UK Book Club discussion

I'm ready to do this (as soon as I return from Mars)! I have spent so much time in outer space and in alternate worlds and realities, it's time I focused a bit on Earth. All of Earth. Because when I do spend time on Earth, I tend to be quite anglo-centric - though being Norwegian I have read a fair bit of Nordic literature as well. It's time to look at the rest of the world too!

If I'm going to do this though, I think I'll have to be systematical. I can't just keep an eye out for books set other parts of the world. I need to target the countries one by one and go get that book! So I'll start out in my current country of residence, Wales, and then imagine myself flying Phileas Fogg-style in a hot air balloon from country to country. I've made a tentative list, but I reserve the right to simply fly over any country where it proves too difficult to get hold of a book that appeals to me.

Edit: Sometimes my balloon needs patching up, or I just get too fed up, or stuck trying to get to my next destination. So then I'll jump on a plane for a quick detour.

Here is my travel route as I will attempt it (subject to sudden change by the whim of reading interests). I also ideally want to read books written by authors who are native to each country, or who have at resided there for some time. I don't want to end up just reading books by English speaking writers about English speaking people who go to different countries and marvel at how different everything is. Obviously this might be a bit difficult in the case of Antarctica, for instance. I'll put in the link when a book is read.


1: Wales - The Cardiff Trilogy
2: Iceland - Skugga-Baldur
3: Greenland - Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne
4: Ireland - A Portrait of the Artist аs a Young Man
5: Algeria - The Outsider
6: England - Middlemarch
7: Canada - The Blind Assassin
8: Norway - Min kamp 1
9: Japan - Tales of Old Japan: Folklore, Fairy Tales, Ghost Stories and Legends of the Samurai and Kitchen
10: USA - On the Road
11: Mexico - Like Water for Chocolate
12: Reunion - Indiana
13: Iran - Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
14: Cuba - Slow Train to Guantanamo: A Rail Odyssey Through Cuba in the Last Days of the Castros
15: South Africa - The Story of an African Farm
16: Haiti - Claire of the Sea Light
17: France - In the Café of Lost Youth
18: Poland - Shosha
19: Ukraine - Death and the Penguin
20: Switzerland - Heidi
21: Sweden - Let the Right One In
22: Jamaica - A Brief History of Seven Killings
23: India - The Wildings
24: Chad - The Roots of Heaven
25: Sierra Leone - The Heart of the Matter
26: Suriname - Oroonoko
27: Singapore - Soy Sauce for Beginners
28: Bulgaria - A Ballad for Georg Henig
28: Philippines - The Island at the End of Everything
29: Greece - The Late-night News
30: Russia - Fathers and Sons
31: Germany - The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
32: Italy - My Brilliant Friend
33: Argentina - Kiss of the Spider Woman
34: Brazil - Hour of the Star
35: North-Korea - A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
36: Iraq - Frankenstein in Baghdad
37: Nigeria - Half of a Yellow Sun
38: South Korea - The Vegetarian
39: Colombia - Love in the Time of Cholera
: Panama - The Golden Horse
: Peru - The Discreet Hero
: Uruguay - The Invisible Mountain
: Chile - The House of Spirits

: Antarctica
: New Zealand
: Australia

: Indonesia
: Malaysia or the Philippines
: Vietnam
: Cambodia or Laos
: Thailand
: Burma
: China
: Nepal or Bangladesh
: Pakistan

: Afghanistan
: Iran
: Turkey
: Syria
: Saudi Arabia
: Jordan
: Palestine
: Israel

: Egypt
: Sudan
: Ethiopia
: Somalia
: Kenya
: Uganda
: Tanzania
: Mozambique
: Botswana or Namibia
: Angola
: Republic of Congo
: Cameroon
: Niger
: Libya
: Tunisia
: Morocco

: Portugal
: Spain
: France
: Switzerland
: Czech Republic
: Austria
: Hungary
: Serbia or Bosnia Herzegovina
: Macedonia
: Romania
: Finland
: Sweden
: Scotland

I'm starting out with Wales, and I have (courtesy of the local library) both Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan, which actually contains three stories/novellas, and I have an omnibus edition of John Williams' Cardiff Trilogy: .

