Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

In honor of the 60th anniversary of MLK's "I Have Dream" speech and his hope that "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers", we will be reading a book that depicts an interracial relationship. This can be a romantic relationship, or it can be a friendship, familial relationship, or any other type.

Favorite Interracial Romance Authors: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Best Books on Interracial Relationships: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/inte...
Interracial Relationships in Fiction: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
18 Beautiful Books Featuring Interracial Relationships: https://www.elitedaily.com/p/18-books...
29 YA Books Spotlighting Interracial Love: https://www.epicreads.com/blog/ya-boo...
Interracial Friendship Books: https://www.alibris.com/search/books/...

ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

What are you reading for this prompt? Do you have any books you'd recommend?

My current pick is The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, expressly because it's not romance, and I enjoy the rockumentary idea.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "My current pick is The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, expressly because it's not romance, and I enjoy the rockumentary idea."
I am planning to read that one, too. I am not a romance reader and I enjoy books on friendship and music.

It looks so good!

I have several choices:
An Extraordinary Union (The Loyal League #1) - Alyssa Cole
Iron Lake - William Kent Krueger
The Songbook of Benny Lament - Amy Harmon
Edit: I read The Final Revival of Opal & Nev - Dawnie Walton
The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
Horse - Geraldine Brooks
The Seed Keeper - Diane Wilson Audible
Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks


These are my recommendations:
The Keepers of the House - Shirley Ann Grau
Jack - Marilynne Robinson
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood - Trevor Noah

Tomorrow's Bread by Anna Jean Mayhew

I’m reading non-fiction for this one with Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation. I don’t know all the details but it’s about colonial Britain’s unsuccessful attempt, along with South Africa, to prise apart the marriage of the first president of Botswana and his white English wife.

There's an excellent film about this marriage A United Kingdom .

I'm using Knave Of Hearts It features one of my favorite interracial couples.
Lt. Mendoza is Latino and his love interest Alison Weir is Irish.

I'm planning to read Occasion for Loving by Nadine Gordimer

Joy D wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "My current pick is The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, expressly because it's not romance, and I enjoy the rockumentary idea."
I am planning to read that one, t..."

The Songbook of Benny Lament also has a rockumentary vibe - a radio show 1960s. It’s a multiracial band traveling in the Jim Crow south. There is a romance but there is a lot more going on.

I also liked Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens. It’s loosely related to his mystery series. Friendship between two boys.

I might read Horse. It didn’t sound appealing to me, but I’m starting to warm up to the idea.

I’m also interested in
My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.: Our Story. Our Way.
The Sweetness of Water
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow assuming it’s relevant.
Blue Jesus: A Novel

I bought The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett this year so I may get into this.

Other books I may get to for this prompt:
Othello by William Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (was dnf'ed but maybe I get back to it).
To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

I also recommend: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

I am planning to read Black Tudors: The Untold Story, which has both marriages and employment relationships in it.

Earlier this year, I read The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother and liked it.

For next year, I am thinking of reading Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance since I just "found it" again while going through all my boxes of books and cataloging them. Although, I also found The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War too. So who knows.

I'll be reading Watcher in the Woods by Kelley Armstrong. The three main law enforcement characters are different races, and as well as being colleagues there's a romantic relationship and friendships.

I'd recommend Rivers of London, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece and Little Bee. Also The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and Six of Crows work really well for this, even though they're not set in our world.

I recently read All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle. Takes place in England. The protagonist is Black and his wife is White. Very good.

For this prompt, I will likely read The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon, which I already have in my TBR bookcase.

Oh, gee. I can see that my TBR is going to grow from this group! Thanks for sharing your books in a category I seldom read.

I have a history (not really on purpose) of reading exactly one romance novel a year, so I might use this prompt for that purpose. But a ton of the books on the listopia are books that I'm already intending on reading next year (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Book of Form and Emptiness, The Sentence, etc) so maybe I'll need the spot for one of those!

