8 must-read race books like Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng

Cover of Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng

Ornamentalism

By: Anne Anlin Cheng

4.25

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

Ornamentalism offers one of the first sustained and original theories of Asiatic femininity. Examin…

"We know by now that Asiatic femininity in the Western racial imagination has never needed the biological or the natural to achieve a full, sensorial, agile, and vivid presence. Asiatic femininity has always been prosthetic. The dream of the yellow woman subsumes a dream about the inorganic. She is an, if not the, original cyborg."

-Anne Anlin Cheng, Ornamentalism

If you liked the race plot in Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng , here is a list of 8 books like this:

Cover of Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

1. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

By: Toni Morrison

4.32

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved and Jazz now gives us a learned, stylish, and immensel… read more

Similar categories in Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • theory
  • feminism
  • race
  • nonfiction
"What solicited my attention was whether the cultural associations of jazz were as important to Cardinal’s “possession"

-Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

"...Being simply illustrations, of how each of us reads, becomes engaged in and watches what is being read all at the same time."

-Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

"Der Afrikanismus ist das Vehikel, durch das sich das amerikanische Ich als nicht versklavt, sondern frei erfährt, als nicht abstoßend, sondern begehrenswert, nicht hilflos, sondern priviligiert und m…"

-Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

Cover of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson, Stesichorus

2. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

By: Anne Carson , Stesichorus

4.27

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that … read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"Under the seams runs the pain."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"There is no person without a world."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Don't want to be free want to be with you."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

Cover of The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

3. The Sympathizer

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen

3.83

Format: 28 pages, Hardcover

The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as five other awards, The Sympathizeris … read more

Similar categories in Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • asia
Cover of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Serge L. Levitsky

4. Das Kapital

By: Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Serge L. Levitsky

4.22

Format: None pages, Paperback

Das Kapital, Karl Marx's seminal work, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth centu… read more

Similar categories in Karl Marx's Das Kapital book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • theory
  • philosophy
  • politics
  • nonfiction
Cover of Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

5. Notes of a Native Son

By: James Baldwin

4.08

Format: 288 pages, Paperback

A new edition published on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Baldwin's death, including a new introdu… read more

Similar categories in James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • politics
  • race
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

6. The Argonauts

By: Maggie Nelson

3.91

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Ma… read more

Similar categories in Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • feminism
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

7. The Fire Next Time

By: James Baldwin

3.54

Format: None pages, Paperback

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Timegalvanized the nation and g… read more

Similar categories in James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • politics
  • race
  • nonfiction

8. Communion: The Female Search for Love

By: bell hooks

3.50

Format: None pages, Paperback

Renowned visionary and theorist bell hooks began her exploration of the meaning of love in American… read more

Similar categories in bell hooks's Communion: The Female Search for Love book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

9. Sula

By: Toni Morrison

3.97

Format: None pages,

This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from their close-knit childhood i… read more

Similar categories in Toni Morrison's Sula book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

10. Nervous Conditions

By: Tsitsi Dangarembga

4.54

Format: 253 pages,

A modern classic in the African literary canon and voted in the Top Ten Africa's 100 Best Books of … read more

Similar categories in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

11. Dictee

By: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

4.57

Format: None pages, Paperback

Dictee is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyu… read more

Similar categories in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

Cover of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Denys Johnson-Davies

12. Season of Migration to the North

By: Tayeb Salih , Denys Johnson-Davies

3.72

Format: 176 pages, Paperback

After years of study in Europe, the young narrator of Season of Migration to the North returns to h… read more

Similar categories in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"شفق المغيب ليس دماً ، ولكنه حناء في قدم المرأة"

-Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

"لا يعنيني أن كان للحياة معنى أو لم يكن لها معنى."

-Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

"You are entitled to wonder and to doubt - you're free."

-Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

"أشباح الليل تتبخر مع الفجر ، وحمى النهار تبرد مع نسيم الليل"

-Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North

13. Night Sky with Exit Wounds

By: Ocean Vuong

4.00

Format: 258 pages, Paperback

Ocean Vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"--and very human--s… read more

Similar categories in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

Cover of Bliss Montage by Ling  Ma

14. Bliss Montage

By: Ling Ma

3.91

Format: 228 pages, Hardcover

A new creation by the author of Severance, the stories in Bliss Montage crash through our carefully… read more

Similar categories in Ling Ma's Bliss Montage book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"To live is to exist within time. To remember is to negate time."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"It doesn't take much to come into your own; all it takes is someone's gaze."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"Maybe you don't know that you're wounded until you receive the salve. The salve that makes everything come back."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"It was a time when the future could have been anything, been anywhere. It was so open that it could actually crush her."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

Cover of Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

15. Disorientation

By: Elaine Hsieh Chou

3.84

Format: 403 pages, Hardcover

A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a… read more

Similar categories in Elaine Hsieh Chou's Disorientation book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"Never apologize, Ingrid. Especially not when it concerns a man."

-Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

"She'd be split apart, never certain if the submissive and docile figure in the mirror was a reflection of who she really was, or the ghostly effect of someone telling her her entire life: this is who…"

-Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

"For once in her life, she wanted to be selfishly and deliciously lazy. To embody the most abhorred word of her generation: unproductive. She, yes she, wanted to be the person who walks away as a car …"

-Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

"Though it was a little shabby and could do with more frequent dusting, sudents flocked to the café for the worn-in armchairs and couches, free wi-fi and cheap coffee. Ingrid particularly liked the to…"

-Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

Cover of The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn

16. The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

By: Olga Ravn

3.67

Format: 136 pages, Paperback

A workplace novel of the 22nd century The near-distant future. Millions of kilometres from Earth… read more

Similar categories in Olga Ravn's The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"This is not a human, but a coworker."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Cada ação encerra em si um elemento de caos."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Tudo precisa atravessar enormes distâncias para se tornar o que é."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Eu também tenho em mim palavras apagadas que deveria ter dito e já não sei mais o que significam."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

Cover of A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

17. A Living Remedy: A Memoir

By: Nicole Chung

4.01

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

A searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptiv… read more

Similar categories in Nicole Chung's A Living Remedy: A Memoir book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • race
  • nonfiction
"How do you learn to cherish yourself, your life, when grief has made it unrecognizable? I am starting to feel that we do so not by trying to fill a void that can never be filled but by living as best…"

-Nicole Chung, A Living Remedy: A Memoir

Cover of Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

18. Cursed Bunny

By: Bora Chung

3.78

Format: 251 pages, Paperback

Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring t… read more

Similar categories in Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"Her husband had pursued an “alternative lifestyle"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"One can break the curse, but it is impossible to cure their blindness from greed. They were always ready to wage another war"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"But there I remained, standing in the bathroom, waiting for someone to miraculously find me, to release me from my ties to this life."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"Once you experience a terrible trauma and understand the world from an extreme perspective, it is difficult to overcome this perspective. Because your very survival depends on it."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

Cover of Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

19. Untethered Sky

By: Fonda Lee

3.90

Format: 150 pages, Hardcover

From World Fantasy Award-winning author Fonda Lee comes Untethered Sky, an epic fantasy fable about… read more

Similar categories in Fonda Lee's Untethered Sky book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"People have short memories, but nature is patient and implacable."

-Fonda Lee, Untethered Sky

"When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged."

-Fonda Lee, Untethered Sky

"I know this as much as God knows every creature, because I once thought there was no reason for me to be alive, no logic to survival, no meaning to be found past endurance of loss, yet there was."

