Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and poetry that remind of us of the vitality and relevance of North America’s diverse indigenous cultures.


Compiled by:
Stacey T.
Crooked Hallelujah

Kelli Jo Ford
Adult Fiction - Ford

In lush and empathic prose, Ford depicts what this family of proud, stubborn, Cherokee women sacrifices for those they love, amid larger forces of history, religion, class, and culture. This is a big-hearted and ambitious novel of the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters.


The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

David Treuer
Adult Nonfiction - 970.0049 Tre

Treuer—acclaimed author (Prudence, 2015), professor, and Ojibwe from the Leech Lake reservation in northern Minnesota—offers his own personal "counternarrative" to the depressing story of defeated, hopeless Native Americans depicted in Dee Brown's 1970 classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.


Little Big Bully

Heid E. Erdrich
Adult Nonfiction - 811.54 Erd

In Erdrich's fully alive poems, the speakers refuse to turn away from cruel truths, instead actively investigating and resisting attempts to disguise or hide them. Erdrich's poems are political, cultural, even futuristic object lessons.  


My Heart Is A Chainsaw

Stephen Graham Jones
Adult Fiction - Jones

In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town, Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for.


Night of the Living Rez

Morgan Talty
Adult Fiction - Talty

Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the 21st century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy. Talty brings an abundance of love and skill to his accounts of troubled lives. The ingenious structure and heartbreaking stories make this collection unforgettable.


Poet Warrior: A Memoir

Joy Harjo
Adult Nonfiction - 800.92 Harjo Har

Musician, visual artist, and U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo continues her personal story in her second memoir, following the award-winning Crazy Brave (2013), in a genre-bending approach that interweaves poetry and anecdotes, memories, and familial and ancestral history.


Postcolonial Love Poem

Natalie Diaz
Adult Nonfiction - 811.6 Dia

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. In this exquisite, electrifying collection, Diaz studies the body through desire and the preservation of Native American lives and cultures, suggesting that to exist as a Native in a world with a history of colonization and genocide is itself a form of protest and celebration.


The Removed: A Novel

Brandon Hobson
Adult Fiction - Hobson

A multilayered, emotionally radiant second novel featuring the Echota family 15 years after the death of teenage son Ray-Ray. Hobson uses Cherokee tradition and the Echotas' story to amplify each other, blending past and present in a narrative of blistering loss and final healing. A master storyteller, Hobson illustrates in gently poetic prose how for many Native Americans, the line between this world and the next isn't so sharp.


Sabrina & Corina: Stories

Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Adult Fiction - Fajardo

Latina and Indigenous American women who long to be seen—and see themselves—are the beating heart of the stories in Fajardo-Anstine's rich and radiant debut. Fajardo-Anstine imbues her stories with a strong sense of place and the infinite unseen generations that coexist even in single moments. 


The Seed Keeper

Diane Wilson
Adult Fiction - Wilson

A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most.


The Sentence: A Novel

Louise Erdrich
Adult Fiction - Erdrich

Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story—a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.


When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky

Margaret Verble
Adult Fiction - Verble

Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble. Set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries. 


Winter Counts

David Heska Wanbli Weiden.
Large Print - LP Weiden

A groundbreaking thriller about a vigilante on a Native American reservation who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of a heroin influx.