Here are 100 books that The Best We Could Do fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am Christina Vo, an author deeply passionate about exploring themes of healing and intergenerational trauma, particularly within the Vietnamese community. My personal journey and family history have profoundly influenced my understanding of these topics, as my own experiences have driven me to seek out stories that resonate with resilience and recovery. Writing and reading about these themes have been a way to process my past and connect with others who share similar experiences. Through my books and this curated list, I aim to highlight the voices and stories that inspire healing and foster a deeper understanding of our collective history.
This memoir by Le Ly Hayslip profoundly impacted me with its raw and heartfelt narrative of survival and resilience. The personal account of her experiences during and after the Vietnam War highlights the intergenerational trauma and the journey of healing.
Her courage and strength are incredibly inspiring, making it a must-read for understanding the human aspects of war and its long-lasting effects on families.
“One of the most important books of Vietnamese American and Vietnam War literature...Moving, powerful.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer
In these pages, Le Ly Hayslip—just twelve years old when U.S. helicopters landed in her tiny village of Ky La—shows us the Vietnam War as she lived it. Initially pressed into service by the Vietcong, Le Ly was captured and imprisoned by government forces. She found sanctuary at last with an American contractor and ultimately fled to the United States. Almost twenty years after her escape, Le Ly found herself inexorably drawn back to the devastated country…
Reseda, California plays an important part in my novels. I grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family, and we experienced the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. My parents got divorced, and my brother and I were raised by our working mom until she became paralyzed by a stroke. I found refuge in writing. I wrote The Remainders in 2016 during a tumultuous time when issues of family conflict, homelessness, and the growing cruelty of society came into focus. Still, I believe decency and compassion will prevail. The books I write and enjoy reading seek to find light in the darkest of circumstances.
I read this powerful graphic novel series when the first collections came out in the 1980s.
It shows the horrors of the Holocaust and the impact it has on the families of the survivors. Maus is best known for depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, but Art’s troubled relationship with his father Vladik and the death of his mother Anja by suicide frame the story.
Maus is my favorite graphic novel series and a must-read for understanding the Holocaust and how it shaped Jewish life since.
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker) • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • One of Variety’s “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read”
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his…
I’ve worked as a tugboat hand in Singapore and Peace Corps Volunteer in Polynesia. I’ve served on the editorial staffs of five newspapers, from a small-town daily in New Mexico to The New York Times. I’m also the authorof contemporary novels for young adults. Like the writers of these five great graphic novels, I choose themes that are important to me. Foremost are hope, healing, family, and friendship. These are themes I’d like my own children to embrace. Life can be hard, so as a writer I choose to send out that “ripple of hope” on the chance it may be heard or felt, and so make a difference.
The Canadian animator offers a revealing account of his two-month trip to North Korea to oversee a cartooning project. In deceptively simple words and drawings, Delisle gives us a front-row view of this complex, enigmatic totalitarian society. Everyday life in Pyongyang is rich fodder for this hilariously grumpy author. What’s it really like living in North Korea? Read this book and weep—and laugh.
Famously referred to as an "Axis-of-Evil" country, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. A series of manmade and natural catastrophes have also left it one of the poorest. When the fortress-like country recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital of Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang…
Growing up in New York, the child of New Yorkers, every corner was replete with memories and histories that taught me life values. Walking through these meaningful places, I learned that the multiplicity of people’s stories and struggles to make space for themselves were what made the city and enriched everyone’s lives. The books here echo the essential politics and personal connections of those stories, and all have been deeply meaningful to me. Now, with my firm Buscada, and in my writing and art practice, I explore the way people’s stories of belonging and community, resistance and rebuilding from cities around the globe help us understand our shared humanity.
It’s hard to know quite where to begin with this book–there is so much to love.
This book tells the story of the Great Migration of African American people out of the South across the United States to Chicago, New York, California, and beyond; it transforms and fills in a crucial part of American history that every American should know to understand our present day. But for me, what I love most starts with the way Isabel Wilkerson cares for people’s stories.
