
Ask HN: Books that transport you into a different time, place, or skin - II-V-I
I recently finished If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin and was very much engrossed in the narrative, the time period, and the lives of the characters, all of which are much different than who I am and how and where I&#x27;ve lived.<p>What are some other (preferably fiction) books that&#x27;ll do the same?
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mindcrime
As a white guy, who was born white, and will always be white, it's obviously
hard for me to fully appreciate many aspects of the daily life of, say, a
black man, or a black woman, or a white woman, or a hispanic man, etc. And
while that will always be true, there are things I can do to try to gain
perspective. I can talk to my friends who are black, hispanic, etc., I can
talk to my female friends about gender issues and so on.

But one other thing I found, is that there is fiction I can read, which is
written by members of these communities and which illustrate details of their
respective worlds. For example, there are many books which are specifically
about the lives of black people in an inner city setting. I expect the same is
true of other specific communities and groups.

With that in mind, I started reading an author named Donald Goines[1] who
wrote what we generally call "urban fiction." So far I've only read one of his
books, specifically _Whoreson_ [2]. And I have to say, it was somewhat eye
opening. Relative to my life and upbringing in a rural part of NC, the
characters and their lives in this book were something very different from my
own experiences. Of course it's important to keep in mind that it _is_
fiction, but I still feel like reading this book was useful for learning to
look at things from a different perspective. And it was a good book its own
right. I wouldn't say that reading it was purely a didactic exercise. And I do
plan to read more of Goines' books. I have two or three on my shelf waiting
now.

Another interesting book that I've started, but not yet finished, is titled
_Black Like Me_ [3]. It's non-fiction, but radically interesting. It's about
how a white man from Texas had his skin artificially darkened back in the late
1950's and spent a lot of time during the era of racial segregation,
travelling in the Deep South, disguised as a black man and living the life of
a black man. Based on the chunk I've read so far, I highly recommend it.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Goines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Goines)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoreson_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoreson_\(novel\))

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me)

~~~
II-V-I
Excellent! Thank you for a great response.

