Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Handpicked recommendations to other books that have a similar writing style or theme to How to Read the Air

How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu

How to Read the Air

by Dinaw Mengestu
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • First Published:
  • Oct 14, 2010, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2011, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Beyond the Book:
  Ethiopian Authors

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full read-alike results are for members only

If you liked How to Read the Air, try these:

  • Savage Feast jacket

    Savage Feast

    by Boris Fishman

    Published Feb 2020

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    The acclaimed author of A Replacement Life shifts between heartbreak and humor in this gorgeously told, recipe-filled memoir. A family story, an immigrant story, a love story, and an epic meal, Savage Feast explores the challenges of navigating two cultures from an unusual angle.

  • A Place for Us jacket

    A Place for Us

    by Fatima Farheen Mirza

    Published Mar 2019

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    The first novel from Sarah Jessica Parker's new imprint, SJP for Hogarth, A Place for Us is a deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity and belonging.

  • Behold the Dreamers jacket

    Behold the Dreamers

    by Imbolo Mbue

    Published Jun 2017

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Oprah Winfrey's Summer 2017 Book Club Pick

    In the vein of Amy Tan and Khaled Hosseini comes a compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream - the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy.

  • A Good American jacket

    A Good American

    by Alex George

    Published Feb 2013

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    An uplifting novel about the families we create and the places we call home.

  • A Bit of Difference jacket

    A Bit of Difference

    by Sefi Atta

    Published Dec 2012

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A new novel from the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa.

  • The Names of Things jacket

    The Names of Things

    by John Colman Wood

    Published Apr 2012

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Set in a windswept wilderness menaced by hyenas and lions, anthropologist John Colman Wood's debut novel is an exquisite, haunting exploration of the meaning of love and the rituals of grief.

  • Super Sad True Love Story jacket

    Super Sad True Love Story

    by Gary Shteyngart

    Published Jul 2010

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A hilarious and heartfelt new novel, a deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink.

  • Cutting For Stone jacket

    Cutting For Stone

    by Abraham Verghese

    Published Jan 2010

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Voted Best Debut Author of 2009 by BookBrowse Subscribers

    An unforgettable journey into one man's remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others set in 1960s & 1970s Ethiopia and 1980s America.

  • A Free Life jacket

    A Free Life

    by Ha Jin

    Published Jan 2009

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    A moving, realistic, but always hopeful narrative novel of the Wu family - father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao - as they fully sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and begin a new, free life in the United States.

  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao jacket

    The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

    by Junot Diaz

    Published Sep 2008

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ - the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations.

  • The Reluctant Fundamentalist jacket

    The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    by Mohsin Hamid

    Published Apr 2008

    More about this book

    Read Reviews

    Changez is at the top of his class at Princeton, and is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica ...

Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
How we choose read-alikes

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    A Pair of Aces
    by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
    Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.
  • Book Jacket
    When No One Else Will
    by Amanda Skenandore
    1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
  • Book Jacket
    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
Who Said...

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.