Little Big Man
by Thomas Berger


  
  Place a hold

Read Alikes

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Icebergs by Rebecca Johns
Manhattan Nocturne by Colin Harrison
You’re Not You by Michelle Wildgen
No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman
My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman
Pandora’s Star by Peter Hamilton
Traction Man is Here by Mini Grey
Our Kind by Kate Walbert
Whales on Stilts by M. T. Anderson
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate diCamillo
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
Morningside Heights by Cheryl Mendelson
The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston
So Sleepy by Uri Shulevitz
Adèle & Simon by Barbara McClintock
The Brambles by Eliza Minot
Book! book! book! by Deborah Bruss
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice
Blow the House Down by Robert Baer
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
The Inhabited World by David Long
Minaret by Leila Aboulela
Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson
The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
Interface by Neal Stephenson (Stephen Bury)
Uniform Justice by Donna Leon
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
A Safe Place for Dying by Jack Fredrickson
What is the What : the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers
The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde
The True Account by Howard Frank Mosher
Birds without Wings by Louis De Bernieres
Racketty Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Dirt Music by Tim Winton
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Anahita’s Woven Riddle by Meghan Nuttall Sayres
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Napoleon’s Pyramids by William Dietrich
The Reconstructionist by Josephine Hart
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by Jose Saramago
The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood
Gloriana’s Torch by Patricia Finney
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
In this Rain by S. J. Rozan
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem



Book Description

If you’re looking for a great novel and a Great American Novel, don’t miss Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man. (Although it was first published in 1964, I somehow missed out on reading it the first time around.) It’s one of those books that – once begun – is impossible to put down. Not only is it a cracking good story, it’s about all those big issues like identity (both national and self), the myth of the American West, civilization and its discontents, and race. 111-year-old Jack Crabb narrates the story of his event-filled life, which essentially began with the slaughter of his pioneering family on their way west after the Civil War. Soon after, Jack is adopted into a tribe of Cheyenne Indians and given the name Little Big Man by his new father, the chief. Over the following decades, Jack goes back and forth between the white and Indian cultures, trying to figure out who he is and where he belongs. As he poignantly observes at one point in his story, “God knows I thought enough about it and kept telling myself I was basically an Indian, just as when among Indians I kept seeing how I was really white to the core.” Jack describes his experiences as an Indian scout, a buffalo hunter, a scam artist, and a soldier (both for the Indians and the U.S. army), and gives us the definitive story of the Battle of the Little Big Horn (which he alone – of all the whites there – survived). Along the way we get some delightfully unexpected insights into Wild Bill Hickock, Wyatt Earp (there’s a terrific little scene in the book when Jack misunderstands Earp’s last name), George Armstrong Custer, and others. Even if you’ve seen the film (directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman), don’t miss the book.