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  • General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

Thanksgiving Reads

This list offers fiction and non-fiction reading recommendations from the Oakland Public Library’s collection as of November 2025. While not everyone observes Thanksgiving, the selections encourage reflection on the holiday’s complex history and its food-related traditions. Compiled by a neutral librarian, the list serves as a resource for thoughtful consideration. The author being an immigrant remembers his first Thanksgiving in "multicultural" Los Angeles with the rest of the "misfit" foreign students who had nowhere to go but to gather together and cook together delicious and exotic for him meals from Mexico, China, Korea, Japan, Peru and other countries.

User from Oakland Public Library

26 items

  • 1621

    a New Look at Thanksgiving

    Grace, Catherine O'Neill, 1950-
    Book, 2001Washington, D.C. : National Geographic Society, 2001. — J 394.2649 GRACE
  • The Cooking Gene

    A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South

    Twitty, Michael W.
    eAudiobook, 2023HarperCollins, 2023
  • The First Thanksgiving

    What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

    Robert Tracy McKenzie
    eAudiobook, 2022Tantor Media, Inc., 2022
  • Native Americans

    An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Peoples

    Pritzker, Barry
    Book, 1998Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 1998. — REF 970.00497 PRITZKER
  • Thanksgiving

    Recipes for a Holiday Meal

    Lou Seibert Pappas
    eBook, 2015Weldon Owen, 2015
  • A Great & Godly Adventure

    the Pilgrims & the Myth of the First Thanksgiving

    Hodgson, Godfrey
    Book, 2006New York : PublicAffairs, c2006. — 974.402 HODGSON
  • Vegan Holiday Cookbook

    Festive Plant-based Meals and Desserts for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Table

    Culpin, Katie,
    Book, 2020New York : Skyhorse Publishing, [2020] — 641.56362 CULPIN
  • We Gather Together

    Stories of Thanksgiving From Then to Now

    Kiernan, Denise,
    Book, 2023New York : Philomel, [2023] — J 394.2649 KIERNAN
  • Book, 2024Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2024] — 179.3 SINGER
  • Book, 2021New York: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2021] — 814.54 PATCHETT
  • We Gather Together

    a Nation at War, a President in Turmoil, and One American's Campaign to Return Us All to a State of Grace

    Kiernan, Denise,
    Book, 2020New York : Dutton, 2020. — 394.2649 KIERNAN
  • We Gather Together

    Daily Devotionals for Thanksgiving Based on the Hymn, "We Gather Together."

    Harmon, Gwendolyn
    eBook, 2021Learning Ladyhood Press, 2021
  • eBook, 2018Kensington Books, 2018
  • Book, 2017New York, NY : Kensington Books, 2017. — MYS MEIER
  • This Land Is Their Land

    the Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving

    Silverman, David J., 1971-
    Book, 2019New York : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. — 974.4 SILVERMAN