-Fonda Lee, Untethered Sky

Cover of The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han

20. The Agony of Eros

By: Byung-Chul Han

3.93

Format: 76 pages, Kindle Edition

An argument that love requires the courage to accept self-negation for the sake of discovering the … read more

Similar categories in Byung-Chul Han's The Agony of Eros book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • theory
  • philosophy
  • politics
  • nonfiction
"Philosophy is the translation of the Eros into Logos"

-Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros

"Such crises make it plain that capitalism - counter to widespread belief - is not a religion. Every religion operates with both debt (guilt) and relief (pardon). But capitalism only works with debt a…"

-Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros

Cover of Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

21. Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

By: Jessica Fern

4.40

Format: 268 pages, Paperback

Attachment theory has entered the mainstream, but most discussions focus on how we can cultivate se… read more

Similar categories in Jessica Fern's Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • nonfiction
"A child with a secure attachment style will likely grow up into an adult who feels worthy of love and seeks to create meaningful, healthy relationships with people who are physically and emotionally …"

-Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

"Commitment can be expressed in many ways. Traditionally it is solidified through marriage, owning property, having kids or wearing certain types of jewelry, but legal, domestic, or ornamental underta…"

-Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

"When someone with a dismissive style starts to work on healing their insecure attachment, they must begin by no longer dismissing and distancing from themselves. This requires that they no longer den…"

-Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

"Approximately 15 to 20 percent of the population has a nervous system wired to be more sensitive. These people are more attuned to the subtleties of their environment and process that information muc…"

-Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Cover of The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

22. The Fox Wife

By: Yangsze Choo

4.01

Format: 390 pages, Hardcover

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, or life force, bu… read more

Similar categories in Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"Chinese traditionally consider shadows part of the soul. Harm done to a shadow, whether by pinning it to the ground or stepping on it, was considered spiritual damage to the person. Of course none of…"

-Yangsze Choo, The Fox Wife

"Sometimes our wishes come back in the darkest, most twisted ways, like a thorn that pierces and grows through your flesh. A tree that drinks blood and blots out the sun. The sin was mine; I had water…"

-Yangsze Choo, The Fox Wife

Cover of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

23. Minor Detail

By: Adania Shibli

4.20

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn a… read more

Similar categories in Adania Shibli's Minor Detail book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

"Man, not the tank, shall prevail."

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Não há como descartar a probabilidade de uma conexão entre os dois fatos, ou alguma ligação oculta entre eles, por analogia às relações que os seres humanos encontram entre as plantas, por exemplo, q…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Desde que tive ciência da minha incapacidade consumada de me mover de acordo com os limites, resolvi, finalmente, permanecer dentro dos limites da minha casa, tanto quanto possível. Agora, uma vez qu…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Toch zijn er mensen die in die logica − dus dat je je concentreert op de meest futiele details zoals stof op een bureau of vliegenpoepjes op een schilderij − de enige manier zien om de waarheid te do…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

Cover of Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

24. Afterparties

By: Anthony Veasna So

3.95

Format: 272 pages, ebook

Seamlessly transitioning between the absurd and the tenderhearted, balancing acerbic humor with sha… read more

Similar categories in Anthony Veasna So's Afterparties book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • race
"Fuck everyone else, I want to say, for burdening the two of us with all their baggage. Let's go back to minding our own business, anything but this. Who cares about our family? What have they ever do…"

-Anthony Veasna So, Afterparties

"Seeing a sloppy wet penis enter a sloppy wet vagina, from above, going in and out with the practiced tempo of professionals, strikes me as yet another drama for the ages I am meant only to witness, r…"

-Anthony Veasna So, Afterparties

"The dream unfolds: Somaly and I are sitting at a dinner table. She wears a white sampot covered in jewels perfectly matching her necklace. She’s almost akin to an apsara in a painting—aggressively el…"

-Anthony Veasna So, Afterparties

"We drove through a few more neighborhoods after that, searching for the lost truck, listening to a CD of old Khmer songs, the same CD that had been stuck in the stereo since the Honda had belonged to…"

-Anthony Veasna So, Afterparties

Cover of Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

25. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

By: Cathy Park Hong

4.21

Format: 209 pages, Hardcover

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the trut… read more

Similar categories in Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • race
  • nonfiction
"When I hear the phrase “Asians are next in line to be white,"

-Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

"The avant-garde genealogy could be tracked through stories of bad-boy white artists who “got away with it,"

-Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

"the curse of anyone nonwhite is that you are so busy arguing what you're not that you never arrive at what you are."

-Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

"Hollywood is still so racist against Asians that when there’s a rare Asian extra in a film, I tense up for the chinky joke and relax when there isn’t one."

-Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

Cover of The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

26. The Book of Delights: Essays

By: Ross Gay

4.16

Format: 274 pages, Hardcover

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays—some as short as a paragraph; som… read more

Similar categories in Ross Gay's The Book of Delights: Essays book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • race
  • nonfiction
"The more stuff you love the happier you will be."

-Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

"...which is simply called sharing what we love, what we find beautiful, which is an ethics."

-Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

"Is sorrow the true wild? And if it is—and if we join them—your wild to mine—what’s that? For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying. I’m saying: What if th…"

-Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

"...in witnessing someone's being touched, we are also witnessing someone's being moved, the absence of which in ourselves is a sorrow, and a sacrifice. And witnessing the absence of movement in ourse…"

-Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

Cover of Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

27. Diary of a Void

By: Emi Yagi

3.51

Format: 213 pages, Hardcover

A prizewinning, thrillingly subversive debut novel about a woman in Japan who avoids harassment at … read more

Similar categories in Emi Yagi's Diary of a Void book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • feminism
  • asia
"Having a baby isn't easy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's been two thousand years, and it's the same old story, right?"

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"I'm always so alone. I guess I should be used to it by now. That's the way it is from the moment we come into this world, but I'm still not used to it - how alone we all are."

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"Maybe that's making a family is all about: creating an environment in which people make space for one another - maybe without even trying, just naturally, to make sure that nobody's forgotten."

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"Until they arrived, while everyone else was transitioning to winter, putting on coats and sweaters, I was going to stick with my summer dress and my usual work blazer. Dressed in the dazzling flowers…"

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

Cover of Rental Person Who Does Nothing by Shoji Morimoto

28. Rental Person Who Does Nothing

By: Shoji Morimoto

3.34

Format: 160 pages, ebook

Need a rental person who does nothing? Shoji Morimoto provides a fascinating service to the lone… read more

Similar categories in Shoji Morimoto's Rental Person Who Does Nothing book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • asia
  • nonfiction
"– that people have a value even if they do nothing."

-Shoji Morimoto, Rental Person Who Does Nothing

"I felt comfortable in a community that existed just for the moment, with simple, temporary relationships uncomplicated by past or future."

-Shoji Morimoto, Rental Person Who Does Nothing

Cover of Bad Fruit by Ella   King

29. Bad Fruit

By: Ella King

3.76

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Celeste Ng, Bad Fruit is an unforgettable portrayal of a toxic moth… read more

Similar categories in Ella King's Bad Fruit book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

Cover of Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho

30. Fiona and Jane

By: Jean Chen Ho

3.31

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A witty, warm, and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as t… read more

Similar categories in Jean Chen Ho's Fiona and Jane book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

Cover of Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng

31. Ornamentalism

By: Anne Anlin Cheng

4.25

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

Ornamentalism offers one of the first sustained and original theories of Asiatic femininity. Examin… read more

Similar categories in Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism book and Anne Anlin Cheng's Ornamentalism

  • art
  • race
  • theory
  • feminism
  • politics
  • gender
  • asia
  • academic
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
"We know by now that Asiatic femininity in the Western racial imagination has never needed the biological or the natural to achieve a full, sensorial, agile, and vivid presence. Asiatic femininity has…"

-Anne Anlin Cheng, Ornamentalism

5 Best politics books like Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng

Transform Your Habits

Das Kapital

Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Serge L. Levitsky

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Notes of a Native Son

James Baldwin

4.08

Transform Your Habits

The Fire Next Time

James Baldwin

3.54

Transform Your Habits

The Agony of Eros

Byung-Chul Han

3.93

View all the books

5 best-selling audiobook books like Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

Transform Your Habits

More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

Tatiana Gill , Franklin Veaux , Eve Rickert , None

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

Emily Nagoski

4.29

Transform Your Habits

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Jessica Fern

4.40

Transform Your Habits

Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections

Emily Nagoski

4.14

View all the books

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