I also have Dianna Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle that I will be reading with my daughter.

I'll probably read all of these, but obviously only count one of them towards the World Trek challenge. And I guess I can also move on to Ireland as soon as I have finished one of them, thus leaving myself a backlog trail that will grow to staggering proportions as I visit more and more countries. :D

Good luck! Enjoy your travels.

Good luck! Enjoy the journey :)

Enjoy your trek Leni.

Perhaps you should swap wales and England on the basis that you will then 'come home once again to wales'- enjoy your trip it is good fun.

Thank you :)

Hm... I can't count Wales twice, but I guess I could just head to Ireland straight away, and save Wales for homecoming. Then again... I don't mind ending up in England. ;)

Enjoy your reading trip

A loose plan for my immediate progress:

Wales: The Cardiff Trilogy

Ireland: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Ok, it's a bit of a cop out, but I'm not sure I want to tackle Ulysses just yet, or even the Dubliners. I'll start with the more accessible work.)

Iceland: I read most of the sagas during my school day, so I'll go for something contemporary now. I'd like to try Sjón, but my local library holds only Nordic Noir. I'll see what I can rustle up elsewhere, but I guess I can try Indridason.

Greenland: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. I picked Greenland as a destination for the explicit purpose of reading this book.

Canada: Kathy Reich: Déjà Dead. I enjoyed the tv-show Bones off and on for several seasons, and I'm looking forward to trying one of the books.

USA: Since I'll be doing all the states in a different challenge, I want this one to be a road trip book not connected specifically to any one state. Just as much of America as possible. I think On the Road by Jack Kerouac should fit the bill.

Mexico - don't know yet. I'm having a hard time finding actual Mexican authors. Fortunately I know a couple of people of Mexican background I can ask.

Cuba - Maybe a non-fiction one here: Slow Train to Guatánamo: a rail odyssey through Cuba in the last days of the Castros. Sure, Peter Millar isn't a Cuban, but he travels and talks with Cubans and it looks interesting.

Haiti: Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

Panama: Don't know yet

Colombia: Love in the Time of Cholera. That's an obvious choice, as I have been meaning to read that for years!

I agree with your idea for USA. I also wanted a book that did as many States as possible and chose A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Good luck with your challenge.

Ooh, Bill Bryson! I considered another of his books from America. I'll probably end up reading them at some point. Yeah, so many books etc...

The Cardiff Trilogy is taking me forever to get through. In hindsight that was a mistake. I'm too impatient to get going on my journey. I thought it was a series where once you've read the first you sort of need to read the rest, but that's not the case at all. I could have left it at just one and moved on. The books are only linked by location and an ever increasing gallery of scruffy characters. After the first part, which is all short stories, I felt like this was amusing enough but I didn't feel the urge to keep reading. Instead I took a break and read a bunch of other books, including my book for Iceland (because I managed to borrow a Norwegian translation of a Sjón novella, and so I needed to get to that quickly so I could return it, right?). I also read Arthur Machen, and I could have put him down for Wales, but I guess I enjoyed the local colour and jargon of the Cardiff books, and the description of the millenium transition of Butetown, enough that I went back to them. Now, half way through the third one I am thoroughly bored but still insist on reading to the end. They're not bad books, just not brilliant either. I like the stories while I read them, but when I put the book down I'm not feeling compelled to pick it back up to find out what happens next; just to pick it back up so I can be done with it. Meanwhile I'm also halfway through my choice for Greenland, and then I'll have to double back for Ireland. This is not turning out to be as structured a journey as I intended.

Skugga-Baldur (The Blue Fox) was a strange read. It's a short read, but every sentence commands your attention. My first thought was that it was utterly pretentious drivel, packed so full of symbolism and poetic phrases describing every day events that there's hardly any room for plot or characters. Page up and down about the landscape and the minute details of brewing Darjeeling tea. But somehow it worked it's magic on me, and I was wrapped up in the story. And I so desperately wanted the poor dead woman (I'm not giving anything away here, she's dead at the start of the book) to have had some good in her life. The English title takes away from the book, I think (not to mention that the fox is red, not blue, in the Norwegian translation at least). Yes, the fox is important, but it's vital to keep in mind the story of Baldur from Norse mythology. Maybe Anti-Baldur would be a more fitting title at that. I think I might need to read this one again, to work out all the symbolism. Or find a professional analysis of it. Surely someone out there has centred an MA theses around this book.