Wilkerson tells this decades-long, sweeping, under-told story through individual stories that are so detailed and compelling, so thoroughly contextualized with historical research, that I was completely enmeshed in these people’s lives, their struggles, their loves, and their feelings. I cared. In the years since I read it, stories from the book often come to my mind, teaching and guiding me like the words of a beloved relative.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official…
I’ve worked as a tugboat hand in Singapore and Peace Corps Volunteer in Polynesia. I’ve served on the editorial staffs of five newspapers, from a small-town daily in New Mexico to The New York Times. I’m also the authorof contemporary novels for young adults. Like the writers of these five great graphic novels, I choose themes that are important to me. Foremost are hope, healing, family, and friendship. These are themes I’d like my own children to embrace. Life can be hard, so as a writer I choose to send out that “ripple of hope” on the chance it may be heard or felt, and so make a difference.
This is the stunning opening salvo of John Lewis’ brilliant trilogy tracking his lifelong struggle for civil and human rights. We follow Lewis’ upbringing in rural Alabama during which young John honed his preaching skills before an audience of barnyard chickens, his transformative meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement. In shedding light on our country’s racist history, Lewis rakes you raw, holds no punches, and yet offers hope.
Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.
Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist Nate Powell (winner of the Eisner Award…
I’ve worked as a tugboat hand in Singapore and Peace Corps Volunteer in Polynesia. I’ve served on the editorial staffs of five newspapers, from a small-town daily in New Mexico to The New York Times. I’m also the authorof contemporary novels for young adults. Like the writers of these five great graphic novels, I choose themes that are important to me. Foremost are hope, healing, family, and friendship. These are themes I’d like my own children to embrace. Life can be hard, so as a writer I choose to send out that “ripple of hope” on the chance it may be heard or felt, and so make a difference.
I loved this story of the extraordinary friendship between a young, gay, HIV-positive Cuban American activist and a young, struggling Jewish cartoonist who became roommates on an MTV reality show called The Real World. For good reason, UCLA chose Pedro & Me as its 2013-2014 "Common Book" with the goal of providing incoming freshmen with a "platform to discuss relationships, sexual orientation, health education, loss, love, and other topics." Winick’s story is timeless in its themes of friendship, loss, and hope.
Pedro Zamora changed lives.When the HIV-positive AIDS educator appeared on MTV's The Real World: San Francisco, he taught millions of viewers about being gay and living with AIDS. Pedro's roommate on the show was Judd Winick, who created Pedro and Me to honor Pedro Zamora, his friend and teacher and an unforgettable human being. First published in 2000, Pedro and Me was a graphic novel pioneer. Its moving portrait of friendship and its urgent message have already reached thousands of people. Now, Pedro's story is reintroduced to today's graphically focused culture with a gorgeous, eye-catching new cover and a foreword…
I am Christina Vo, an author deeply passionate about exploring themes of healing and intergenerational trauma, particularly within the Vietnamese community. My personal journey and family history have profoundly influenced my understanding of these topics, as my own experiences have driven me to seek out stories that resonate with resilience and recovery. Writing and reading about these themes have been a way to process my past and connect with others who share similar experiences. Through my books and this curated list, I aim to highlight the voices and stories that inspire healing and foster a deeper understanding of our collective history.
Thanhha Lai's semi-autobiographical novel in verse form tells the story of a young girl's journey from war-torn Vietnam to the United States.
I was deeply touched by the poetic narrative and the vivid depiction of the refugee experience. The book beautifully captures the challenges of adapting to a new life while carrying the weight of past trauma, making it a compelling read for all ages.
Ten-year-old Ha has only ever known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her family and friends close by. But when the Vietnam War reaches the gates of her home, Ha and her family are forced to flee.