A book that would fit this prompt that you might not realize from the summary is Commonwealth by Ann Patchett — there are multiple interracial marriages in this story. I just finished this one and I loved it.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart is a very strange book that I would not recommend to everyone (though I liked it!), but it is almost entirely about the main character's interracial relationship (which, warning, is not a very healthy relationship at all, so don't pick this one if you're looking for a positive representation of an interracial relationship!)

If you want to read something that specifically deals with the theme of interracial relationships, I'd recommend The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories. The mixed race protagonists of Larsen's stories have both familial and romantic interracial relationships and navigating those relationships is the main conflict of her stories.

The Adventures of China Iron by Argentinian author Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is an exuberant queer retelling of the 1872 epic poem about gaucho Martín Fierro starring his young wife China Iron who runs away across the pampas with redheaded Scottish Liz on a series of adventures. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ here is my review

Three recommendations of books I read in 2022:
From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke, A More Perfect Union by Tammye Huf, and We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza (about two friends).

Books I own & haven't read that I think fit this prompt:
All Her Little Secrets
Does It Hurt?
Everything I Never Told You
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Little Fires Everywhere
The Night Watchman
One of Us Is Lying
The Paragon Hotel
Queenie
Razorblade Tears
Real Life
Sankofa
Such a Fun Age
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Things We Do in the Dark
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Year of the Witching

Let me know if I am incorrect about any of the above as they were collected from other recommendations.

I recommend Crying in H Mart & What's Mine and Yours.

Books I'd recommend:
Wish You Were Here
What If It's Us
They Both Die at the End
Such a Fun Age
The Diviners - **SO GOOD**


Books I Wouldn't recommend:
Naughts & Crosses - Idk this was just disappointing
When Dimple Met Rishi - this was just "meh"

Books I'm considering:
The A.I. Who Loved Me
If I Never Met YouThe Flatshare
These Violent Delights

I was thinking a non-fiction option, like How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby.

Hoping to get my hands on Razorblade Tears this one.

The hold list at the library is LONG -- but I do have Scribd up my sleeve, so while I prefer a "hold it in my hand and turn the paper pages" copy, I can and will go to an ebook if I have to.


The Shaman Sings by James D. Doss
Read ~ 1.22.23
Pages ~ 230
Relevance ~ Daisy Perika (a Ute shaman) and Scott Parris (a caucasian county police chief) work together to solve a murder.


Read ~ 1.25.23
Pages ~ 336
Relevance ~ two fathers, one black one white, work together to solve their sons' murders.

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
Read ~ 1.28.23
Pages ~ 441
Relevance ~ Velvet is a Dominican pre-teen and Ginger is a caucasian woman who fosters her for a summer camp program for disadvantaged youth.

Pat, I've just finished Razorblade Tears and would thoroughly recommend it. (Fortunately, I belong to a Iibrary where the readership tends to be very young or very old, so it was sitting on the shelf). I had Blacktop Wasteland on my TBR for a while, but was put off by reviews mentioning graphic violence. There is violence in this book too, but it is so well-written, leavened with humour, and dealing with social topics while keeping up the pace of a thriller.

There are two main interracial relationships in this book, one, in the background, between Derek, a white man and his black husband, Isiah, and the relationship between their fathers, which drives the story and is beautifully handled.

I finished listening to The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton. I liked it on audio because the story is told by many different people. If you like Daisy Jones & The Six you might like this.

As I am wanting to get on with the ATY plan for this month...and I have completed prompts #1-3...and I am at #3 for a hold on Horse, I have put Pumpkinheads on hold for prompt #4. It is available at my local library, so I might pick it up today. Library will be closed for Sun and Mon due to MLK day.

I read A More Perfect Union and loved it.

I read Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. I didn't realize it had an interracial relationship in it until I started it, so I changed what I was originally going to use it for and slotted it into this prompt. :)

I read Spare and slotted it in here.

