Reading with Style discussion

Please post suggestions or ask for recommendations here.

A group resource to keep in mind during the planning stage and beyond:

Author List

What a helpful list - thank you! I did notice that Andre Alexis is listed as having T+T citizenship, it's actually Canadian.

Valerie wrote: "What a helpful list - thank you! I did notice that Andre Alexis is listed as having T+T citizenship, it's actually Canadian."

Thanks for that correction!

Gah... The whole Soviet Bloc thing drives me up a wall. I need suggestions for science fiction (preferably post apocalyptic) from the Baltic Sea list - Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, or Sweden. NOT Ukraine, though. That one's already called for the Black Sea on my itinerary. I've hit a wall and I'm getting a bit frustrated.

It's not a genre I read, but this popped up on a google search:

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

I used to listen to a short-lived podcast called Small Blue Planet, which talked about science fiction in different parts of the world. The first episode was about Finland: http://www.locusmag.com/Roundtable/20...

I don't think I've read any of it, but the show notes have a list of authors available in translation. At least some should be sci-fi. Maybe it'll help :)

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "It's not a genre I read, but this popped up on a google search:

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky"

Read that one last year, I think. It was FANTASTIC. My problem is that the authors I keep finding are in former Soviet Bloc countries and it's throwing me off. I was thinking about continuing the Day Watch series... but Lukanyenko is Kazakh, not Russian, and the Caspian Sea isn't an option on our list. Thought about more of the Strugatsky brothers, but they're Georgian born Russian nationals, so that wouldn't work.

OK, so I looked on the similar authors page for Glukhovsky and these two fellows pop up.

Janusz A. Zajdel
Victor Pelevin

The others look as if their works aren't translated, though I didn't dig very deeply. You might also look at the "Readers Also Enjoyed" section on books pages. They usually (but not always) have authors from similar parts of the world as well as similar genres.

Good idea. I didn't think of that!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "OK, so I looked on the similar authors page for Glukhovsky and these two fellows pop up.

Janusz A. Zajdel
Victor Pelevin

The others look as if their works aren't ..."

Just pulled up Metro 2033 and I didn't know the sequel had been published yet! Guess that answers my question. :-)

Heather wrote: "Just pulled up Metro 2033 and I didn't know the sequel had been published yet! Guess that answers my question. :-) "

Fabulous!

Looking for: author from Caribbean Sea; published 1991 or earlier; and, originally published in a language other than English. I've been looking but so far have drawn a blank. There are other waterways I could use, of course, but if anyone here can make a suggestion??

Deedee wrote: "Looking for: author from Caribbean Sea; published 1991 or earlier; and, originally published in a language other than English. I've been looking but so far have drawn a blank. There are other water..."

Gabriel García Márquez works for Colombia, and he wrote in Spanish.

Before Night Falls will work for Cuba ( I enjoyed this when I read it many years ago, a good insight into living in Cuba, but depends on how you feel about homosexuality).

That may be all that I have read, sorry.

Deedee wrote: "Looking for: author from Caribbean Sea; published 1991 or earlier; and, originally published in a language other than English. I've been looking but so far have drawn a blank. There are other water..."

Miguel Ángel Asturias works for Guatemala, but I haven't read anything by him ( I ran out of time when I had him listed one season).

Heather, two books on my to-read list fit what you are looking for.

The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya - a dystopian Russian book
And The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - Finnish sci fi

I really enjoyed The Quantum Thief. I have the second book in the trilogy, The Fractal Prince slated here for Finland.

Jama wrote: "Heather, two books on my to-read list fit what you are looking for.

The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya - a dystopian Russian book
And The Quantum Thief by [..."

both look really interesting! yay for options!

Does anyone know of any books (translated into English) that fit for Liechtenstein? I've been looking and not finding

El wrote: "Does anyone know of any books (translated into English) that fit for Liechtenstein? I've been looking and not finding"

I cheated in finding this. (http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/tag...)

But here it is:

Of Things by Michael Donhauser

His wikipedia entry calls him Austrian, but I'm not sure that he is. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...

This page http://www.engeler.de/donhauser.html just says he lives in Vienna and Switzerland. If you're willing to explore in that direction, we will call him Liechtenstein/Liechtenstein.

Looking for: author from India; published 1991 or earlier; and, originally published in a language other than English. I've been looking but so far have drawn a blank. It appears that Indians who write novels write them in English.

Can anyone here make a suggestion?? :)

I was lucky to get an advance copy of The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction and it's perfect for questions like this! I haven't done the legwork to see if each author qualifies by our rules but hopefully it'll give you a running start. :)

"Hindustani author Premchand (1880-1936) wrote fiction in both Urdu and Hindi. He remains the prime chronicler of ordinary and village life in India of his time, and the stories by the prolific Urdu-writing Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) deservedly enjoy continued popularity."

Qurratulain Hyder - River of Fire (1959, English 1998)

Naiyer Masud has Urdu stories that have been collected and translated into English

Vilas Sarang has stories collected in English as well, from the Marathi

Nirmal Verma has both collections and novels, though some of them seem to be after 1991. Originally written in Hindi

O.V. Vijayan - The Legends of Khasak, The Saga of Dharmapuri, originally written in Malayalam

Crime fiction! He says it may not be the best quality, but there's lot of local color - Saradindu Bandyopadhyay's Picture Perfect, Satyajit Ray's Feluda stories

Hope that helps!

Kazen wrote: "I was lucky to get an advance copy of The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction and it's perfect for questions like this! I haven't done the legwork to see if each aut..."

Thank you! This helps a lot. I put The World Elsewhere and Other Stories by Nirmal Verma and The Legends of Khasak by O.V. Vijayan on inter-library hold -- hopefully they'll arrive in time for this challenge.

The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction looks to be very useful. I'll watch for it when it is published later this year.

~cough~

I just posted my review for the Complete Review Guide, if anyone is interested. :)

Excellent review, Kazen.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Excellent review, Kazen."

Thank you! It helps when I love the book so much - the review practically writes itself. ;)