# My introduction to Sherman Alexie



## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Grateful to Kindle for allowing me, finally, a taste of Sherman Alexie, American Indian writer.

I have now read more than a third of "The Toughest Indian in the World," and I am absolutely amazed at how good and original (and often, funny) he is. To think that I took a "Contemporary American Fiction" class in 1979, and every writer but one (Ishmael Reed, black) was white, and when we generally use the word "American", we never think of American Indians.

If you've read him, what other books of his would you recommend?


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## Dina (May 24, 2013)

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, definitely (there was a movie of it as well -- Smoke Signals, I think). Reservation Blues is great, too.


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## TiffanyMonroe (Jul 7, 2012)

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is definitely a good one.


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## kinkobo (Apr 3, 2011)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is very good.


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## pjchasesports (Nov 27, 2013)

I had to read the Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in heaven for college orientation and loved it. Plus as a bonus, Sherman Alexie came and talked at my college.  A very nice man in addition to being a great writer.


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## Nicholas Andrews (Sep 8, 2011)

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a good one. It's the only book I bought for a college class that I've actually kept over the years. There is a lot of woe-is-me-I'm-a-product-of-the-reservation maudlin stuff that gets old after a few stories, but for the most part it's a very good read.

The movie, Smoke Signals, is mostly based on the story "This is What It Means to Say Phoenix Arizona" but works in some bits from the other stories as well. It's worth a watch, and is available on Amazon for cheap, both on DVD and Instant Video.


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## Heffnerh (Feb 1, 2013)

I first read Sherman Alexie in an anthology of indigenous peoples' science fiction, Walking the Clouds. Alexie's two short story contributions were really strong, especially "Flight," which has all of these cool conceptions of time as a spiral. I'd highly recommend the anthology over all.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2014)

Alexie lives up in Kalispell, I believer, a couple hours north of me.  He's really anti-indy and doesn't like the idea of Amazon.  I'm quite surprised to hear anyone's reading him on Kindle.


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

So glad to find this thread - I hadn't realized Sherman Alexie's novels were now available  for Kindle. I've read The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues in print form, and really like his writing. I also very much like the movie Smoke Signals. I just picked up some of the eBooks.

I remember him some years ago coming out against eBooks. At that time, some of his books of poetry were already available for the Kindle, but not the novels. I wonder if he changed his mind willingly, or was coerced into it? Hopefully, it was that he gradually came around.


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