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
"An unflinching look at the immigrant experience, an unlikely and unique friendship, and a resonant story of female empowerment."--Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman with the Blue Star Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: "Give...
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 : a novel
Tyler, Anne.
Paper Book
In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after Thirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.” Two families, who would otherwise...
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 : a novel
T©đib©Ưn, Colm
Paper Book
From the award-winning author of The Master, a hauntingly compelling novel--by far Tóibín's most accessible book--set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s about a young woman torn between her family in Ireland and the american who wins her heart. Eilis Lacey has come...
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
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the author of The Covenant of Water: A beautifully written, page-turning family saga of Ethiopia and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. * "Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters.... Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist."...
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 A beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition of 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 Nolan needed to be made of stern...
Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet : a novel
Ford, Jamie.
Paper Book
"Sentimental, heartfelt....the exploration of Henry's changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A timely debut that not only reminds readers of a shameful episode in American history, but cautions us to examine the present and take heed we don't...
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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