Theme-Based Reading Guide

The Narrative Library is home to thousands of stories, poems, and essays that speak to the issues of our time—for all time. Here you will find curated reading lists that address specific relevant themes. These lists serve as a starting place; they are only a small sample of works in the Narrative Library.

“Lease Hound” by Rick Bass

“A Taste for Lionfish” by Megan Mayhew Bergman

“You Don’t Miss Your Water (’Til the Well Runs Dry)” by T. C. Boyle

“The Saturday Morning Institute of Human Survival” by Carol Dines

“Flash Flood” by Tina Nettesheim

“2 B R 0 2 B” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“Saving Planet Earth” by Bill Barich

“Oil” by Rick Bass

“Letter to a Young Writer” by T. C. Boyle

“Drinking and Driving” by William Kittridge

“The Comfort of Crows” by Margaret Renkl

“Back in 1990 No One Objected When My Students Hung Earth Day Posters All Over Braselton, Georgia” by Tara Bray

“The Idea of Antarctica” by Kōan Brink

“Daydreaming” by DeeSoul Carson

“Own Weather” by Julian Gewirtz

“Another Pastoral” by J. P. Grasser

“Red Tide” by Amanda Maret Scharf

“Birdsong” by Chase Twichell

“A Small Blip on an Eternal Timeline” by Ifeoma Sesiana Amobi

“American Mother” by Sarah Balakrishnan

“The End of Life” by Yoon Choi

“Cerromar” by Kevin A. González

“Krassavitseh” by David Guterson

“Ash Heap of History: June 9, 1982” by Mikhail Iossel

“Asiana” by Wen Jing

“The Applicant” by Nazlı Koca

“Free Food for Millionaires” by Min Jin Lee

“Neighborly Favors” by Ilana Sichel

“The Rickshaw Wallah” by Jeannie Tseng

“The Departure” by Monique Clesca

“Cuban Portraits” by Dahlma Llanos Figueroa

“The Border, the Border” by William Fleeson

“A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route” by Saidiya Hartman

“When You Can No Longer Talk about It, You Have to Sing” by Irene Keliher

“The Oil Sheikh” by Ned Parker

“Light and Shadow” by Ann Tashi Slater

“Quieter Than Water, Lower Than Grass: Growing Up Afraid in Russia” by Olga Zilberbourg

“Across the Sea: A Sequence” by Gbenga Adesina

“Do You Speak Persian?” by Kaveh Akbar

“Bedtime Stories” by Yasmine Ameli

“Homeland” by Mehul Bhagat

“It Might Be a Hurricane Year” by Bernard Ferguson

“Migrant” by Kéchi Nne Nomu

“Prayer before Turning on the News” by Hila Ratzabi

“Caremlita/Michael” by Michael A. Reyes

“Day of the Refugios” by Alberto Álvaro Ríos

“The Ninth Dream: War (in the City in Which I Live)” by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“A Separate Set of Signs” by Jenny M. Xie

“Nocturne” by Javier Zamora

“The Widows of Whitechapel” by Amy Sayre Baptista

“The Red Dress” by Emma Brankin

“Devil’s Child” by Farnaz Fassihi

“The Russian Tank Commander, the Capitalist, and the Cover Girl” by Josh Haven

“Naked in the River” by Julie Hébert

“Wild Snow” by Jacqueline Jones LaMon

“Sequestered” by Tina Nettesheim

“Suspicious Minds” by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

“The Bedwarmer” by Nathan Poole

“Maud’s Crusade” by Robert Stone

“The Rickshaw Wallah” by Jeannie Tseng

“The Dishwashing Women” by Tryphena L. Yeboah

“Thirst” by Taymiya R. Zaman

“East Toledo, Ohio” by Mermer Blakeslee

“The Measure of All Things?” by Hal Crowther

“A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route” by Saidiya Hartman

“Tina Turner and My Father” by Deborah Paredez

“The Story of Sojourner Truth” by Bridget Quinn

“Landscapes with Lester” by Abe Louise Young

“Why Are You Afraid?” by Yasmine Ameli

“Barbie Chang’s Daughter Asks” by Victoria Chang

“By Land” by Tyree Daye

“America’s First Female Muslim Judge Found Floating in a River” by Isabella DeSendi

“Worksong,” by J. P. Grasser

“America” by Claude McKay

“July, 2008” by Karisma Price

“America, I Do Not Call Your Name Without Hope” by Dean Rader

“Hard Blessing” by Javier Sandoval

“Hysterical Strength” by Nicole Sealey

“Am I Supposed to Know the Difference between Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry? I Don’t.” by Diane Seuss

