Here are 100 books that The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven fans have personally recommended if you like
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
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I‘ve been thinking about the forces that drive humanity together and pull us apart at the same time since my late teens; back then, I started reading the classical dystopian tales. The (perceived) end of time always speaks to me, because I think it‘s in those moments of existential dread that we learn who we really are. That‘s why I like reading (and reviewing) books, and also why those topics are an undertone in my own writings. I do hope you enjoy these 5 books as much as I have.
This was probably one of the most intense experiences with non-linear storytelling I ever had, and that did something to me I could not have predicted.
In fact, while reading this book, I started to turn the story into something of a philosophical discourse in my head.
I really like how this book is at the same time utterly insane in parts—and I do say that with the greatest respect, it‘s the good kind of insane—while at the same time, it explores themes of dealing with earth-shattering events on a very individual level.
For me, the icing on the cake is that Kurt Vonnegut manages to even mix in a little history lesson there, because that bombing of the prisoners in Dresden? That did happen. And I didn‘t even learn about it in school—I learned it from this novel!
A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what…
Embark on a riveting journey into Washington State’s untamed Olympic Peninsula, where the threads of folklore legends and historical icons are woven into a complex ecological tapestry.
Follow the enigmatic Petr as he fearlessly employs his pirate radio transmitter to broadcast the forgotten and untamed voices that echo through the…
I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it.
I saw my first raven near Mount Rainier. The bird looked me in the eye, hopped to the left, sized me up, and continued his business. The advancing Russian army drove Bernd Heinrich and his family into the forest near Hahnheide, Germany, where they lived in a small hut for five years.
There, he began his lifelong quest to connect with insects (especially bees), owls, trees, antelope (he runs ultramarathons), geese...and ravens. The mind of the Raven is a deep, scientific meditation on the intersection between being human and raven. It concludes that “ultimately [our differences are] less a matter of consciousness than of culture” (342).
I wonder how culture has dulled my imagination, a struggle Heinrich clearly has fought more successfully than I have.
Heinrich involves us in his quest to get inside the mind of the raven. But as animals can only be spied on by getting quite close, Heinrich adopts ravens, thereby becoming a "raven father," as well as observing them in their natural habitat. He studies their daily routines, and in the process, paints a vivid picture of the ravens' world. At the heart of this book are Heinrich's love and respect for these complex and engaging creatures, and through his keen observation and analysis, we become their intimates too.
Heinrich's passion for ravens has led him around the world in…
I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it.
I repost art that catches my eye. I click when I see a piece of Egon Schiele on social media. It’s impossible to look away, which is saying something, considering the variety and audacity of modern art. Born in Tulln, Austria, in 1890, Schiele died of the Spanish Flu in 1918 at only 27.
A student of Gustav Klimt, Schiele’s art is expressionistic, graphic, and transformative. His imagination is a slap in the face, a Munch “Scream” of a crime scene photograph. Steiner has done a great service in producing this art book, in which all of Schiele’s work is reproduced in color. His commentary is, at the same time, chronological and thematic. Schiele survived derisive criticism and prison, and although his life was short, his imaginative punches still landed.
With his graphic style, figural distortion, and defiance of conventional standards of beauty, Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was a pioneer of Austrian Expressionism and one of the most startling portrait painters of the 20th century.
Mentored by Gustav Klimt, Schiele dabbled in a glittering Art Nouveau style before developing his own much more gritty and confrontational aesthetic of sharp lines, lurid shades, and mannered, elongated figures. His prolific portraits and self-portraits stunned the Viennese establishment with an unprecedented psychological and sexual intensity, favoring erotic, exposing, or unsettling poses in which he or his sitters cower on the floor, languish with legs…
Quinton Wyatt's summer break before high school should be nothing but wall-to-wall fun. Instead, his best friend has stopped talking to him; his fiendish older sister has filled his head with tales of a sadistic high school ritual called "The Freshman Stomp"; and his divorced father has started dating the…
I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it.
I was fourteen when I was introduced to my next pick. Our teacher read aloud The Kool-Aid Wino and The Cleveland Wrecking Yard, and I was lucky enough to find a copy at the mall as I read, bang! Trout Fishing in America Terrorists, bang! The Hunchback Trout, and bang! Sandbox Minus John Dillinger Equals What?
Brautigan grew up neglected and received involuntary electroshock treatments because he was hungry and threw a rock through a police station window. He never went to college but taught college classes. His imagination gave him a reason to live. It gave me one, too.
Three counterculture classics by Richard Brautigan, literary icon of the 1960s, together in a single volume, including the unforgettable Trout Fishing in America.
Trout Fishing in America is by turns a hilarious, playful, and melancholy novel that wanders from San Francisco through America's rural waterways.
In Watermelon Sugar expresses the mood of a new generation, revealing death as a place where people travel the length of their dreams, rejecting violence and hate.
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster is a collection of nearly one hundred poems, first published in 1968.
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.
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.
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.
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.
LaPier and Beck’s book is the perfect backstory to Van Alst’s.
