Here are 99 books that City Indian fans have personally recommended if you like City Indian. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of There There

Rajat Narula Author Of Azalea Heights

From my list on race, ethnicity, and belief system collisions.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an immigrant in the United States, I have been fascinated by the dynamics between races and cultures—both in the country and globally. As I travel extensively (63 countries so far), I experience some of the biases firsthand—sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I have come to realize that despite the difference in the color of our skin—and the clothes we wear—we are more alike than different.  

Rajat's book list on race, ethnicity, and belief system collisions

Rajat Narula Why Rajat loves this book

I loved the book because it’s an insightful window into the challenges of a troubled community, the native Indians, who are still haunted by the painful past and face an uncertain future. I loved how the writer picks the thread of stories of many characters who have chosen to live outside reservations and then knits them all together in the end.

Unique characters with unique stories and strong evocative writing make There There a remarkable debut.  

By Tommy Orange ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked There There as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **

One of Barack Obama's best books of 2018, the New York Times bestselling novel about contemporary America from a bold new Native American voice

'A thunderclap' Marlon James
'Astonishing' Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
'Pure soaring beauty' Colm Toibin

Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and hoping to reconnect with her estranged family. That's why she is there. Dene is there because he has been collecting stories to honour his uncle's death, while Edwin is looking for his true father and Opal came to watch her boy Orvil dance.

All of…


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Sacred Smokes

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why Coll loves this book

This collection of short stories draws from Van Alst’s experience as a Native American growing up in Chicago, where racism and gang violence were everyday realities. Gripping and uncompromising, the stories walk a line between the traumas of Indigenous life in America and the possibilities of resilience and resistance.

By Theodore C. Van Alst ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sacred Smokes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Growing up in a gang in the city can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story. This book takes a trip through that unexplored part of Indian Country, an intense journey that is full of surprises, shining a light on the interior lives of people whose intellectual and emotional concerns are often overlooked. This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians. He will be in readers' heads for a long time to come.


Book cover of Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality: Stories of American Indian Relocation and Reclamation

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why Coll loves this book

Rather than focusing on historical archives, this book is based on years of face-to-face research in and with urban Indigenous communities. Deftly describing the urban politics of identity, Jacobs provides insights into the ways in which Indigenous people manage senses of self and community in the twenty-first-century city.

By Michelle R. Jacobs ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Contemporary accounts of urban Native identity in two pan-Indian communities
In the last half century, changing racial and cultural dynamics in the United States have caused an explosion in the number of people claiming to be American Indian, from just over half a million in 1960 to over three million in 2013. Additionally, seven out of ten American Indians live in or near cities, rather than in tribal communities, and that number is growing.
In Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality, Michelle Jacobs examines the new reality of the American Indian urban experience. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over two and a…


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Book cover of Retrieving the Future

Retrieving the Future by Randy C. Dockens,

Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.

Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…

Book cover of Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization

Coll Thrush Author Of Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire

From my list on urban Indigenous lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I came to Indigenous history through the experience as a settler growing up at the edge of a reservation. I also love cities as “texts,” and the ways in which urban places never fully erase what came before. These two interests led me to urban Indigenous studies. Urban and Indigenous histories are often treated as though they are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are deeply entangled with each other: for example, the majority of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. These works capture the rich history of migration, political organizing, and cultural production that has taken place in Indigenous cities.

Coll's book list on urban Indigenous lives

Coll Thrush Why Coll loves this book

This edited collection of cutting-edge essays by scholars from across North America captures the profound diversity of Indigenous urban experience.

Ranging from Indigenous cities that existed prior to European arrival through the colonial period to the recent past, this anthology explodes the notion that Indigenous and urban histories have little to do with each other.

By Kent Blansett (editor) , Cathleen D. Cahill (editor) , Andrew Needham (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Indian Cities as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From ancient metropolises like Pueblo Bonito and TenochtitlAn to the twenty-first century Oceti Sakowin encampment of NoDAPL water protectors, Native people have built and lived in cities-a fact little noted in either urban or Indigenous histories. By foregrounding Indigenous peoples as city makers and city dwellers, as agents and subjects of urbanization, the essays in this volume simultaneously highlight the impact of Indigenous people on urban places and the effects of urbanism on Indigenous people and politics.

The authors-Native and non-Native, anthropologists and geographers as well as historians-use the term "Indian cities" to represent collective urban spaces established and regulated…


Book cover of Black Picket Fences

Angela Simms Author Of Fighting for a Foothold

From my list on how the Black middle class reveals the racial reality of the United States.

Why am I passionate about this?

