100 Books Like Mott Street

I bought this because 1) I loved Le Petit Prince, 2) I had no idea that de Saint-Exupery was a pilot and disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1944, and 3) I thought it might give me a window into what my own late dad found in flight and that it might bring me closer to him in a way.

I was not prepared for the excruciating, almost sacred, tenderness of his thoughts on the nature of earth and sea, war, life, death, and the entire human enterprise. If your spirit has ever yearned or fluttered at such thoughts, there is salvation in these essays. Wow! His final essay on Barcelona and Madrid is luxurious beyond words. It took forever to finish it because I regaled myself on every sentence.

I adore this book because it is so unique—I’ve never read anything quite this specific or niche which seems so all-encompassing.

It is the story of a life lost, and a life found. Of a father that dies and how the recovery of his daughter is tied up with the start of a new relationship—with a goshawk.

At the outset, the author is so wonderfully eloquent on all aspects of loss; the sudden jarring sense of confusion when a person dies and you have their possessions still in your hands; the struggle to keep in touch with reality (“for weeks I felt like I was made of dully burning metal”); the desperation to see the back of grief when new relationships are desperately grasped at, and fail of course, because of that desperation. 

The goshawk saves her (and us) from the darkness, as she becomes gripped with the… show more.

Billed as YA lit, don’t let that stop you. It is an auto-fictional account of a young boy refugee from Iran who suddenly finds himself in the middle of Oklahoma: malls and milkshakes. I was in fits of laughter throughout because the narrator's voice is so unique and charming, a much more optimistic Holden Caulfield. But the themes can also be hard, and therein lies the magic.

I loved the unique story structure of telling his stories in the format of 1001 Nights. This validated my own choice to structure my book in the format of The Little Match Girl, striking matches in a snowstorm. I loved this book for its swirl of myth, magical realism, and family stories that weave seamlessly through a modern-day exploration of refugee identity and belonging.

This book was a Rosetta Stone to my own life and, ultimately, my book. In it, Blackie describes what I had been engaged in doing ever since my parents died, without having the "lingo" to talk about it. In other words, Blackie didn't show me what to do here so much as alert me to what I was doing. And once I understood what I was doing, everything clicked into place about why it mattered.

My own book then came into clear focus. This is a lyrical prescription for moving more beautifully in the world that many of us may have come to see as ugly and well-lost.

This memoir informed me of the psychological price of immigration and displacement on young children in ways that were searing and deep because of Wang’s mastery of the child’s perspective.

She lived in New York’s Chinatown with her parents two professionals who immigrated from China and experienced poverty, isolation, fear of deportation, working in a sweatshop. She was saved by her love of books and reading, and her mother’s determination to realize the life she left China to have. Wang creates innocence and trauma with a deft, poetic skill that makes this a classic. 

This is a fantastic book about the hardships many immigrants face, from being taken advantage of by their employers, to language barriers, and of course, racism. What I loved about this book is its portrayal of community. Growing up poor, I know that it’s often those with nothing who give the most. Kids will cheer for Mia as she works the front desk, helps those around her, and stands up to injustice.

Some horror books manage to create a sense of dread that builds slowly over time, dropping little clues and breadcrumbs for the reader along the way, hinting at the horror just around the bend. Other books keep their secrets. If you’re a Devil Wears Prada fan, you will enjoy the trope of “new employee is completely disgusted by the lifestyle & culture modeled by their co-workers but eventually find themselves adapting to the point of getting sucked into it and believing in it.”

I also enjoyed the sapphic longing and desire that developed between some of the main characters. This works in tandem with the complexity of the story and the growing tension. I will not spoil the direction of the storyline and what ultimately makes this book land squarely in the horror genre, but I will say, it does not disappoint.

A well-crafted debut from Ling Ling Huang. This… show more.

Today most people associate Chinatowns with restaurants and tourism. In the past and for many Chinese Canadians, Chinatown was a ghetto and place of exclusion. But for many Chinese and other first-generation migrants, Chinatown was simply home. It was where friends (and sometimes families) lived and socialized, operated businesses, and felt a sense of belonging through mutual support networks and devotion to Sun Yatsen at KMT and other political meetings and events. Peter Kwong’s The New Chinatown tells a complicated narrative of Chinese political, social, and cultural life and dispels many Chinatown stereotypes. In my book, I tried to tell a similar story of Chinese political and social lives that weren’t defined by Chinatown stereotypes.

Fans of Schitt’s Creek, Crazy Rich Asians, and Little Miss Sunshine will delight in Chang’s debut. At turns bawdy and brilliant, The Wangs vs. The World tells the hilarious story of Charles Wang, a Chinese immigrant who achieves the American Dream by turning waste into wealth only to get hit by the financial crisis and lose his dazzling Bel Air home and everything he holds dear—everything, that is, except his quirky but lovable family. Chang’s razor-sharp humor and bold writing style have made me an instant fan.

Weike Wang is kind of a master at dry, unadorned, razor-sharp writing. This book made me both cry and laugh. Joan is doing perfectly fine—great, even—if anyone asks her. Her life is efficient and successful and—empty.

When her father dies, her mother returns from China, and their subsequent interactions force Joan to stop just going through the motions and actually take a look at her life. This book is sweet but not saccharine, and its humor comes from Joan’s quirky observations which felt very relatable to me.