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Who are you? Not the roles you hold or the labels other people apply to you, but the essence of you below those things. Books on identity, whether as memoir or fiction, engage with this question in all its complexity — cultural identity, personal identity, the impact of trauma on who you ultimately become, how society attempts to define you, and what happens when you resist.
All of these books are about the messiness of figuring out who you are, particularly when your culture, beliefs, relationships, and experiences pull you in different directions. There are some stories, guides, and memoirs of people grappling with the conflicting aspects of their identity in ways that don't fit neatly into traditional categories. In either case, these books provide pathways to think more deeply about our own identity and its significance.
Books on identity explore the profound questions: How much of who you are comes from where you are from versus who you choose to be? How do you hold onto yourself when big changes in life shake you up? Whether that's a move across the street, across the world, leaving a religion, coming out, or in moments we often face where the life we have constructed for ourselves no longer feels like our life.
The books that discuss identity approach the topic from a variety of angles. Some are primarily focused on the nature of cultural and racial identity — what it means to live within more than one culture and to navigate both the upside and downside of stereotypes.
Others consider gender identity, sexual orientation, and what happens when you start to discover that the categories the world assigned never truly reflected you. There are also books about identity that cover personal identity after trauma, loss, or some other major shift in life that forces you to reconstruct from nothing.
Books on identity serve a unique purpose by revealing that all people have experienced some level of confusion or conflict with who they are. Nothing feels more real than reading someone else's struggle to formulate their identity by their own terms, knowing that you are given an implicit point of validation for you to do the same. There is validation in the difficult, the not really blending in anywhere, negotiating between honoring your place of origin and becoming who you are trying to become, while you balance the exhaustion of explaining your identity (who you are) to others who are not inclined to support or recognize it.
Some books will reflect your own experience in a way that is shocking. Others will reflect perspectives that are so divergent that they will expand your understanding of identity itself. Regardless, they are both tools for the ongoing work of figuring out who you are and finding the courage to actually be that person.
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
by Gabrielle Union
by Omid Scobie, Carolyn Durand
by Eric Marcus
by Priyanka Chopra Jonas
by Alexandra Robbins
by J.D. Vance. JD
by R. Eric Thomas
by Dannielle Owens-Reid, Kristin Russo
by Sam Killermann
Begin with works that illustrate that you have had experiences that are similar to your own — shared culture, family experience, upbringing, or challenges you may be experiencing when it comes to your identity. The memoir section is often a good place to look, as well as fiction books that feature characters undergoing an identity crisis. Additionally, many bookstores and libraries feature sections related to cultures, queer experiences, or immigration.
It's checking reading level (most often with kids): go to a random page, read for a bit, and then if you don't understand a word, put up one of your fingers for each word you don't understand. If you read and comprehend but don't raise a finger for any words you don't know, the reading level might be too easy.
Five (subjective) books everyone should read are 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' '1984.' 'The Diary of a Young Girl' and 'Beloved.' Honorable mentions include 'The Alchemist,' and if you're specifically looking for stories about cultural identity, try 'Americanah' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
The Bible is easily number one. After that come Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the Quran. When it comes to fiction, 'Don Quixote,' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' and 'The Lord of the Rings' are among the most read. It's difficult to accurately measure "most read," since we have only been keeping track for a short time, and many people from earlier generations have no reliable record of what they read.
'Educated' by Tara Westover for identity beyond your upbringing, 'The Fire Next Time' by James Baldwin on racial identity, 'Fun Home' by Alison Bechdel on sexual identity and family, 'Between the World and Me' by Ta-Nehisi Coates on Black identity in America, 'Becoming' by Michelle Obama on personal evolution, 'Americanah' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on navigating cultures. Pick based on which identity aspects you're exploring right now.
'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl gets mentioned constantly for reframing suffering and purpose. 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle shifts how you think about anxiety and presence. 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari changes how you see human history. For identity specifically, 'The Gifts of Imperfection' by Brené Brown helps people accept themselves.
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