“Communication” by Soren Stockman

“Prayer on the Subdivision” by Marcus Wicker

“A Local Habitation and a Name” by Richard Bausch

“Dirty Butter” by Amy Bloom

“Talinda” by Chaya Bhuvaneswar

“Nana” by Ben Fergusson

“Kiss” by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy

“Sledding” by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy

“Annie” by Katie Knoll

“Fruit Flies” by Meagan Macvie

“What You Get” by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“Columbia Livia” by Lorain Urban

“Arrangement” by Douglas Wood

“Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel

“Revisiting” by Sylvia Brownrigg

“Our Weapons” by Maggie Panko

“Ode to Repetition” by Ellen Bass

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry” by Chen Chen

“Seroconversion” by Danez Smith

“Sin” by Ruth Stone

“No One Knows the Way to Heaven” by Ocean Vuong

“Waterline” by Ocean Vuong

“Women from Mars” by Wesley Brown

“Badger Mountain” by Ryan Cannon

“Kartika” by Neha Chaudhary-Kamdar

“The End of Life” by Yoon Choi

“Slope” by Michael Croley

“Lagos” by Bridgett M. Davis

“Sambo, or: The Last of the Gibson Girls” by Rita Dove

“Rise the Euphrates” by Carol Edgarian

“The New Arrival” by Adrianne Harun

“A River of Stars” by Vaness Hua

“Suburbia” by Nafari Morris

“Someone Else Besides You” by Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Neighborly Favors” by Ilana Sichel

“Bastard-Girl” by Arshia Simkin

“The Dishwashing Women” by Trypehna L. Yeboah

“Letter to a Young Writer” by Richard Bausch

“That Ain’t Jazz” by David Bradley

“A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route” by Saidiya Hartman

“Takes Enemy” by Shann Ray

“But I Digress . . .” by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

“How to Be a Real Indian” by Kenzie Allen

“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown

“Barbie Chang’s Daughter Asks” by Victoria Chang

“Muslim Girlhood” by Leila Chatti

“Tradition” by Ebony Chinn

“won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton

“America’s First Female Muslim Judge Found Floating in a River” by Isabella DeSendi

“If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World” by Natalie Diaz

“I Search for Koreatown” by Megan Kim

“Stereolab” by Edward Salem

“If America Doesn’t Want You Dead” by Danez Smith

“Cul-de-Sac” by Dujie Tahat

“All That Floats” by Nishant Batsha

“Shallow Sea” by Heather Brittain Bergstrom

“Shuttle Diplomacy” by Peter Bradbury

“Smoke Jumpers” by Gregory Brown

“Straight Home” by Janet Burroway

“Invasion, Day 3” by Stephanie Cotsirilos

“Emily” by E. L. Doctorow

“The Spectators” by Jennifer duBois

“Crows, 1950” by Heinz Insu Fenkl

“Bangana” by CJ Hauser

“A Husband and Father” by Maria Hummel

“What We Left Behind” by Mũthoni Kiarie

“Chechnya” by Anthony Marra

“The Winter Soldier” by Daniel Mason

“Hands No Longer Mine” by Susan Minot

“Language Immersion Seoul” by Jayne Anne Phillips

“The Garden of Israel Will Never Sleep” by Sandra Sidi

“Another Christmas” by William Trevor

“Ghost Apples” by Jacob Wrich

“Soldier’s Joy” by Tobias Wolff

“Where Is My Boy?” by Aggie Zivaljevic

“Operation Iraqi Freedom” by Jason Arment

“Why I Was in Vietnam” by John Balaban

“If I Owned a Gun” by Andre Dubus III

“The Great Floating Pig Barn on the Mekong” by Scott Ezell

“Budapest 1984” by Marcella Hunyadi

“Jerusalem According to Cats” by Josip Novakovich

“On to Baghdad” by Ned Parker

“Say Something about Child’s Play” by Chris Abani

“Across the Sea: A Sequence” by Gbenga Adesina

“Bedtime Stories” by Yasmine Ameli

“Pale Blue Vein” by Ellen Bass

“Homeland” by Mehul Bhagat

“Rounds” by Rhoni Blankenhorn

“Camphor” by Julia Cariño

“Dear Jesse Helms” by Lucille Clifton

“& the War Was in Its Infancy Then” by Maurice Emerson Decaul

“The Stormtroopers of My Country” by Tishani Doshi

“Polio” by Richard Jones

“Bosnia Bosnia” by June Jordan

“English” by Yusef Komunyakaa

“A New National Anthem” by Ada Limón

“Under the Mango Tree” by Romeo Oriogun

“All My Friends Are Sad & Bright” by Cam Awkward-Rich

“New Cold War” by Grace H. Zhou