What Strange Paradise
By: Omar El Akkad
4.05
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilap…
Want to Read $ 12.99"Today you are the only boy in the world and tomorrow it will be as though you never existed."-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"And what do you think the prerequisite for kindness is? Have you ever tried to be kind to someone better off than you?"-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"Farther out, the water sheds its sandy complexion and turns a turquoise of such clarity that the tourists’ sailboats seem to float atop their own shadows."-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"Because that's how we take the future from them," Walid said, animated now. "Look at Stockholm, look at Munich, look at New York-- who's picking up the garbage, cleaning the toilets? Who's doing the work? Us. Who's doing the living? Them. But in ten, twenty years, we'll be the ones running the computers, the machines, the *infrastructure*, and they'll have nothing left but poems and stories." "So they'll still do all the living," Maher replied, "and we'll still do all the work."-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
If you liked the fiction plot in What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad , here is a list of 17 books like this:
1. Scarborough
By: Catherine Hernandez
4.19
Format: 208 pages,
Scarborough is a low-income, culturally diverse neighborhood east of Toronto, the fourth largest ci… read more
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2. The Break
By: Katherena Vermette
4.36
Format: 39 pages, Paperback
2016 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize finalist When Stella, a young Metis mother, looks out her … read more
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3. Moon of the Turning Leaves (Moon, #2)
By: Waubgeshig Rice
4.28
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
In this gripping sequel to the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow , a br… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Turning Leaves (Moon, #2) book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- fiction
- canada
- audiobook
4. Washington Black
By: Esi Edugyan
3.95
Format: 334 pages, Hardcover
Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar … read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- novels
- audiobook
"You cannot know the true nature of another's suffering." "No. But you can try your damnedest not to worsen it."-Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
"I do not much care for childhood. It is a astate of terrible vulnerability, and is therefore unnatural and incomaptivle with human life."-Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
"...a good parent is as rare as snow in summer, I am afraid. Well." He smiled sadly. "It is possible I have some prejudices in this respect."-Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
"But then, gradually, miraculously, things began to clear between us. We were able to speak as we'd once done, with great love and little calculation."-Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
5. Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
By: Sarah Polley
4.32
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and actor Sarah Polley's Run Towards the Danger explores me… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Sarah Polley's Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- canada
- audiobook
"His love was all around the edges, but sometimes it was hard for both of us to see, I think."-Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
"The past was affecting how I moved through the world, while present life was affecting how the past moved through me."-Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
"The past and present, I have come to realize, are in constant dialogue, acting upon one another in a kind of reciprocal pressure dance."-Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
"It can seem perplexing from the outside, this pull that many women experience to make things better for those who have hurt us. The impulse to smooth things over the keep ourselves safe..."-Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
6. The Son of the House
By: Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
4.11
Format: 288 pages, Paperback
SHORTLISTED for the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2021 • FINALIST for the Nigeria Prize for Literature 20… read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- audiobook
7. Fight Night
By: Miriam Toews
4.04
Format: 255 pages, Hardcover
The beloved author of bestsellers Women Talking, A Complicated Kindness, and All My Puny Sorrows r… read more
Want to Read $ 7.89Similar categories in Miriam Toews's Fight Night book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- audiobook
"She (mom) yelled from upstairs, Those are books that help me to live! Those books are my life! Get down here! I yelled back. I'm your goddamn life!"-Miriam Toews, Fight Night
8. Shut Up You're Pretty
By: Téa Mutonji
3.57
Format: 135 pages, Paperback
In Téa Mutonji's disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions du… read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
"Her sadness was overwhelming. Her sadness was an illusion. She'd pretend to be fine but then wash the same dish for twenty minutes"-Téa Mutonji, Shut Up You're Pretty
9. What Strange Paradise
By: Omar El Akkad
4.05
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilap… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- canada
- literature
- politics
- social justice
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- audiobook
