November is Native American Heritage Month
- doughathaway5
- Nov 13
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 15
We need donations of paperback Native American nonfiction and fiction by Native American authors year-round. We're especially low right now. We're looking for fiction, biographies and memoirs by and about Native Americans, history from an indigenous perspective, and pre-Columbian religions/mythology. Here are some contemporary authors and titles we'd like to have in order to fill requests from incarcerated readers:
Literary fiction by Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch Jr, Louise Erdrich, Morgan Talty, Sherman Alexie, Tommy Orange, Joy Harjo
Genre fiction by Rebecca Roanhorse or Stephen Graham Jones - both write horror, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery with NA protagonists
Non-fiction titles
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, David J. Silverman
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Brown
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants,
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,
David Grann
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, Sasha LaPointe
Poet Warrior: A Memoir, Joy Harjo
We also get more requests than we can fill for paperback books on these topics:
personal finance
starting/running a business
coloring books
philosophy, modern and classical
literary fiction and fiction classics
historical fiction (incl. historical romance)
paranormal romance
We always need paperbacks of these:
dictionaries
self-help for adults (please no more for kids/teens)
inspirational literature
Wicca, New Age, religions of the African diaspora, other alternative spiritual paths (Please, no more about Buddhism or Hinduism until we've sent more of what you have already graciously donated to people in prison).
If you have gently-used paperbacks to spare on these subjects, email us at bookstoprisoners@live.com to make arrangements to donate them.
Or, order new ones from our wish lists. Just make your choice and buy online. Your gift of a new book makes it possible for us to fill requests from people in prisons that won't accept used books.
Wish lists
To get these books into the hands of the people who need them, we must pay for postage and wrapping material. Postage is our single largest expense. We spend $5-7 per package. Please consider giving money along with your donation of books. Here's how.
