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I think many of us continue to work on diversifying our reading. This is a great way to expand out and try new authors and cultures.

I personally love this prompt, there are so many great authors and people out there with stories to tell. stories from perspectives others will never see from

Black authors:
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
As Brave As You by Jason Reynolds
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
The Boy Who Carried Bricks: A True Story by Alton Carter
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition by William Kamkwamba
A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home by Steve Pemberton
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee
The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
North for Sun by Maria Deaconu-Baylon
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare by Gabourey Sidibe

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

I really hated this prompt and I still do. It is *this* close from being a real dealbreaker! I DON'T want to think of humanity as a discontinuous collection of ethnic group. The fact is, humanity is one single specie and any subgrouping is more cultural than anything else. Plus, I don't really know what my ethnicity is, and I'M NOT INTERESTED.

What does qualify as an ethnicity anyway? I mean, let's not fool ourselves: this prompt is written from a white American point of view and what it means is, anyone who is not "caucasian", as the current (and in my opinion ridiculous) appellation goes.

But how does this apply to societies that are less racially divided? Does this mean we should label the authors we read by ethnic group (and we all know that's a periphrase for "race")? Shall I use one shelf for black authors, another for white authors, another for Asians? Are Jewish authors do be distinguished from WASPs? Are African authors to be distinguished from African-Americans or Caribbeans? This is really so remote from my worldview that I don't quite know how I'll deal with it.

I decided to do the 2017 challenge despite this nonsense; I'm not sure yet I'll do the same in 2018.

Christophe wrote: "I really hated this prompt and I still do. It is *this* close from being a real dealbreaker! I DON'T want to think of humanity as a discontinuous collection of ethnic group. The fact is, humanity i..."

Perhaps you could modify the challenge to an author from another country or continent? Or skip it all together?

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
Angelfall by Susan Ee
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
The Takedown by Corrie Wang
Exo by Fonda Lee
Want by Cindy Pon
That Thing We Call a Heart by Sheba Karim
I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
Warcross by by Marie Lu
Rebel Seoul by by Axie Oh
A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
The English Patient
A Fine Balance
Last Train to Istanbul
Lolita

Christophe, what about /book/show/3... ? It's a vintage mini so should be a quick read.

Christophe wrote: "I really hated this prompt and I still do. It is *this* close from being a real dealbreaker! I DON'T want to think of humanity as a discontinuous collection of ethnic group. The fact is, humanity i..."

Perhaps this is a particularly American concept that just doesn't translate well, because you are not the only "non-USian" to push back against this. Popsugar seems to be hopelessly US-centric in their categories.

In the US, non-white (and often non-male) authors tend to be side-lined, not picked up by the big publishers, not promoted, not reviewed in the big papers ... So categories like this are meant to lift up some authors who are not getting the press they deserve. This is NOT meant to segregate authors by skin color, it's an attempt at increased inclusivity, not exclusion. In an ideal world, of course humanity would be treated as one whole. But this is not an ideal world. Yes, it may feel awkward and false, but that's because the exclusion has gone on for so long in the publishing industry in the US that ham-handed measures are needed right now to even things out. Try to think of a group that's been unfairly side-lined, and choose a book from that group. Perhaps instead of "ethnicity" it would work better to think of an author who immigrated from another country, or another culture, another religion, etc.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter by Nikki Giovanni
Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson

Everything I Never Told You
Little Fires Everywhere
Everything, Everything

Christophe wrote: "But how does this apply to societies that are less racially divided?"

For me "ethnicity" has nothing to do with "race", which is why I find suggestions about African-American authors a bit puzzling, at least if their ancestors have lived in USA/America for centuries. For me they have no other ethnicity than a "mixed" American one, and they are just as "American" as the white people. Besides skin colour and citizenship, what does Obama have in common with some poor black man living in Alabama? Native Americans are a bit different, at least if they are still "in touch" with their tribes or something, and also people who have moved to the US from somewhere else.

Personally, I tend to go by language, that usually separates different ethnic groups and cultures. I guess it can be religion, too, in some cases. For example Russia is a multi-ethnic country, they have dozens of different ethnic groups, the USSR was even more so and many ethnic minorities were persecuted, even though most of them were white. ("According to the archive data, from August 11, 1937 to December 24, 1938 more than 9500 people of 58 nationalities were executed by shooting and buried there: Russians, Karelians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Tatars, Udmurts, Jewish, Gypsies, Germans, Polish and other nationalities." In this case the nationality means an ethnic group, not citizenship of another country. ) In Europe the Basques are probably the most famous ethnic group without their own country, and of course the country borders don't always follow the ethnic lines, if hardly ever.

But yeah, almost everyone who has lived in Finland before the 20th century has had a white skin colour (though I guess most of them wouldn't have been considered "white" or "Caucasian", and that includes ethnic Finns) but I can still easily separate the Sami people, the Romani, Jews, and Muslim Tatars, who all have their own languages and distinct cultures, even after living here at least well over a century. (Other groups can usually blend into the crowd but the Romani tend to wear their own costumes: That skirt has some 7-9 metres of cloth, and yes, it is heavy.)