Miss Smella's Sense of Snow was good. First half was brilliant. I need to remember to write a review. I was a bit dismayed at first at realising it was mainly set in Copenhagen and at sea between Denmark and Greenland. Greenland mainly appears in flashbacks. But Denmark is just the surface here, just like Smilla herself har learned to master the outward forms of "Danishness". Under the veneer you find Greenland, although by learning the motions of European life, Smilla has lost the ability to function fully as an Eskimo. It was utterly fascinating to see Denmark through Smilla's eyes. Made a refreshing change from all the books where you have a white gaze on any culture. Greenland, snow and ice are ever-present in this book, so I'm going to count it as Greenland. It makes a nice transition between continents.

Smilla also made me rethink my choice for Canada. Déjà Dead is set in Toronto. So many books are set in Toronto. I've even been to Toronto. There's so much more to Canada. I want to read about Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Quebec, Yukon, those places with First Nation names that I can't remember. So I'll be doing a roadtrip there as well, just like my plan for the US. (Though this begs the question of what I'll do when I get to other large, heterogenous countries, like China, but that's a problem for another year.) I'd also like to read my way through all the 10 provinces and the 3 territories. 13 books, should be a breeze compared to the US tour. Anyone care to join me?

You might like to consider by Joseph Boyden for Ontario - Huron for great lake if you believe Wikipedia - as a respite from big city Toronto. I haven't read it yet but I really enjoyed his .

Also though this may be a bit late for a balloon diversion - the Faroese by Heðin Brú is a great read.

For Canada I highly recommend Guyana which despite its name in set in Montreal, Quebec.

Thanks. Tricky. All of those look good. :-/ And my local library actually has the Orenda, which is a point in it's favour. Guyana I can get affordably enough used via amazon.

As for balloon diversion to the Faroe Islands, well.. I do have to backtrack to Ireland since I sort of breezed past there going straight for Iceland. Or, if I have a slot left when I come full circle, I can drop by the Faroe Islands on my way from Norway to Scotland. A few years down the line, I imagine.

Finally backtracked to Ireland and read A Portrait of the Artist аs a Young Man. Took me a while because I could only read so many pages of it per day before I had to switch to something lighter.

Full review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Canada next. Unfortunately the library has misplaced my original choices. Fortunately I have multiple options for a couple of the provinces in my North America trip. So I think I'll just get started on that challenge, and just designate one of my reads for Around the World.

Alright, finally managed to get my balloon off the ground again. The library managed to cough up via another library in a different county. So now I'm ready for my road trip with Jack Kerouac. Or I will be, once whoever has that one returns it to the library. :-/ I'm still hopeful that I'll be on the South Pole by the end of the year. What I will read when I get there is another matter. I've already read At the Mountains of Madness, so what else is there? Something non-fiction about the Amundsen and Scott race, perhaps. ;)

Meanwhile, here is a spoiler free review of The Blind Assassin.

Leni wrote: "I'm still hopeful that I'll be on the South Pole by the end of the year. What I will read when I get there is another matter. I've already read At the Mountains of Madness, so what else is there? Something non-fiction about the Amundsen and Scott race, perhaps. ;) ..."

Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge is great. I also loved Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition. Both are concerned with Antarctic exploration.

Liz wrote: "Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge is great. I also loved Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition. Both are concerned with Antarctic exploration."

Both of those look like good options, thanks! Maybe especially the one about the cat. Not because it's about a cat, though that is an unusual twist, but because I already know a bit about the Scott expedition and nothing at all about the Shackleton expedition.

Leni wrote: "Both of those look like good options, thanks! Maybe especially the one about the cat. Not because it's about a cat, though that is an unusual twist, but because I already know a bit about the Scott expedition and nothing at all about the Shackleton expeditiona..."

They are both very good, I'm sure you'd enjoy whichever you choose.