Before I’m a scholar, author, or policy wonk, I’m a Christian who believes that God has shown us that our highest and greatest call after loving God is to love each other—and thus we are to value people’s and communities’ well-being above profit, wealth, and status. Thus, I come to sociology with a sense of mission: to use the tools of social science to understand the mechanisms creating inequitable resource access and, with that insight, to imagine and work alongside like-minded others to build economic and political systems that foster communal and individual prosperity. By studying the Black middle class, specifically, I gain traction for understanding how racial status distorts our economic and political systems.

Angela's book list on how the Black middle class reveals the racial reality of the United States

Angela Simms Why Angela loves this book

As a Black woman who grew up in a Black middle-class household, this is the first book that put words to my lived experience.

Black Pickett Fences also led me to earn my PhD in Sociology and to study the Black middle class because this group of Americans uniquely enables social scientists to see how both race and class continue to shape Americans’ life chances, despite the breakthroughs of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

This book provides a comprehensive explanation of the history of the Black middle class, from the Civil War Reconstruction Period to the present, and an empirical study of the social processes shaping the opportunities and constraints of Black families and neighborhoods. 

By Mary Pattillo ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Picket Fences as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1999, Mary Pattillo's "Black Picket Fences" explores an American demographic group too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. Nearly fifteen years later, this book remains a groundbreaking study of a group still under represented in the academic and public spheres. The result of living for three years in "Groveland," a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, "Black Picket Fences" explored both the advantages the black middle class has and the challenges they still face. Despite arguments that race no longer matters, Pattillo showed a different reality, one where black and…


Book cover of This Heart of Mine

Amiee Smith Author Of Love Sounds

From my list on steamy romance to make you stay up all night.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love the art of writing romance fiction. I’m a character-driven author. My stories are contemporary romance with steam, humor, and diversity. I run my business from my living room. When I'm not writing and telling people about my books, I run another online business. Read lots. Watch tons of series. Drink coffee and wine. Listen to music. Cook comforting vegetarian meals. Say prayers, meditate, and light candles. Text with my girlfriends. And try to squeeze in a walk and a shower. My sexy little stories are my attempt at keeping someone up all night. May you always feel loved, seen, and heard. The Smart Girl Mafia Series books 1-4 are currently available. 

Amiee's book list on steamy romance to make you stay up all night

Amiee Smith Why Amiee loves this book

A funny contemporary romance that I skipped worked because I stay up all night reading it. The heroine is a smart and quirky children’s book author and the hero is the hottest of a hot football star. They find themselves having to work at a summer camp after a potentially scandalous hookup. This is one of my favorite authors and a true master of happily-ever-after storytelling. 

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked This Heart of Mine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is the gold standard for women's fiction - an award-winning, bestselling phenomenon whose talent for blending laughs and tears with heartfelt, passionate, ingeniously conceived romance has made her one of America's most loved authors. The Phillips magic is vibrantly alive and on display in her long-awaited e-book debut.

Molly Somerville knows she has a reputation for trouble. She did give away her fifteen-million-dollar inheritance, but, hey, nobody's perfect.

Still, if anyone has an almost perfect life, it's Molly. While her Daphne the Bunny children's books could be selling better, she loves her cramped loft, her French poodle,…


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Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

What Walks This Way by Sharman Apt Russell,

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…

Book cover of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration

Mark Whitaker Author Of Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

From my list on the great Black migration.

Why am I passionate about this?

For more than thirty years, I worked as journalist covering the biggest news stories of the day—at Newsweek magazine (where I became the publication’s first African-American top editor), then as a news executive at NBC News and CNN. Now, I keep a hand in that world as a judge of several prestigious journalism awards while taking a longer view in my own work as a contributor for CBS Sunday Morning, Washington Post book reviewer, and author of narrative non-fiction books with a focus on key personalities and turning points in Black History.

Mark's book list on the great Black migration

Mark Whitaker Why Mark loves this book

Mining contemporaneous news accounts, personal letters and diaries, and dozens of in-depth interviews, scholar Marcia Chatelain explores the impact that the Great Migration had on a generation of young Black Chicago women, who coped with coming of age in the urban North while shouldering the expectations and aspirations of their uprooted parents. Anyone new to Chatelain’s work should also check out her next and equally original book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, a study of the deeply mixed legacy of McDonald’s restaurants in Black neighborhoods that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for History.

