemporary society...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