I'm thinking about either Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years or Uncle Tom's Cabin. Reading The Underground Railroad this year, made me think about the Stowe book.

1. The Vegetarian by Han Kang.
2. The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret.
3. Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Eka Kurniawan.
4. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
5. Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan.
6. Kokoro by Natsume Soseki.
7. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
8. Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan.

Nadine wrote: "In the US, non-white (and often non-male) authors tend to be side-lined, not picked up by the big publishers, not promoted, not reviewed in the big papers ... So categories like this are meant to lift up some authors who are not getting the press they deserve. This is NOT meant to segregate authors by skin color, it's an attempt at increased inclusivity, not exclusion."

Yes, this.

Tytti wrote: "I find suggestions about African-American authors a bit puzzling, at least if their ancestors have lived in USA/America for centuries. For me they have no other ethnicity than a "mixed" American one, and they are just as "American" as the white people."

Except they have never, EVER, been treated that way. EVER. We forced black people to come over here and have been mad at them for being here ever since. Their well-being, their voices, their LIVES are not treated equally to mine. Nor are any of the other groups of people who are anything other than white Christian men. One of the things we can do to fight this is reach out a hand and pull them up on stage so their voices can be heard. To make sure the white men in charge aren't just handing the microphone to other white men. Stand in front of that stage and listen to their stories. Acknowledge that the black man across the street, the Latino lady two doors down and I do not have similar life experiences.

If you don't think people where you live experience exclusion, perhaps that's because it's not happening to you.

poshpenny wrote: "Except they have never, EVER, been treated that way. EVER. We forced black people to come over here and have been mad at them for being here ever since."

That doesn't change their ethnicity. It has nothing to do with being excluded, the ethnicity is defined within that group, it's something that combines them. I guess one could argue that their skin colour does and that most have ancestors who were slaves but I think most people don't want to be defined solely by their skin colour. Also the real African-Americans, those who moved from Africa, don't share that history, even though they share the skin colour. Just like all Latinos are not the same, there are several different ethnicities among them. They are just being lumped together because they speak Spanish (and Portuguese), even when they are from different countries and even from Europe. But for some reason we foreigners have to separate English speakers in the US because of their skin colour..? What about Alexandre Dumas (both of them) and Pushkin? Were they not French and Russian, respectively? The most celebrated Russian poet was not actually Russian because his great-grandfather was born in Africa?

poshpenny wrote: "If you don't think people where you live experience exclusion, perhaps that's because it's not happening to you."

Oh, we even have a political party that used to (?) think that we ethnic Finns are racially inferior to them, though these days they try to not say it aloud (they had all those nice ideas about the Germanic master race)... This even continued after WWII (because, unlike Germany, Sweden didn't lose the war), and Finnish is not exactly welcome everywhere in Finland even today. Btw, the same attitudes were found in USA, as well, there we were Mongols. So no, it's not always about the skin colour. (And I may have a problem with people defining the race/ethnicity of a person from the outside.)

The French and Russians are free to define things for themselves. Here in the States, yeah, a lot of it is skin. At least those are the people who get the most trouble for it. There are, of course, groups also bound culturally by different things. Everyone is free to read books written by those people.

When you fill out a form here, there is often a section asking you to define yourself with one of these options:

White (non-Hispanic)
Black
Hispanic
Asian
Native American
Other

Within those groups there are other groups. But as an Irish(etc) American, if you ask me to read a book by an author of a different ethnicity, I am probably not going to pick an Italian American. I'm going to pick an author with a larger cultural distance from myself. One from a group who has been marginalized to a greater extent. One whose voice might be lost in the noise and I need to make sure I am listening to.

If you come from a place where you mostly just have various flavors of white people, of course you are going to see it differently. So choose a book based on that. Nobody is stopping you. But if you could stop telling the rest of us our own cultures, that would be great.

Dani wrote: "Everything I Never Told You
Little Fires Everywhere
Everything, Everything"

I am reading this one! Everything I Never Told You!

poshpenny wrote: "But as an Irish(etc) American, if you ask me to read a book by an author of a different ethnicity, I am probably not going to pick an Italian American."

Well I don't consider those to be different ethnicities, either, because both are American anyway. But for "some reason" it seems that in USA everything is and will always be about the race, and neither African-Americans nor Hispanics will ever be allowed to forget that they are not really proper Americans because that is only reserved for the white, Protestant Christians who speak English, no matter how long their ancestors have lived in the country. All they ever can be are "hyphenated Americans", "the other". I do know how people are categorized in the US (most countries don't even find it necessary to collect data about race), I just happen to think that it is very racist/xenophobic and will keep the racial divisions alive, even make them worse.

Also that whole Hispanic thing just reveals that it is a racial matter, not ethnic. Because many people labeled "Hispanic" actually have their own ethnic identity but it is ignored and they are all just lumped together as "brown Hispanics", regardless of their actual heritage.
"Inventing Hispanics: A Diverse Minority Resists Being Labeled"

(The discussion about whether or not the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were white was also strange, what does it matter anyway? Of course they were literally Caucasians but...)