Finally finished
The first two parts where alright, but after the third part I was so fed up with the sleazebag characters, I needed a break.
Review here.


So, it's August and I've read two books on this challenge so far this year. :-/ I'm slightly regretting making these strict travel rules for myself now. If I had allowed myself modern transport and crisscrossing the globe I could have added another half dozen countries. Oh well, at least I have my Mexico book ready and waiting for me on the bookshelf.

Go on, give yourself a break, relax your rules, embrace the jet stream which can take your 21st century Richard Branson ATW balloon anywhere instantly in your imagination and backdate to add all those countries you've been to.

Ian wrote: "Go on, give yourself a break, relax your rules, embrace the jet stream which can take your 21st century Richard Branson ATW balloon anywhere instantly in your imagination and backdate to add all th..."

Hah, it's tempting. At least for countries like Algeria where no other books immediately spring to mind. But I'd have to revise my entire schedule. Ack.

Ok. I have decided that even though I have a balloon/airship itinerary, I'm allowed holidays. So while my balloon was in for repairs in Canada, I jumped on a plane to Algeria to hear Albert Camus rave about his mother from a prison cell in The Outsider (L'Étranger), and then went back to England for a lengthy stay in Middlemarch.

During my road trip in the USA, I had an argument with Sid Paradise and Dean Moriarty and went off in a huff to my birth land to spend time with another self-obsessed man, Karl-Ove Knausgaard, who told me about his relationship with his father and about how he struggled to get to a party in his mid-teens. After this I needed a break in old Japan, where men didn't go on and on about their existential angst and difficulties in getting women, they just killed people and commited ritual suicide instead.

I'm also currently reading a book that I might count for France when I'm done.

It seems I have three books I could count for Italy, but I'm not going to. I was a bit disappointed to find that Sardinia is not a valid destination. I don't want to count it for Italy, because it is so extremely Sardinian, it hardly seems to have anything to do with Italy. And the other two are written by E.M. Forster, and let's face it: Though he sets his books in various places he is always writing about England and the English. I'm also refusing to let that dreadful action-thriller I read represent Russia. So many good books to read from there. I also have one for Mexico already, but I've been looking forward to Like Water for Chocolate, so I'm going to stick with that.

But at least I'm now at 10 books read instead of 6, so allowing myself the occasional detour should speed things up a bit. Hopefully.

rofl

I think a wise decision Leni!

Took a magical culinary realism journey through revolutionary era Mexico. Very strange and tasty book. I'm not sure I can face ordinary dinner now. Where can I find a turkey that has been hand-fed an increasing amount of walnuts for 15 days?

Four Michelin reading stars to .

My detour into France took me to Reunion Island for about half the book. While the story was all French Bourbon Restoration upper classes, the Island (then called Isle of Bourbon) is described with great care and attention to nature. I will easily be able to find another book for France, but how many books are set in Reunion? So I'm being practical again and counting Indiana for Reunion.

13: Iran -

Informative, funny, and heart breaking.

Not sure how I got from the coast of Africa to Persia, but I'm meant to be taking a train journey through Cuba! This is getting confusing. I might have to create a map soon.

Yes, maps are very useful - and fun! (I enjoyed Persepolis too).

Leni wrote: "My detour into France took me to Reunion Island for about half the book. While the story was all French Bourbon Restoration upper classes, the Island (then called Isle of Bourbon) is described with..."

Wow.....Reunion......well impressed.

Time for an update! I've read two more countries. I took a train through Cuba with Peter Millar. I sort of regret not getting a native guide, but Millar is at least amusing.
Review here.

Then I found myself on a farm in the middle of nowhere in South Africa, and it was the 1860s! How did I get there? By Tardis? It was a very good read in any case.
Review here.

Ian wrote: "Wow.....Reunion......well impressed."

Thank you! It's funny how a book that feels like a bit of a chore becomes well worth it when you realise it gets you a rare destination! lol

End of year map, as I doubt I'll get any more read before the new year. Next year I really need to make an effort to get through Latin America! This is embarrassing. I have read almost a hundred books this year, but they only cover a dozen countries. :-/ That's what I get for reading so many classics by British authors. I should probably have started the UK County Challenge instead!