"Today you are the only boy in the world and tomorrow it will be as though you never existed."-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"And what do you think the prerequisite for kindness is? Have you ever tried to be kind to someone better off than you?"-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"Farther out, the water sheds its sandy complexion and turns a turquoise of such clarity that the tourists’ sailboats seem to float atop their own shadows."-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
"Because that's how we take the future from them," Walid said, animated now. "Look at Stockholm, look at Munich, look at New York-- who's picking up the garbage, cleaning the toilets? Who's doing the …"-Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise
10. Greenwood
By: Michael Christie
4.33
Format: 528 pages, Hardcover
It's 2034 and Jake Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting u… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Michael Christie's Greenwood book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
"There is nothing more quieting than an ancient tree"-Michael Christie, Greenwood
"Do you know what becomes of men like us without the armour of wealth...?"-Michael Christie, Greenwood
"Maybe trees do have souls. Which makes wood a kind of flesh. And perhaps instruments of wooden construction sound so pleasing to our ears for this reason: the choral shimmer of a guitar; the heartbea…"-Michael Christie, Greenwood
"Still, Temple has no illusions concerning her library's impact. Her books won't lift anyone from their low station. They won't right wrongs or save wandering souls from perdition or fill grumbling st…"-Michael Christie, Greenwood
11. Five Little Indians
By: Michelle Good
4.48
Format: 304 pages, ebook
Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential sch… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Michelle Good's Five Little Indians book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
12. The Future
By: Catherine Leroux
3.32
Format: 288 pages, Paperback
In an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own k… read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- literature
- fiction
- audiobook
"It'll come back," Ulysses says again. "This place isn't made for disappearing, it's a place for resurrection."-Catherine Leroux, The Future
"The exact opposite of the huge car factories she imagines as the city's womb, a uterus that makes automobiles the way others make promises, or laws."-Catherine Leroux, The Future
13. Hotline
By: Dimitri Nasrallah
4.15
Format: 280 pages, Paperback
A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman’s struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration… read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
"Here i am on my own, because of him, maybe free from a life that was turning into a prison, but cast away like a bad-luck omen too. Now I must give myself to others to survive. The world has judged t…"-Dimitri Nasrallah, Hotline
14. The Sleeping Car Porter
By: Suzette Mayr
3.46
Format: 216 pages, Paperback
When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the p… read more
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- literary fiction
- fiction
- canada
- audiobook
"Desperate feelings can swivel into loathing."-Suzette Mayr, The Sleeping Car Porter
15. Bad Cree
By: Jessica Johns
3.92
Format: 259 pages, Hardcover
In this gripping debut tinged with supernatural horror, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a p… read more
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- fiction
- canada
- audiobook
"On cloudless days I swear the prairies are closer to the sun than anywhere else in the world. Not because of the heat. It's the size of the floating orb when nothing else is around it. Beating like a…"-Jessica Johns, Bad Cree
16. Denison Avenue
By: Christina Wong
4.17
Format: 328 pages, Paperback
A moving story told in visual art and fiction about gentrification, aging in place, grief, and vuln… read more
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- adult fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
17. The Strangers
By: Katherena Vermette
4.10
Format: 336 pages, None
From the bestselling author of The Break comes a staggering intergenerational saga that explores ho… read more
Want to Read $ 9.99Similar categories in Katherena Vermette's The Strangers book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
"Summer was always the worst season. Everyone always complained about winter, but winter was simple, you just didn't go outside. Summer always tried to sneak in where it was not wanted."-Katherena Vermette, The Strangers
18. The Story of Us
By: Catherine Hernandez
4.19
Format: 304 pages, Kindle Edition
From the author of Canada Reads finalist Scarborough, a stunning new novel about the unbreakable bo… read more
Want to Read $ 9.15Similar categories in Catherine Hernandez's The Story of Us book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
19. The Circle
By: Katherena Vermette
4.05
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
From the award-winning and #1 bestselling author of The Break and The Strangers comes a poignant an… read more
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- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- canada
- fiction
- contemporary
- audiobook
20. All the Quiet Places
By: Brian Thomas Isaac
3.85
Format: 288 pages, Kindle Edition
Brian Isaac's powerful debut novel All the Quiet Places is the coming-of-age story of Eddie Toma, a… read more
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- literary fiction
- canada
- social justice
- fiction
- audiobook
21. Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing
By: Clayton Thomas-Muller
3.65
Format: 200 pages, Paperback
For much of his life, Clayton Thomas-Muller's very existence has been scrutinized and vilified. As … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Clayton Thomas-Muller's Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing book and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise
- social justice
- canada
- audiobook
