100 Books Like The Mystic Masseur

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that modern historical scholarship focused upon the West Indies begins with Richard S. Dunn’s Sugar and Slaves. Blazing a trail that nearly all subsequent scholars in the field continue to travel, Dunn’s work brings a materialist and statistical awareness to the study of Caribbean history. Though this may sound like a recipe for aridity, the results are anything but dry. In his analysis of medical records, census data, mortality rates, and summaries of plantation inventories, Dunn opens up a picture of the English West Indies not as a society with slaves, but as a true slave society – one dominated by an institution that consumed countless lives with breathtaking indifference (and whose legacy continues to haunt the region today).  

This is not a book about history so much as one that has history suffused through it.

To me, it so perfectly captures what I love most about the Caribbean – the way that the past is always close to the surface. Derek Walcott writes so movingly about St Lucia, which is where my grandmother was born.

This is a book that is made for re-reading – I have read it at least three times now, and every time I spot a new line or a new image to savour.  

Pity Bertram Francis. After more than a decade in the United Kingdom, the protagonist of Caryl Phillips 1986 novel has returned to his home – an unnamed island in the Caribbean – on the eve of independence. But in seeking to find a place for himself, Bertram quickly discovers that long-simmering resentments and petty grudges (particularly on the part of the island’s soon-to-be prime minister) might very well undermine his high-minded commitment to the nation’s future. But is Bertram’s own idealism also part of the problem, manifesting itself in part as a kind of smug elitism born of his studies in the metropole? Exploring the fraught space between obligation, dependency, and autonomy (in matters of state as well as of the heart), this supple novel and its complex protagonist will linger long after you’ve finished reading.

Patrick Leigh Fermor is without question one of the greatest travel writers in the pantheon, and this early work clarifies that reputation. Providing a glimpse of the West Indies in the years immediately following the Second World War, Fermor’s book is rich in description, profound in understanding, exuberant in its overall moods and textures. The author is evocative without being effusive, providing a rich sense of cultural and historical context – island after island – without overloading the reader with a mere density of fact. As is not always the case with travel writers (and even very good travel writers), Fermor himself is never the subject. We see things alongside him, as he sees them – grateful at every moment for his learned, humane, and passionate sensibility. This is one of the first travel books about the West Indies to take the islands and their inhabitants seriously.

The interiority of a depressed, perpetually anxious, and possibly suicidal teen girl recently relocated from Trinidad to Canada is captured with detail and sensitivity. Her trusted circle consists of a single friend from home, her aunt and aunt’s partner with whom she lives in Edmonton, and a new boy, who stirs other complicated feelings in her. The fractures in her relationship with her mother, back home, remain unhealed. It is a deeply melancholic book but it can also potentially make any young person struggling with the same issues feel a little less alone. All of Burt's books are published by Caribbean publishers; to Home Home’s credit, it is one of a handful to have also been released with the US publisher. It’s the realness and insight for me!

Monique Roffey takes you on a father-daughter escape trip sailing from Trinidad to the Galapagos in a sketchy boat to leave behind the loss and sorrow they experienced after a major storm. Thanks to Grace Carr, I was shaped into who I am as a writer and researcher in Trinidad, where I carried out my dissertation work. The Trini cadence for life and love is ubiquitous in this book—it also reminds me of the bond between me and my Dad and our mutual appreciation for a little risk and chaos.

I’m a loud and proud proponent of the magical nature of tiki drinks. In my opinion, it is utterly impossible to be sad or angry or frustrated when you are served a drink with an umbrella – and sometimes an orchid, a pineapple spear, and a swizzle stick – in it. Jeff Berry, aka  ‘Beachbumb Berry’, is one of the undisputed experts in the world of tiki culture, and Potions of the Caribbean is a vividly-designed, detail-packed adventure of a book. With Berry’s always thorough research and reflections, the book traces the origins of tropical drinks back 500 years eventually culminating in the tiki craze that took the United States, and later the world, by storm. Coupled with Berry’s in-depth history are vibrant, historical photos and juicy recipes that make your mouth water. To me, the happy-go-lucky tiki era embodies a sense of optimism, a time when a flaming, fruity… show more.

Smith traces the historical arc of rum from local colonial consumption to becoming a major export by the nineteenth century.

I am amazed at how much history Smith captures by focusing his study on one type of alcohol. With his attention to how European and African drinking habits shaped rum consumption, he demonstrates how rum cut across gender, class, and race relations.

With their knowledge of distillation and introduction of resources new to the Americas, Europeans increased alcohol’s potency. Alcohol took on political as well as economic significance when colonial officials used alcohol revenue to govern. Without displacing fermented drinks, distilled liquor introduced new dynamics in the production and consumption of alcohol.

I love that he emphasizes how common consumption spurred taverns and other drinking establishments, which facilitated socialization that frequently contravened social norms, such as elite men who conversed with poor and working-class women and African and mulatto drinkers… show more.

A cruise ship is, perhaps, the least likely of all possible venues for the beginning of a spiritual breakthrough. But this is where spiritual transformation starts for Avey Johnson, the 64-year-old African American woman who is the central character in this Marshall novel. Breakthroughs are often set in motion deep down inside us, below the surface of our ordinary awareness. In fact, a real breakthrough can’t happen unless it goes all the way down in us. I know of no book that conveys this truth more effectively.

After Columbus Bartolomé de Las Casas probably was the most famous individual in the history of the early Spanish Caribbean. A man of great energy and determination, he wrote lengthy histories of the Caribbean and neighboring mainland as well as this much shorter, highly polemical one. He portrayed the horrors and abuses that the islands’ Indigenous peoples suffered at the hands of Spaniards and was instrumental in persuading the Spanish crown of the necessity of reforms that would offer Indians some protections from the extremes of exploitation. While he might have exaggerated the extent of Spanish cruelty, much of what he recorded can be corroborated. The writings of Las Casas are essential to understanding the Caribbean after Columbus.