#WorldReads - five books from America

If this is your first visit to my WorldReads blog series, the idea of the posts is to encourage and promote the reading of global literature. On the 5th of each month I highlight five books I have read from a particular country and you can see links to previous countries' posts at the end of this post.

This month's country is America! June's WorldReads Russia post featured only male authors so as promised, to redress the balance and accentuate the opposites, all five books from America this month are by women.

Blue Talk And Love by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Buy from independent booksellers via Alibris
Buy the ebook from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk
Buy the ebook from Kobo
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository

Read my original book review on Stephanie Jane

This amazing collection of short stories was one of my Top Ten Books of 2015 and I absolutely love the fabulous cover art too. Fourteen tales portray lives of black women in America, primarily contemporary New York.Sullivan's grasp of character is brilliant and the women fairly leapt off the page into my imagination.

The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow

Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy the book from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk
Buy the paperback from Speedyhen
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository

Read my original book review on Literary Flits

My Book of the Month for March 2017, The Dollmaker is a powerful and thought-provoking novel exploring the experience of a family forced from rural Kentucky to the hell of industrial Detroit in the 1940s.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy the book from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk
Buy the paperback from Speedyhen
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository

Read my original book review on Literary Flits

A desperately poor Mississippi family is unable to escape the imminent Hurricane Katrina, leaving them reliant on just themselves and their tiny community to survive. Ward's writing is poetic and gentle which contrasts powerfully with the harsh lives and violent events she portrays.

My Friends Are All Strange by M C Lesh

Buy the ebook from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

Read my original book review on Literary Flits

I was impressed with this young adult novel which I think would be appreciated by many older adult readers too! Narrated by seventeen year old Becca, it relates her mental breakdown in a school cafeteria and resultant stay in a Californian mental health facility. Reading this novel from Becca's point of view allowed me understand exactly what she was experiencing, her confusion and fear, and her anger.

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

Where to buy this book:
Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy the ebook from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository
Buy the paperback from Waterstones

Read my original book review on Literary Flits

Another of my Top Ten Books, this time of 2016, Sleepless Nights was considered experimental fiction on its publication in 1979. Sometimes we read our narrator's thoughts as though she is speaking directly to us. Sometimes we read old letters she wrote. Combined, the effect is to give an immensely powerful read and I would recommend Sleepless Nights to anyone who enjoys literary fiction purely for Hardwick's gorgeous turns of phrase.


That's it for July's WorldReads from America. I hope I have tempted you to try reading a book from this country and if you want more suggestions, click through to see all my Literary Flits reviews of American-authored books! Please do Comment your own favourite American books below and if you fancy buying any of the five I have suggested, clicking through the links from this blog to do so would mean I earn a small commission payment.

If you missed any earlier WorldReads posts, we have already 'visited' Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. In June I will be highlighting five books by Israeli authors. See you on the 5th to find out which ones!