18 books like Brother

What to read after Brother — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Giants in the Earth

Giants in the Earth O. E. Rölvaag · 1929 · 460p · ≈ 15h · Moderate The novel describes struggle of Norwegian settlers in eastern South Dakota, based on the actual lives of the author's parents in law. The settlers make progress, then face further problems, such as grasshoppers eating their wheat. In the end, the protagnist freezes to death in a snow storm and his wife struggles with sanity. It is in the same general area and era as Laura Ingalls Wilder's "By the… Shares Immigrants

A Land More Kind Than Home

A Land More Kind Than Home Wiley Cash · 2012 · ★ 4.0 · 342p · ≈ 11h · Moderate An adventurous and precocious boy, Jess Hall is very protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop on grown-ups, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to — an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess… Shares Brothers

In the Heat of the Night John Ball · 1981 · 176p · ≈ 5h · Moderate A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It's no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man-Virgil Tibbs-is a skilled homicide detective, passing through racially tense Wells, South Carolina, on his way back to California. Even more surprising, Wells's new police chief recruits Tibbs to help with the… Shares African American, Race Relations

The Switch II Valjeanne Jeffers · 2012 · 162p · ≈ 5h · Moderate Dating can be deadly... On the futuristic planet Tyrol, a beautiful, black assassin searching for pleasure has her life turned inside out in. Shares African American

Miracle Creek Angie Kim · 2019 · ★ 3.9 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate "A literary courtroom thriller about a mother accused of murdering her eight-year-old autistic son"-- In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine-- a pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic 'dives' with the hopes of curing issues like autism or infertility. When the Miracle Submarine mysteriously… Shares Immigrants

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred D. Taylor · 1976 · ★ 3.9 · 210p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, it is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence. It is a story of physical survival, but more important, it is a story of the survival of the human spirit. And, too, it is Cassie's story -- Cassie Logan, an independent girl raised by a family for whom independence is primary, a family determined not… Shares Prejudices, Race Relations

Fifth Son Barbara Fradkin · 2004 · 304p · ≈ 10h · Moderate From back cover: Murder or suicide? That's the simple question put to Inspector Michael Green when a derelict stranger falls to his death from an abandoned church tower in a quiet river village ... But when the victim turns out [to] be a long lost son of a local farm family cursed in recent years by tragedy, madness and death, Green begins to suspect something far more sinister is at work.… Shares Canadian fiction

The Hate U Give Angie Thomas · 2017 · ★ 4.5 · 480p · ≈ 16h · Moderate The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old black girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a… Shares African American, Race Relations

Let The Circle be Unbroken Mildred D. Taylor · 1981 · ★ 4.5 · 394p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Let the Circle Be Unbroken is a story of a small Mississippi town in the 1930s, and the troubles that plague its black community. Picking up where its precursor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, leaves off, Mildred Taylor recounts the trials of this small community through the characters of the Logan family. More specifically, it focuses on the children of the family; Stacey, Cassie, Little Man and… Shares Prejudices, Race Relations

Infernal devices K. W. Jeter · 1987 · ★ 3.5 · 282p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Steampunk. Fresh and inventive, darkly humorous, and with wild characters who never take a backseat to the mechanical creations. Shares Musicians

Darktown Thomas Mullen · 2016 · ★ 4.0 · 371p · ≈ 12h · Moderate "Responding to orders from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers, including war veterans Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith. The newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers: they aren't allowed to arrest white suspects, drive squad cars, or set foot in the police headquarters. When a black woman who was last seen in a car driven by… Shares African American, Race Relations

A rap on race Margaret Mead · 1971 · ★ 4.0 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate (*From the introduction*) On August 25, 1970, anthropologist Margaret Mead and writer James Baldwin met for the first time to have three recorded conversations, totaling more than seven hours of tape that, once transcribed, would compose the book, *A Rap on Race* (1971). The Mead and Baldwin Book is an amazing account documenting the meeting of two of the twentieth century's paradigmatic thinkers… Shares African American, Race Relations

Lightning men Thomas Mullen · 2017 · ★ 4.1 · 374p · ≈ 12h · Moderate "Reads like the best of James Ellroy."--Publishers Weekly (starred review, on Darktown) "Mullen is a wonderful architect of intersecting plotlines and unexpected answers."--The Washington Post, on Darktown From the acclaimed author of The Last Town on Earth comes the gripping follow-up to Darktown. Officer Denny Rakestraw and "Negro Officers" Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith have their hands full in… Shares African American, Race Relations

Bread givers Anzia Yezierska · 1925 · ★ 3.8 · 297p · ≈ 9h · Moderate A young Jewish girl from New York's Lower East Side rebels against the tyranny and chauvinism of her immigrant father, determined to assert her freedom and independence. Shares Children of immigrants, Immigrants

Darkwater; voices from within the veil W. E. B. Du Bois · 1920 · 164p · ≈ 5h · Moderate In The Souls of Black Folk the sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois introduced the concept of the “veil,” a separation of the inner lives of black Americans from their white counterparts. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil is a collection of essays, poems, and short fiction that attempts to provide a nuanced look behind the veil at the lives of black Americans and to give voice to their often… Shares Musicians, Race Relations

Werewolf Skin Michael Dahl · 2015 · 40p · ≈ 1h · Light Shares Brothers with this book.

White Teeth Zadie Smith · 2000 · ★ 3.8 · 528p · ≈ 17h · Moderate One of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, WHITE TEETH is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous… Shares Immigrants, Race Relations

Factoring humanity Robert J. Sawyer · 1998 · ★ 3.8 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Shares Toronto with this book.

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