Diversity is very important to me, and so for today’s Top Ten topic, I’d like to post far more than ten wonderful books that highlight different kinds of diversity, for readers looking to branch out of their typical reading. Included below are not only many kinds of diversity (race, gender, sexuality, religion, income level, mental health, size, etc) but different kinds of books (nonfiction, fiction, YA, adult, etc). In no particular order:
- The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
- Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
- Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
- The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Jennifer Steil
- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- Firstborn by Lorie Ann Grover
- Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
- Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg
- Elena Vanishing by Elena and Clare Dunkle
- Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
- Sold by Patricia McCormick
- If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous
- The Untelling by Tayari Jones
- Girl at War by Sara Novic
- After by Amy Efaw
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
I could go on and on. My only regret is that I’ve read so few books featuring narrators outside the binary gender structure and so few with disabled narrators. And so I echo the rallying cry: We need diverse books!
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
