Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Looking ahead to 2021:


We will be continuing the World Tour, "visiting" the following countries:

January: Zimbabwe
February: Comoros
March: South Sudan
April: United Arab Emirates
May: Singapore
June: Bhutan
July: Tuvalu
August: Bolivia
September: Jamaica
October: Montenegro
November: Slovakia
December: Vatican City


I need nominations for monthly themes, for the books of the month and possibly for monthly challenges. I prefer that all least one of the themes focuses either on some variation of translated literature or authors of color.

What themes would you like to see for 2021?

I'm glad we're starting with Zimbabwe, I have The Theory of Flight on my list that I've been wanting to read for ages :P

Some ideas for themes / challenges:

- Non-fiction

- (Auto)biographies

- Reading a book from "every" genre, so a new genre each month

- Reading the Human Body: books with body parts featured on the cover, each month with a different part (ex. ears, hair, nose, mouth, eye, neck, chest, arms, etc. or even bones, muscles, blood, shadow, etc). So someone might nominate Deaf Republic for "ear" month, for example.

- Reading the Alphabet, as in a book starting with every letter of the alphabet. If there are 12 months, we could try to spell something specific, like WORLD IN BOOKS or something

- Choose a new colour cover every month

- Reading minority authors from within a country. That could include anything from racial or ethnicity minorities, sexuality, religion, disability minorities, etc.

- In fact, we could go for disability as a theme in itself, it's a topic not often read about if one isn't already part of the community

- Myths, folktales, legends. Can be classics (ex. Odisea) or modern retellings (ex. Circe), loosely based on folklore (ex. The Ghost Bride), collections and anthologies...

- Slavery as a theme, but it could be interesting to read about slavery around the world and history beyond only black African slavery in the US. So including, for example, slavery in Uzbekistan, the Arab slave trade, modern sexual slavery in South East Asia, etc. or the Atlantic slave trade from countries in western Africa or the Caribbean.

- This may be very specific, but I just love reading books in second person, and I'm currently reading Aura by Carlos Fuentes which is written in future tense. So... unconventional writing techniques?

- "Weird" books. Could be anything from Kafka, some magical realism plot twists, things like I am a Japanese Writer or Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions...

I'll add more if I come up with something!

I have more:

- Current social/ethical-based movements, so we can learn about things that will probably become more prominent and important in the near future (ex. animal rights, anti-consumerism, the environment, free software movement, etc.). The idea isn't to agree with the topics but simply to educate ourselves.

- If people are up to reading more than one book, we could do a "both sides" theme, where we read contrasting opinions on the same topic. For example, pro-war vs anti-war.

- Books written by or about old people (65+)

- Health: physical, mental, fiction or non-fiction

- Terrorism. I had a terrorism theme going this year and it was a very interesting topic to read about. This could include novels like In Praise of Hatred, A Burning, The Good Terrorist, non-fiction like The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice, short stories like My Son the Fanatic, etc.

- Economics / money

- Relationships: every month we can choose a different "type" of relationship. For example, one month we do "sisters", or "father-child", or "lovers" or "best friends"

- If the seasonal topic is a bit overdone (summer, autumn, etc.), we could do an element theme instead, so water, earth, air and fire.

- History, but with different time periods every month. One month we do Prehistory theme, the next Ancient, Medieval, etc. This would include international book of course, so we would have to assign dates to the specific periods of each month (because not every country sorts their time periods à la European). It might be good to go off certain important international events for the change of time period rather than using the default western history periods.

- Impact of colonization (or conquerings) world-wide

- Relationships between countries. Similar to the migration theme, but more of a "continuos back-and-forth", be it with people, trade or ideas. For example, the Greek community of Istanbul, connections between VOC colonies / trading partners, the silk road, Polynesian sailing, etc.

- Language

- Self-improvement

I like the idea of a different genre every month which would be easy to combine with the translated reqiurement.

I really like the idea of reading books written by authors of color and would like to include Indigenous Peoples as well.

Perhaps we could look at some traditional stories & compare the versions in different countries. For example, I discovered Cinderella Stories Around the World: 4 Beloved Tales by Cari Meister recently. This would probably need to combine with other themes, as my example & other similar books are all quite quick to read. I’m sure there are many traditional stories that are unfamiliar to some of us in the group as we must come from many different backgrounds.

