This may be way out of the radar, but I enjoyed Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex for its quirky but honest portrayal of immigration, and the effect on subsequent generations. This subject is near and dear to my own heart as I am a child of immigrants myself. No, there weren't any hermaphrodites in my family, but so many of the situations he puts his fictional family in had me nodding my head in agreement. This is a book you tend to love or hate, and is, of course, a novel.

Possibly a bit too mundane, I enjoyed Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month is Enchanted. A memoir of two English sisters who went to work for the summer in Italy, then ended up making a life there. This book distinguished itself in my view because it dealt with ordinary middle-class people, not relatively wealthy villa-purchasing tourists. The observations of regular-old-Italian people and how they live instead of ones who deal with the tourist trade was very interesting to me. I just looked up the book and I see Annie Hawes has written a sequel; I will have to request it from the library.

Some of Rumer Godden's books deal with this theme. Greengage Summer is ex-pats in France (I think), and she also wrote about living in India.

Frank McCourt's books Angela's Ashes (as a preface to )and Tis.
Although you've probably read both.

I just read 2 about European emmigrants to the American West in the 1800's: Cather's "my Antonia" and Rolvaag's "Giants in the Earth." I recommend both.

I really like the work of Rumer Godden re her life in both India and England. A good example is "Two Under the Indian Sun" by Jon & Rumer Godden. Also Rumer's autobiography: "A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep" is really fascinating.

There is also "Italian Neighbors" by Tim Parks.

Victoria Thompson has a mystery series set in Victorian New York. The heroine is a midwife who gets called to different immigrant areas of the city.

Small Island by Andrea Levy is an excellent novel; it is set mainly in the UK, and is about the experiences of people from Jamaica when they went to England in the late 1940's, just after the war.

It won the Orange Prize in 2004, and was also voted to be the best Orange Prize winner of the first ten years of its existence. It truly baffles me how it was not a contender for the Booker than year; it wasn't even long-listed.

Liz, you might enjoy C'est La Folie by Michael Wright.
He has had a Saturday column in the Telegraph for a few years describing his move to the Limousin area of France, doing up an old farm house, acquiring farm animals and trying to fit-in with the locals.
In no way is he the smart-arse that Mayle became and he never takes the p*ss out of the locals, although they do, out off him . . . often! His solitary life now has the addition of a wife and dog from Baltimore and two little girls.
The expanded articles have now been turned into the book.

Here is a link that might be useful: Michael's Web Page

I am reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri at present. Short stories about Bengali immigrants to the US, middle class people, not the usual struggling poor immigrants. It is very, very good, I have to stop reading and think over what she is saying on most pages. I think her stories must have a universal appeal because all of us have parents, siblings or children. The dilemmas are the same even though we may not have moved to another country. The contrast between India and USA make them only more obvious.

Sorry I missed that you mentioned Jhumpa Lahiri in your first post.

Monica Ali's Brick Lane is about Bangladeshi immigrants in London's East End.

Thanks, everyone for your great ideas. Some I have already read and some are brand new and I will be hitting the library for them.

Keep them coming if you can...

Not a book but a film, Mira Nair's Missisippi Masala, a drama comedy starring Denzel Washington and Sarita Chowdury, about a Uganda-Indian family and an African American family. I've been searching for this film since I watched it on TV but it doesn't seem to be available on dvd.

Digging to America by Anne Tyler, about two American families adopting Korean babies. One family is American and the other family has immigrated from Iran.

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor, about the passengers on a famine ship sailing from Ireland to NY City in the 1840s.

Just watched the movie version of Monica Ali's "Brick Lane" which was very well done. Lots of gritty London scenes with strong Indian-English accents...

Plus some of the saris were absolutely gorgeous!

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai is another Indian immigrant book.

The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is about a Jewish immigrant who comes to NY during WWII.

Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones about an Australian man who has a native wife on a South Seas island. Told from the point of view of a native child.

The Language of Baklava by Diane Abu-Jaber. Non-fiction about a Jordanian-American family, (with recipes).

Julia Alvarez - How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent

lemonhead, there is a new book just out by Mary Kelly, "Galway Bay". I just read a review of it, being the story of Irish immigrants who flee the Potato Famine and starvation in Ireland,only to sail to America. It's a novel of multi-generations, and some 500 pages long.

Another Irish-American book just out is Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. I have been listening to it on Radio 4 'Book at Bedtime' read by Niamh Cussack. Set in the 1950's S Ireland and New York.