The journey onboard a refugee ship bound for America is hard - but nothing can prepare Ha for the strangeness of the country that greets them on the other side. The language is impossible, the food is strange - and not all the locals are friendly. But amongst her struggles, Ha finds joy, friendship…
When I applied to college, I thought I’d study science and pursue my passions for art and justice separately. Then, I went to Kenya for my first excavation and found that archaeology combined my love for storytelling, data analysis, and making the world a better, safer, more inclusive place. As much as I love movies like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, I never saw myself in them. They just don’t capture what I love about archaeology! Now, my research—like this list—is dedicated to really understanding what makes archaeology so compelling, so rewarding, and most capable of telling nuanced stories that make us think differently about our past.
This book, for me, is something of a guiding star. It is profound, scientific, powerful, and directly applicable to contemporary debates about policy, governance, and justice. Archaeology isn’t just about collecting objects; instead, most archaeologists I know are deeply invested in how archaeology can help inform the decisions we make in the present. MacArthur “genius” award winner Jason de Leon shows the full potential of this in this book, where he combines archaeological, ethnographic, and forensic methods to reveal the impact of immigration policy on real human bodies and families.
Maybe it’s cheating to include this book on this list; it isn’t just how archaeology works—it has set a new standard for archaeologists to make contributions that are relevant and resonant enough to make a change in the world.
In his gripping and provocative debut, anthropologist Jason De Leon sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time-the human consequences of US immigration policy. The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and deaths that occur daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De Leon uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of "Prevention through Deterrence," the federal border enforcement policy that…
I’ve been fascinated with the topic of immigration since childhood. My father is an immigrant, and my mother grew up overseas. My first job after college was working for a youth program for immigrant and refugee kids in Chicago. Now, I am a professor who teaches and writes about migration law. I find stories about how moving across borders shapes people’s lives to be endlessly interesting, bringing up themes of belonging, home, memory, trauma, and identity. I also think that the topic of global migration is intimately linked to questions of justice and equality and requires us all to reckon with the ways in which the colonial past shapes the present.
I loved this book because, while it is full of personal stories, it also looks at the big picture and asks why global migration is happening in the ways that it is.
The author centers colonialism in his explanation of why people are coming from the Global South to the North and why it is short-sighted to fear and loathe such newcomers. Mehta is a really excellent writer–I loved the way he weaved the forest and the trees together to help explain the politics of migration from the global to the local level.
An impassioned defence of global immigration from the acclaimed author of Maximum City.
Drawing on his family's own experience emigrating from India to Britain and America, and years of reporting around the world, Suketu Mehta subjects the worldwide anti-immigrant backlash to withering scrutiny. The West, he argues, is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. He juxtaposes the phony narratives of populist ideologues with the ordinary heroism of labourers, nannies and others, from Dubai to New York, and explains why more people are on the move today than ever before. As civil strife and climate change…
I’ve been fascinated with the topic of immigration since childhood. My father is an immigrant, and my mother grew up overseas. My first job after college was working for a youth program for immigrant and refugee kids in Chicago. Now, I am a professor who teaches and writes about migration law. I find stories about how moving across borders shapes people’s lives to be endlessly interesting, bringing up themes of belonging, home, memory, trauma, and identity. I also think that the topic of global migration is intimately linked to questions of justice and equality and requires us all to reckon with the ways in which the colonial past shapes the present.
I couldn’t stop listening to this book. This autobiographical tale of a girl who flees Iran, grows up in the United States, and migrates to Europe is powerful and poignant in a way only a really good story can be. It perfectly captures the sense of being from multiple places but never truly at home. Nayeri has also written excellent nonfiction on the topic of migration and refuge, but this book has stayed with me and remains one of my favorite novels.
“Rich and colorful… [Refuge] has the kind of immediacy commonly associated with memoir, which lends it heft, intimacy, atmosphere.” –New York Times
The moving lifetime relationship between a father and a daughter, seen through the prism of global immigration and the contemporary refugee experience.
An Iranian girl escapes to America as a child, but her father stays behind. Over twenty years, as she transforms from confused immigrant to overachieving Westerner to sophisticated European transplant, daughter and father know each other only from their visits: four crucial visits over two decades, each in a different international city. The longer they are…