Chicago, built on the lands of the Three Fires Council, has a long history as an Indigenous metropolis, from activism around the famous 1893 World’s Fair to the building of urban Indian organizations. The authors show how Indigenous people are everywhere in the archives.
Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association
In City Indian Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck tell the engaging story of American Indians who migrated to Chicago from across America to work and emerged as activists. From the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to the 1934 Century of Progress Fair, American Indians in Chicago voiced their opinions about political, social, educational, and racial issues. City Indian focuses on the privileged members of the American Indian community in Chicago: doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers, and entertainers. During the Progressive Era more than any other time in the…
In 1971, when I graduated from law school, I received a fellowship to help staff a Legal Aid office on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I lived there for nearly four years, representing tribal members in tribal, state, and federal courts. I then worked for 45 years on the National Legal Staff of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). One of my major responsibilities was helping Indian tribes and their members protect and enforce their rights, and I filed numerous cases on their behalf. During that time, I taught Federal Indian Law for more than 20 years and also published The Rights of Indians and Tribes.
The U.S. Supreme Court has often been filled with Justices who issued racist decisions against Indian tribes and their members. In reaching these decisions, these Justices often overlooked significant facts and created new legal principles to suit their purposes.
Mr. Echo-Hawk selected the 10 worst cases the Supreme Court had decided up to that point. He discusses the factual background of each case and explains why the Court’s decision is wrong, often revealing the Justices' known prejudices.
This book is an eye-opener for readers wondering whether Indian tribes have had a fair chance of winning cases in the Supreme Court.
Now in paperback, an important account of ten Supreme Court cases that changed the fate of Native Americans, providing the contemporary historical/political context of each case, and explaining how the decisions have adversely affected the cultural survival of Native people to this day.
My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.
As the kid who roamed the halls between classes with a book in my hand, I suspect Wraeththugave my nerd façade an impressive boost: technically an omnibus of three stories, Wraeththuis verythick—in both binding and plot. It follows the emotionally charged and mesmeric tales of a hermaphroditic race that is steadily subsuming the human one in a Darwinian battle for biological perfection. We follow the journeys of a few characters as they navigate the mental and physical growing pains inherent in joining a new race and the wild tribes and communities that have emerged in the wake of their hermaphroditic transformations. Dark, fascinating characters and cultures drive this story to its unusual climax when their true purposes are stunningly revealed.
Here at last in a single volume are all three of Constantine's Wraeththu trilogy: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire.
In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion of Homo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won't…
My grandparents played a pivotal role in my childhood, living with us and raising my brother and me while my parents worked long hours. Some of my favorite memories of those years are lying in bed as Abuelo told me stories that made me laugh instead of making me sleepy, cooking picadillo with my abuela in the kitchen, and going on long walks along the beach with my abuelo. Though they didn’t speak to me in Spanish, they taught me to sing nursery rhymes and enticed me with sticks of Big Red gum to get me to learn how to roll my r’s.
This book's evocative verse drew me in immediately, whisking me into a cozy childhood memory of my own. I love the repeated refrains of Fry Bread…which allows young ones to anticipate and ‘read along,’ increasing engagement with the child.
The beautiful illustrations, which show children of many different skin tones in the kitchen assisting and then awaiting the delicious result, amplify the story, showing how grandparents can be sources of love and support for their grandchild's network of friends.
I especially love this book because it reminds me of cooking Cuban bread pudding with my abuela for Thanksgiving, her contribution to the American holiday that reminded her of her home.
Fry bread is food. It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate.
Fry bread is time. It brings families together for meals and new memories.
Fry bread is nation. It might look or taste different, but it is still shared by many, from coast to coast and beyond.
Fry bread is us. It is a celebration of old and new, traditional and modern, similarity and difference.
Fry Bread is a story told in lively and powerful verse by Seminole Nation member Kevin Noble Maillard, with vibrant art from Pura Belpre Award winner Juana Martinez-Neal.
I'm a nature writer and poet who lives, writes, and tends his modest grapevines on a small farm in the highlands of northern Michigan. My study and my work delves into the mysterious connections between all living things. I've sailed the world's lakes and oceans and lived on the land from Alaska to California to the Caribbean. The natural world cannot just be described but must be experienced – all the writers on my list have taken this approach – as I've followed the lead of these great writers but in my own unique way. I would enjoy a day on a secluded river with each of them in search of the elusive brook trout.
A creative non-fiction work that brings the native folk hero alive in spirit while following the modern-day hero Leonard Peletier and the AIM resistance.
Again, the landscape descriptions take the reader away into the land once travelled by Native Americans. Matthiessen’s literary touch lends an almost novel-like thread by comparing the legends of Crazy Horse, perhaps the most revered of Lakota warriors, who becomes more than an historical figure in support of the fight for Native American rights and dignity in the American West of the 1970s.
An “indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) chronicle of a fatal gun-battle between FBI agents and American Indian Movement activists by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise
On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serving consecutive life sentences in a…