I read Razorblade Tears for this one after seeing it so many times on others' lists. I hadn't heard of it before.

It kept me interested and I liked it, but I suspect some of the graphic imagery will stick with me for longer than I'd like, despite my bad memory. Gabrielle Zevin was a good palate cleanser and happened to satisfy the next two weeks' prompts.

I read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I listened to him tell his tale via audiobook. I thought it was great.

Katie wrote: "I read Razorblade Tears for this one after seeing it so many times on others' lists. I hadn't heard of it before.

It kept me interested and I liked it, but I suspect some of the graphic imagery w..."

I am reading it now. It is very graphic.

I read The Sentence

Ojibwe Tookie and Caucasian Flora, who claims to have
Indigenous/Aboriginal heritage have a complicated & interesting relationship.

George Floyd protests and the effect they have on the community are also explored.

I was planning to read an interracial romance but Spare by Prince Harry came up in my library holds so I figured I might as well slot it here.

I used Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the "King and I" Governess - a major influence on her life was the strong friendships she developed with the women and children of the Siamese court.

LeahS wrote: "Pat, I've just finished Razorblade Tears and would thoroughly recommend it. (Fortunately, I belong to a Iibrary where the readership tends to be very young or very old, so it was si..."


I agree. I loved Buddy Lee and the dynamic between him and Ike was terrific.

I read The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. The relationship between Aleisha and Mukesh is so lovely; the age difference makes it even more so.

I read Forward Me Back to You. I thought the relationship between the adopted Indian boy and his white parents might be interesting but ended up being a small part of the book. Overall the characters were diverse so not lacking in interracial relationships. Sometime YA works for me and sometimes it just reads younger and this is a case where it just didn't fully work for me but I did think it was overall pretty good.

I read Long Range by CJ Box. One of the couples in this Western mystery series is an interracial couple.

I'm in the middle of The Last House on the Street for another prompt but it would fit here too.

It was one of the GRC 2022 Award nominees in Historical Fictions.

Part of the story is set in the 60s and tells about the SCOPE project that had white college students canvassing rural areas to educate and encourage African Americans to sign up to vote, once the Voting Rights Act was signed.

Gail W wrote: "I read The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. The relationship between Aleisha and Mukesh is so lovely; the age difference makes it even more so."

They had such a cute friendship.

I read The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

I wasn't sure what I was going to read for this prompt, and then I found out that Chinelo Okparanta has a book that fits. I read her book Under the Udala Trees last year, and it was one of the best books I read last year maybe THE best book, and I read a lot of great books last year. Her new book, Harry Sylvester Bird, is all about a midwestern boy who falls in love with a woman who has immigrated from Nigeria.

Finished Along Came a Spider by James Patterson yesterday, which fits this prompt. Would recommend if you like the thriller/suspense genres.

I’m a newbie here and have not yet decided if I will commit to the whole challenge but this prompt has encouraged me to read Bridge to the Sun: A Memoir of Love and War from 1957 in which in which a young woman from Tennessee marries a Japanese diplomat and after Pearl Harbor decides to go with him and their young daughter when he is expelled to Japan. They face prejudice in both locations. I loved the movie with Carroll Baker and James Shigeta and always wanted to read the book.

Just finished We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. It's about a Black man seeking to "protect" his son from society's ills, even if it means turning him white through demelanization, a futuristic and costly cosmetic procedure.

I don't usually pick out books purely to fit prompts, but Ana recommended The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna, for this prompt and I'm so glad she did! I loved every second of it. It's sweet and warm and shockingly touching. It hit all the notes I really wanted The House in the Cerulean Sea (which didn't work for me) to hit.

In the Country of Others is a historical fiction by Leïla Slimani set in Morocco in the 1940s and 1950s. It is the story of French woman Mathilda who falls in love with the handsome Moroccan soldier Amine during the war and returns to Morocco with him seeking romance and adventure. Here is my review