By Marcia Chatelain , Marcia Chatelain ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked South Side Girls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In South Side Girls Marcia Chatelain recasts Chicago's Great Migration through the lens of black girls. Focusing on the years between 1910 and 1940, when Chicago's black population quintupled, Chatelain describes how Chicago's black social scientists, urban reformers, journalists and activists formulated a vulnerable image of urban black girlhood that needed protecting. She argues that the construction and meaning of black girlhood shifted in response to major economic, social, and cultural changes and crises, and that it reflected parents' and community leaders' anxieties about urbanization and its meaning for racial progress. Girls shouldered much of the burden of black aspiration,…


Book cover of There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

Mae Elise Cannon Author Of Beyond Hashtag Activism: Comprehensive Justice in a Complicated Age

From my list on justice that you don’t need a PhD to understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in rural Southern Maryland, I first began to notice a difference between Blacks and whites because of the way I was treated when I hung out with my African American friends. South of the Mason Dixon line, racial differences are often clear. Throughout my childhood and young adult life some of the most influential people who invested in me were African American. As I began to learn about their stories, my heart grew with a love for racial justice and equality. My work and adult life has focused on righting wrongs, responding to global and domestic poverty, to writing and working against inequality and oppression.

Mae's book list on justice that you don’t need a PhD to understand

Mae Elise Cannon Why Mae loves this book

Having lived in Chicago for more than a decade, this first-hand glimpse of two young boys growing up in the inner city changed my perspective and understanding of the realities of domestic urban poverty. A moving and powerful read, you can follow the journey after There are No Children Here in Kotlowitz’s follow-up story, An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago.

By Alex Kotlowitz ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked There Are No Children Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A moving and powerful account by an acclaimed journalist that "informs the heart. [This] meticulous portrait of two boys in a Chicago housing project shows how much heroism is required to survive, let alone escape" (The New York Times).

"Alex Kotlowitz  joins the ranks of the important few writers on the  subiect of urban poverty."—Chicago Tribune

The story of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's  Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.


Book cover of Chicago's Grand Midway: A Walk around the World at the Columbian Exposition

Jocelyn Green Author Of Shadows of the White City

From my list on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jocelyn Green is the bestselling and award-winning author of eighteen books as of 2021. Her historical fiction has been acclaimed by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and the Historical Novel Society.

Jocelyn's book list on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

Jocelyn Green Why Jocelyn loves this book

Since the Midway was not on the official fairgrounds, it isn’t always discussed in detail in books about the Columbian Exposition/World’s Fair. This book focuses solely on the Midway and includes the background on all the attractions from Mr. Ferris’s Wheel to Cairo Street to Old Vienna, along with photographs and a map.

By Norman Bolotin ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Chicago's Grand Midway as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Created as a centerpiece for the Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Midway Plaisance was for one summer the world's most wondrous thoroughfare. A journey along its length immersed millions of spellbound visitors in a spectacle that merged exoticism with enlightenment and artistic crafts with dizzying technical achievement. Norman Bolotin, with Christine Laing, draws on his vast knowledge of the 1893 exposition to escort readers down the Midway. Step by step he takes you past forbidding Dahomeyans and dozens of belly dancers until, at last, you reach the colossal Ferris Wheel with cabins the size of street cars. The tour reveals…


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Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of Pizza City, USA: 101 Reasons Why Chicago Is America's Greatest Pizza Town

Amelia Levin Author Of The Chicago Chef's Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Windy City

From my list on the magic of Chicago cuisine and food lore.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a longtime food writer, magazine editor, cookbook author, and certified chef (through Kendall College, also in Chicago of course!). I was born in Chicago, raised in the Northern suburbs, and came back right after graduating from the University of Michigan in the early 2000s. For two decades, I lived in various parts of the city and wrote about the food scene for local and national outlets. The first edition of The Chicago Chef’s Table came out in 2012. Even though I moved to the suburbs a few years ago with my growing family, we still get down to the city often to enjoy the hottest new spots. My love for Chicago will never subside!

Amelia's book list on the magic of Chicago cuisine and food lore

Amelia Levin Why Amelia loves this book

Steve’s headshot is still hanging in both off-the-beaten path and famous restaurants in Chicago having been known as the “Hungry Hound” when he was the premier food reporter for ABC/Channel 7.

He’s now with Channel 5, and he continues to report on lesser-known restaurants and chefs in the city. In fact, he’s made people famous just by his endorsements! That’s why I love his focus on tavern-style pizza. That’s much less talked about than deep dish so there’s lots to learn by this book! 

By Steve Dolinsky ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pizza City, USA as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There are few things that Chicagoans feel more passionately about than pizza. It is the most identifiable food of the city, and neighbors can argue endlessly about who makes the best pie, whether thin crust or deep dish takes the cake, and which essential ingredients are the most important to make up the ideal pizza. With such a broad range of Chicagoland pizzerias, how could anyone ever decide the best of the best, once and for all? Enter Steve Dolinsky, Chicago's very own eminent food journalist and impartial pizza judge extraordinaire. Dolinsky has embarked on a self-described "Pizza Quest," methodically…


Book cover of There There
Book cover of Sacred Smokes
Book cover of Indigenous Memory, Urban Reality: Stories of American Indian Relocation and Reclamation

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Interested in Illinois, Chicago, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas?

Illinois 90 books
Chicago 411 books