Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Post your nominations here for the December group reads. A significant portion of the book must be set in the featured location. We will be reading books set in the country of Laos and the Yukon Territory in Canada. We will also be featuring a selection translated literature (no theme - anything goes!):

Laos*:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Laos Bookshelf: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Yukon
Canada Book List: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... (Scroll down to "Books set in Yukon Territory" heading-Post 20)
Bookshelf for Yukon Territory: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Translated Literature
Nominate any book translated to English from another language. Note: Book must be originally written in a language other than English. Many foreign authors write books in English - these would not qualify.
to be nominated. Authors, please do not nominate your own books.

For a list of books we have read in previous months, click here: Previously Read Group Read Books

*For our featured world country selection (this month it is Laos): If the book selected by popular vote is not written by a native or resident author, the book written by a native author with the highest votes will also be selected, resulting in two book selections for that country.

For Laos, I nominate Afterland by Mai Der Vang.

For translated literature, I nominate Gilgi by Irmgard Keun. Gilgi was Keun’s debut novel, first published in 1931. The rising Nazi party censured her after her second book was published and her books were included in the 1933 book burning.

For translated literature, I'd like to nominate Yugoslavia, My Fatherland by Goran Vojnović

For translated literature I would like to nominate Fair Play by Tove Jansson.



Winner of the 2009 Bernard Shaw Prize for Translation. Fair Play is the type of love story that is rarely told, a revelatory depiction of contentment, hard-won and exhilarating. Mari is a writer and Jonna is an artist, and they live at opposite ends of a big apartment building, their studios connected by a long attic passageway. They have argued, worked, and laughed together for decades. Yet they’ve never really stopped taking each other by surprise. Fair Play shows us Mari and Jona’s intertwined lives....

For Laos, I nominate The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang

For translated literature, I nominate Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. This won the Man Booker International Prize this year.

For the Yukon, I nominate Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis

Laos: Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life under an Air War by Fred Branfman

Great nominations 👍🏻 I want to read most of these. The voting will be a hard choice this month!