Books like Drown by Junot Díaz

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece examines the glittering yet hollow glamour of the Roaring Twenties as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby pursues love, wealth, and identity across the social divide.

A Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens’ allegorical novella about Ebenezer Scrooge, whose miserly ways are transformed through visits from Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

Edith Grossman's acclaimed English translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic "Don Quixote" brings the famed knight-errant and his loyal squire Sancho Panza to life in 16th‑century Spain.

A collection of nine short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri that follows Indian and Indian‑American characters navigating identity, displacement, and complex relationships.

Sandra Cisneros’ celebrated coming‑of‑age tale follows Esperanza Cordero as she grows up in Chicago’s Mexican-American community, exploring identity through poetic vignettes.

J.D. Salinger's debut collection of short stories, offering early explorations of American life and human psychology.

A collection of short stories by George Saunders, featuring unforgettable characters and Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.

180 p. ; 21 cm.1010L Lexile

The Woman Warrior is Maxine Hong Kingston’s lyrical memoir of her Chinese‑American upbringing in California, juxtaposing her mother’s folk tales of fierce women with the everyday sexism she faces.

Esmeralda Santiago recounts her upbringing in rural Puerto Rico and her family's migration to New York, capturing the cultural clash and her personal growth from barrio life to academic success.

In NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel, Darling and her friends in the small Zimbabwean town of Paradise smile for strangers while navigating theft, charity gifts, and pop‑culture dreams of America and Britain.

A Dominican‑American teenager in New Jersey struggles with weight, family history, and an unbreakable love, while his dream of becoming a writer clashes with a centuries‑old curse that haunts his lineage.

Alice Munro turns a quiet, long‑term marriage into a study of memory and love, following retired professor Grant as his wife Fiona gradually loses her memories and the couple confronts the fragile bonds that held them together.

A 1950 Random House collection of 42 short stories by William Faulkner, supervised by the author himself, that captures Southern social life and class conflicts and earned the 1951 National Book Award for Fiction.

A collection of ten short stories that illuminate the daily struggles and powerful aspirations of ordinary Haitians under Duvalier’s regime.

No one can understand the helplessness of living out a life-or-death moment in slow motion. Sometimes you just have to drown...so you can live. A family picnic at a Southern California beach ends with a near-drowning, transforming a man caught in the clash between two disparate cultures-his own and the one to which he aspires. As his future hangs in the balance, he is forced to choose between them. Emigrating to the United States from Aleppo, Syria, young Christofir yearns to assimilate into American culture. But his estranged family has more self-serving strategies in mind, and when he meets Ani, the woman with whom he falls in love and intends to marry, they use every devious plot in their playbook to sabotage his plans. By 2020-2022, when the COVID pandemic takes hold of humanity, systematically changing the world as we know it, God starts revealing His plans for Christofir and His loved ones, clarifying the chaos and confusion and confronting him with His greatest challenge.

A curated set of thirteen William Faulkner short stories from 1930 to 1955, illustrating his experimental prose, nonlinear narratives and Southern themes of class conflict and tradition.

A short story by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, presented alongside photographs that illustrate its tale.