Speaking Spanish is not an ethnicity, neither is having a black skin, as they tell nothing about the person or their culture (Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world with some 500 million speakers in 20 countries and probably over a billion people have a dark skin), and being white is not an ethnicity, either (though some white supremacists seem to think so). For example Idris Elba is a British actor but he is rarely called "Afro-British" or something, even though his parents are actually from Africa. (I even had to google that, I wasn't sure the term was used.) He was born in UK and grew up there, which makes him British.

Personally this prompt won't be a problem to me, the majority of books I generally read tend to be books written by different ethnicities because they have been written by people from different countries. The Chinese are very far from me culturally but I wouldn't say that they are a marginalized group (even if the Chinese-Americans in the US are). Also I doubt Wole Soyinka belongs to a marginalized group, even though he is black and African, because he is Nigerian and his ethnicity is Yoruba which just happens to be one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. And I can't be bothered to think whether Naguib Mahfouz would be considered white in the US or not. It really doesn't matter to me, I have shelved him as African. There are also plenty of (historically) oppressed and marginalized ethnic groups in Europe, even though practically everyone is white.

The spirit of the prompt is clearly to read a book by a person whose viewpoint is different from yours in some significant way.

North Americas may deal with issues of race and ethnicity differently than some Europeans but I think perhaps there is some getting caught up in terminology in this thread rather than actual attempts to meet the spirit of the prompt.

I have to say, though, Tytti that I lived in Scotland and I can tell you that it was not my experience in any way that white Brits just viewed people of other races and ethnicities as being just simply British. The lack of hyphenation doesn’t actually indicate that no one in the UK divides people by external characteristics. In fact, I find that laughable because there was a lot of racism and lots of othering that went on, like people suggesting that someone from a Pakistani background whose family had been in Scotland for three generations still wasn’t a real Scot.

You could potentially try reading a book about race in the US, perhaps, because I don’t think, from your comments, that it’s something you understand.

I may count the next Binti book in this prompt, I think. But since diversity is important to me in my reading, it’ll be an easy prompt to fill.

Christophe wrote: "I really hated this prompt and I still do. It is *this* close from being a real dealbreaker! I DON'T want to think of humanity as a discontinuous collection of ethnic group. The fact is, humanity i..."

It means you step away from your comfort zone and read another's perspective. Getting upset over the opportunity tells me about you than the challenge itself.

I don't think this completely counts, since she is from Hawaii and I am from the UK, but maybe if the topic is stretched to include an author from a different culture. Anyway, I am going for A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Do you think I am Malala would count? I’m American, and I’ve been trying to look for books by POC

And from another country too

Yeah Malala would definitely count

I think I will read Trevor Noah's book "Born a Crime" for this one. Love him!

I have been wanting to read Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri for years. I am looking forward to doing it 2018. This one will work for several other prompts, as well.

I think I’m doing The Chosen by Chaim Potok for this one.

I was thinking The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for this one.

The Booker Prize shortlist always has an interesting mix of authors. I’ve never read a Booker Prize shortlister that WASN’T good, so that’s where I’m going to find something great for this prompt!

I am starting off with this category. I am going to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings .

Charlsa wrote: "I'm thinking about either Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years or Uncle Tom's Cabin. Reading The Underground Railroad this year, made me th..."

The Vegetarian is so good!

Ones I was thinking about reading
Pachinko
Sing, Unburied, Sing
China Dolls
The Teahouse Fire
The Good Lord Bird

I have quite a range of ethnicities when it comes to my TBR, so I just randomly went for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li. I like reading about the Chinese culture, and I think this sounds like it might go deeper into it than The Joy Luck Club which I read for the 2017 challenge (book with a red spine!)

Bloodchild and Other Stories

I'm going to read An American Marriage when it comes out in February.

I'm reading Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

I’m going to read Homegoing. This was on my list for last year and I never got to read it.
Check out Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
/book/show/2...

Does manga count for this challenge? If not, I'll probably go with Warcross.

Yes, you can read manga for any of the categories

Nadine wrote: "Yes, you can read manga for any of the categories"

Ty!

I read I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter for this prompt and it was really good. I would recommend!

Jessica wrote: "I’m going to read Homegoing. This was on my list for last year and I never got to read it.
Check out Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
/book/show/2..."

Such a good choice. This is one of my favorite reads from 2017.

I read for this prompt. Finished 1/11.

Tomorrow I will start Sing, Unburied, Sing. I'm an Arab American, so I thought a book by an African American would be okay :) (Plus I want to read it for the Now Read This book club, and this was the only category I could shoehorn it into!)

I've had Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami in my TBR pile for a while, so I'll go with it for this prompt.

I am counting Binti as this book for my list.

In reference to some of the above discussion, I think the spirit of this item is to read a book about, and by an author whose viewpoint and life are different from your own. And the beauty of this kind of vague prompt is that we can each decide what that means to us.

As a white American, it is easy to fall into the trap of just reading the same authors and not really gaining what I think is the most important aspect of reading and that is being able to put yourself in the place of someone else for a little while. It helps us to gain empathy for others, if not complete understanding.

It is a shame that it takes a conscious effort to search out authors with a different experience from your own, but I think it is good that it is being recognized as a problem.