Great Books You’ll Want To Add to Your Reading List

Discover 5 must-read fiction books that expand our minds by deepening our understanding and connection to the history and humanity of the world around us.

Reading a wide variety of books opens us up to understanding the diverse world we live in, especially when we read from different perspectives, cultures, and experiences. We open ourselves up to knowledge that helps foster empathy and a deeper appreciation for the complexities of human existence. Reading is like a portal into someone else’s life, where we can connect with them and learn from them.

The following book reviews and recommendations offer some seriously good reads. They all contain a common theme of exploring and sharing the impacts of real historical events. Although fictionalised, these stories serve as powerful conduits for understanding the genuine and authentic struggles, trauma, joys, and triumphs of people living through slavery, the Holocaust, and wars such as World War II and Vietnam. Additionally, one of them sheds light on the enduring modern-day effects of colonisation on Indigenous communities in the United States. By delving into these narratives, we not only enrich our knowledge of history but also expand our capacity for compassion towards others’ experiences.

5 Must-Read Books That Share Important Personal Stories

If you immerse yourself in any one of these valuable and affecting books, I hope you become intrigued by the backdrop against which the various narratives unfold. These stories serve as gateways to further research into their historical context, the lives of the characters or people like them, and the societal issues they grapple with. Let them become a catalyst for your own self-directed learning, a way to tap into lifelong intellectual curiosity and awareness.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. | George Santayana

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Genre: Historical Fiction, War Story

Published: St. Martin’s Press, 2024

My Rating: 4.5/5

From the Blurb: Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets―and becomes one of―the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

Quote of Note: “The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.”

Why It’s A Top Pick: This book has a compelling narrative of friendship, resilience, and the complexities of womanhood. It intricately explores the bonds between women amidst adversity, offering profound insights into love, sacrifice, and the strength of the human spirit.

Let Us Descend by Jasmyn Ward

Genre: Historical Fiction, Magical Realism

Published: Scribner, 2023

My Rating: 4/5

From the Blurb: […] a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

Quote of Note: “The Georgia men are separating those to be sold. They have come for their goods to march to New Orleans. There is a sinking at the heart of me, a whirlpool sucking down and down. Surely the earth is opening to us. Surely this terrible world is swallowing me.”

Why It’s A Top Pick: Its lyrical prose and haunting exploration of family, race, and the legacy of American slavery in the South offer rich characterizations and vivid storytelling. Themes of identity and inheritance are crafted through a poignant and unforgettable narrative that will resonate deeply with readers.

There There by Tommy Orange

Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary

Published: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018 (this edition: Vintage, 2019)

My Rating: 4/5

From the Blurb: Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time.

Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Quote of Note: “We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.”

Why It’s A Top Pick: This raw portrayal of urban Native American life weaves together a mosaic of voices that echo with authenticity and urgency. Through confronting issues of identity, community, and intergenerational trauma, a powerful and essential perspective on contemporary Native American experiences is explored.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Genre: Historical Fiction, Holocaust

Published: Bonnier Publishing Australia, 2017 (this edition: Harper Collins, 2024)

My Rating: 4.5/5

From the Blurb: In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

Quote of Note: “[…] you will honor them by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here.”

Why It’s A Top Pick: A gripping account of survival, love, and humanity amidst the horrors of the Holocaust. Based on a true story, this important, heart-wrenching narrative captures the endurance of the human spirit and the strength hope brings in the face of unimaginable darkness.

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Genre: Historical Fiction, WWII

Published: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002 (this edition: Anchor Books, 2003)

My Rating: 4/5

From the Blurb: On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family’s possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty incarceration camp in the Utah desert.

In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today’s headlines.

Quote of Note: “We would join their clubs, after school, if they let us. We would listen to their music. We would dress just like they did. We would change our names to sound more like theirs. And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!”

Why It’s A Top Pick: Through spare yet powerful prose, this portrayal of the U.S. policy of Japanese-American internment during World War II beautifully covers themes of loss, identity, and perseverance, offering a tender but unforgettable glimpse into another dark chapter of American history.

In Summary

Exploring books that delve into the impacts of historical events offers a profound journey into understanding various human experiences across time. They can transport and transform us as we learn about the effects of significant historical occurrences on individuals and societies. Being moved by stories such as those shared here is how we nurture our own humanity and the connections we make to the humanity of others. 

Have you read any of these books; if so, what did you think of them? Are you going to add any of these titles to your TBR list?

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Further Info:

Report: Last Year Ended With a Surge in Book Bans – NPR

Our Most Anticipated Books June 2024 – Barnes & Noble