A Book about the Immigrant Experience

A selection of books that fulfill the UBN2024 category of a book about the immigrant experience.

Updated January 24, 2024
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The next ship home : a novel of Ellis Island
Webb, Heather
Paper Book
"With meticulous research and deft prose, Heather Webb crafts an unflinching look at the immigrant experience, an unlikely and unique friendship, and a resonant story of female empowerment. The Next Ship Home is truly a beautiful and powerful book."--Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author...
The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
Wilkerson, Isabel.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY   "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...
Digging to America
Tyler, Anne.
Paper Book
Anne Tyler’s richest, most deeply searching novel–a story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.” Two families, who would otherwise never...
The refugees
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer was one of the most widely and highly praised novels of 2015, the winner not only of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the Center for Fiction Debut Novel Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, the ALA Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Asian...
FIRST KENNEDYS
THOMPSON, NEAL
Paper Book
"Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. . .Compelling and illuminating."--Jon Meacham Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped...
The reluctant fundamentalist
Hamid, Mohsin
Paper Book
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . . Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he...
The namesake
Lahiri, Jhumpa.
Paper Book
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it...
Girl in translation
Kwok, Jean.
Paper Book
Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, an inspiring debut about an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life:...
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao
D©?az, Junot
Paper Book
Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the...
Brooklyn
Toibin, Colm
Ebook
Colm Tóibín's New York Times bestselling novel--also an acclaimed film starring Saoirse Ronan and Jim Broadbent nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture--is "a moving, deeply satisfying read" (Entertainment Weekly) about a young Irish immigrant in Brooklyn in the...
American dirt
Cummins, Jeanine
Paper Book
Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt, the #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah Book Club pick that has sold over three million copies Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks...
My Antonia
Cather, Willa
Paper Book
Of Ántonia, the passionate and majestic central character in Willa Cather's greatest novel, the narrator, Jim Burden, says that she left "images in the mind that did not fade-that grew stronger with time." The same is true of the book in which Cather enshrines her heroine. On...
Cutting for stone : a novel
Verghese, A.
Paper Book
A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel--an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis...
CRYING IN H MART
ZAUNER, MICHELLE
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American--"in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself" (NPR). * CELEBRATING...
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Betty
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century. From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude,...
Book club [kit] : [for Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet : a novel]
Ford, Jamie.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut that explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle era during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love."--Lisa...
We are not from here
Torres Sanchez, Jenny
Paper Book
A poignant novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border, inspired by current events. A Pura Belpré 2021 Young Adult Author Honor Book! A BookPage Best Book of 2020! A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of 2020! A...
Americanah
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America--and the search for what it means to call a place home. * From the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow...

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