If you look at the list and the amount of countries in the world, it is a very long task so I'm not surprised you feel you're getting through it slowly. I'm sometimes surprised at the amount people read. you shouldn't feel bad at all. It's great that you're learning stuff and can probably tell a few people some random things about countries that they don't know about and will make you think. When I look at this list I would think of it as a lifetime challenge! Esp as I might want to read other books in between.

Somehow that seems a bit daunting though, so as you said you could attempt it by continent. Although sometimes you may feel like hopping on a plane to somewhere quite different! I hope you are and continue to enjoy it. I've read some books from some of the countries you haven't listed books for. I'm not sure they give an overall view of the country though. Then again, maybe we are being a bit perfectionist here - we need something a bit more light-hearted sometimes and it's a huge challenge. Also I've come across books for some of the countries you've not listed books for.

The countries I have read /want to read books for and are on my good reads shelves are Spain and Greece. There's also one of someone walking through Africa (and Australia).

Can't remember if you listed books for these but Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil, um...probably others too.

Thanks, Sophie. Yes, this was never going to be done in a year, even if I didn't have multiple other challenges going on. I should be satisfied with making slow and steady progress. :)

I do have some options for some of the later countries that I just haven't listed yet. It felt too constricting to tie myself down (even as a rough guide) to all 80 books. I'll take a recommendation for Saudi Arabia though, I don't think I have any idea for that.

And I'm not crazy enough to look for books that give the reader the definite and quintessential knowledge of the country. I'm sure such comprehensive books don't exist. But I would like to get at least a bit of local flavour. Not books that could be set anywhere in the world, with there being nothing about them that clearly signals what country they represent. And I also want to avoid reading only western authors with books set around the world. I want to see what literature the various countries have to offer. That's more than half the fun of the challenge. :D

Saudi Arabia - The Consequences of Love

Very very moving. Touching. Depressing, however but... Don't want to stigmatise if that's the word, but... Life in Saudi Arabia, even more so back a few decades when this was set, was difficult. I have an audiobook of it on loan...Had it for ages and have just got a little bit left to finish but wanted to relisten to bits. It really made me want to learn more.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Yes, Saudi Arabia is in my top 5 countries I would not want to live in. And most of the other top fives are war torn. :-/

I'm currently reading my book for Saudi Arabia Daughters of Arabia: Princess 2 and I have found it be very thought provoking but also quite distressing at times. Not a place I'd want to live either!

Yep, those are the feelings I got too regarding Saudi Arabia!

Keep on trucking Leni. Doing Russia, Oz and Brazil will pad out your map nicely and loads to choose from.

I've forgotten to update here. Not that there's much to update. I've visited Haiti with and I am currently in Jamaica with

Not countries that will light up my map, but they are worth the visit. Or rather, I'm happy to be there in literature, and even happier not to be living in the neighbourhoods I'm reading about!

I'm still rolling up killings in Jamaica, but I took a break from the street shootings and conspiracies to hang out in a Parisian café for an ephemeral moment sometime in the 1960s, maybe. It was very French in that existential angst and "do we want ties or do we live the fullest when we drift free" kind of way.

Currently hanging out in 1930s Warsaw with a Jewish writer and his eccentric acquaintances. Pretty sure that won't end well. :-/

I've left pre-war Poland and have hung out in late 1990s Ukraine with an obituary writer and his pet penguin:

Now trying to get back to Jamaica via Sweden. Although I think the sequel to Death and the Penguin might take place in Antarctica, so I might be flying down there shortly as well! Will I ever get back to my leisurely balloon!? And will I ever get to South-America?

I... actually dropped by Switzerland to spend some time with Heidi and her grandfather, and Peter the Goat Herd. The LibriVox dramatisation was hilariously enthusiastic.

Now in Sweden where social realism is mixed with vampire. I will get back to Jamaica eventually. All this jumping around Europe is mostly by impulse.

Seeing your post about Death and the Penguin had me utterly convinced for a bit that I'd read it, but was just getting confused with Death and the Maiden - play - Juliet Stevenson 1990's version - not film I think, though with my memory these days it could just as easily be the film and/or a Batman flick.