Our reader asked us for a book that would open her eyes to a new culture. Here are the titles our staff recommended.

I read Exodus by Leon Uris when I was in 7th/8th grade. When I finished it, I announced to my parents that I, their very non-religious, Anglo-Saxon daughter from Northern Idaho wanted to move to Israel to live on a kibbutz and grow oranges. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

I just finished Pengemannen (Fear Not) by the Norwegian author Anne Holt. It’s set in Oslo in a frigid and snowy January. Worried sick about how close the unknown serial killer seems to be getting to her own family, our heroine goes out skiing in the dark. The excursion had nothing to do with the plot and no references to it came up further on in the story, but reading it I realized once again that Norway is indeed a foreign country. —Kathie Coblentz, Cataloging

I have a love/hate relationship with running. Kenyans, however, make it look like a walk in the park. Reading Running With The Kenyans gave me the opportunity to learn about Kenyan culture and running rituals. —Elisa Garcia, Bronx Library Center

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This biography chronicles Ali’s “journey from Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and finally the Netherlands” and her fight against political and religious oppression and for women’s rights. Ali has a new book out Heretic. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. From Calcutta to Cambridge new immigrants Ashima and Ashoke struggle with vastly different American values in every way. Throughout his adolescence, Ashima and Ashoke’s son, Gogol, rebels against his heritage and ignores his parents’ values. He seeks only to be as American as possible—until a life-changing event changes his views completely. —Megan Margino, Milstein Division

I enjoyed getting a glimpse into French culture reading the book Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. Druckerman, an American journalist, had three children living in Paris, and writes about the differences in childrearing in the U.S. and France. Raising two young kids here in the U.S., it was great fun to learn about how they do things differently in France. I especially got a kick out of what the French feed their kids—it sure puts my menus to shame! —Susie Heimbach, Mulberry Street

The book that opened my eyes to another culture would have to be A Year in the World by Frances Mayes. My stomach growled reading about the local delicacies, and I voraciously looked up images of the places described in the book. —Jessica Divisconte, CLO Office

Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine is an imaginative and modern approach to life in a fictional native North American community. Erdrich makes a silent plea through her fiction, encouraging her readers to respect all people in all cultures. —Virginia Bartow, Cataloging

Isn’t the ability to live many different lives one of the best reasons for reading? I recommend Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. This epic-style story of the Nigerian Civil War really stayed with me. No one beats Adichi for flesh and blood characters. —Danita Nichols, Inwood

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a very moving portrait of the life of a family in South India. The book’s depiction of Earth-shaking monsoons, taboos and recriminations suffered by the young female characters, and life within a caste system are intimate, vibrant, and multifaceted. —Sherri Machlin, Mulberry Street

I read Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi the same summer that I read Marjane Satrapi’s amazing graphic memoir Persepolis, so the two books are forever connected in my mind. Both memoirs take the reader behind the scenes in Tehran after the Iranian Revolution. Each tells the story of a woman struggling for intellectual freedom and personal expression. —Elizabeth Waters, Mid-Manhattan

I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures for book club. It is a true story of the misunderstandings and tragedy that can arise when two conflicting cultures are unable to respect and empathize with each other. It really upset and disturbed me. A few weeks after reading it I received a gift from a friend in California. It was a small fabric heart with a tag that read, “sewn by a Hmong woman for...” and listed a community center. My friend had no idea I had read the book. The little heart hangs over my mirror in my bedroom to remind me that there are always at least two sides to every story. —Maura Muller, Volunteers Office

Although familiar with Middle Eastern culture, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban opened my eyes to the struggles of being a woman in a country dominated by an extremist form of Sharia. I Am Malala is a strong personal story of hardship, struggle, and growth for a young woman in which violence and patriarchal life is the norm. —Miguel Ortiz, Mid-Manhattan

“Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three.” Reading Billie Holiday’s Lady Sings the Blues for the first time as a teen opened my eyes up to a world and culture so distinct and different from my own. I marveled at her openly confessional stories and her voice that was fierce and frank and lonely. —Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

I recommend a young adult book I just finished reading called Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go: A Novel of Haiti by Laura Rose Wagner. This book was released to coincide with the 5-year anniversary of the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake, and it tells the story of a girl named Magdalie who survived the earthquake but found her life permanently changed afterwards. —Andrea Lipinski, Kingsbridge

When I was in my late teen years, I discovered The Egyptian by the Finnish writer Mika Waltari. It’s an epic novel describing the life of Sinuhe, a foundling who becomes the personal physician of the pharaoh Akhenaten, and as such, a witness to a revolutionary period in Egypt’s history. It will stick with you and for a while you will see our own world with an ancient Egyptian’s eyes. —Kasia Kowalska, Strategy Office