Books set on islands

For translated works, I'd like to see one of the following themes: classics, travel or journeys, children, periods of war or struggle.

however you choose to focus on authors of color, i'll be delighted.

other themes:

inter-generational stories

winter/cold/ice

mental health or impairment

bildungsroman

industrialization (impacts of, living through)

the Silk Road

Empires - ottoman, holy roman, etc.

Hi,

Some nice theme suggestions here. Some more travel themes which always excite me as a reader:
- Treasure hunt or themes related to lost (or hidden) kingdoms
- Epic voyages of discovery
- Epic fantasies that take the reader on imaginary adventures- Lord of the Rings.

The first two suggestions, can of course be allegorical.

I always enjoy books that have humor and would like to see that balance out some of the heavier topics.

As per Maria's suggestion above, I'd love a myths/legends/folklore theme!

Also, as per Rachel (above) a light-hearted/humorous theme might be refreshing as well. :)

I've loved the TBR Takedown this year (it's really managed to clear a lot of my TBR pile!!), and would love this to continue in 2021 again.

I have created (a really large) poll:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/5....

The winning themes are "Islands" and "Minority Authors". I am going to expand minority authors to include authors from marginalized groups across the world.

Minority authors nomination: "Reading minority authors from within a country. That could include anything from racial or ethnicity minorities, sexuality, religion, disability minorities, etc."

Islands nomination: "Books set on islands"

Following

I look forward to 2021. Though Islands and minority authors are the chosen themes, I think I'll steal a few of Maria's suggestions for myself particularly Reading a book from "every" genre, so a new genre each month, Myths, folktales, legends. Can be classics (ex. Odisea) or modern retellings (ex. Circe), loosely based on folklore (ex. The Ghost Bride), collections and anthologies... andThis may be very specific, but I just love reading books in second person, and I'm currently reading Aura by Carlos Fuentes which is written in future tense. So... unconventional writing techniques?
I'm going to attempt to weave these in with the chosen themes and any other group reading

Hi, I'm new and I'm really excited to read more world books next year. (I didn't do as well this year as I did in 2019.) I see that you are continuing the world tour theme from last year, and you have two new themes. I love the minority authors or "own voices" theme, and I added an Island book to my challenge plan with another group.

Will there be a fourth theme? If so, will you be continuing the migration theme by any chance? I'm really interested in culture, and I tend to learn a lot by reading about cross-cultural interactions. The contrasts highlight key characteristics of both cultures. I also like stories involving myths and legends.

Thanks!

NancyJ wrote: "Hi, I'm new and I'm really excited to read more world books next year. (I didn't do as well this year as I did in 2019.) I see that you are continuing the world tour theme from last year, and you h..."

Sorry, those are the only themes for this year.

Diane — thanks for all you do and the time you put into moderating this group. You’ve made 2020 bearable and I look forward to our 2021 reading year here.

Carol wrote: "Diane — thanks for all you do and the time you put into moderating this group. You’ve made 2020 bearable and I look forward to our 2021 reading year here."

Thank you!

Yes, thanks Diane. It's a brilliant group

Diane wrote: "Carol wrote: "Diane — thanks for all you do and the time you put into moderating this group. You’ve made 2020 bearable and I look forward to our 2021 reading year here."

Thank you!"

you're very welcome.

I was thinking for the monthly themes, can we have the occupation or job of the characters in the book? probably the protagonist? eg. Policeman, Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Pilot, Surgeon, Cleaner, Janitor, Mailman, Chef, Driver, Store manager etc.

I was thinking of this being like a tribute to all the essential workers, and those would did not get the liberty of working from home.

Bibliophile wrote: "I was thinking for the monthly themes, can we have the occupation or job of the characters in the book? probably the protagonist? eg. Policeman, Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Pilot, Surgeon, Cleaner, Jan..."

Great idea, but we have already selected the 2021 categories.

Diane wrote: "Bibliophile wrote: "I was thinking for the monthly themes, can we have the occupation or job of the characters in the book? probably the protagonist? eg. Policeman, Doctor, Nurse, Teacher, Pilot, S..."

I dont notice any categories. I only see the countries at the beginning of the page. I thought you were still looking for the monthly themes/ideas.

Bibliophile wrote: "Diane wrote: "Bibliophile wrote: "I was thinking for the monthly themes, can we have the occupation or job of the characters in the book? probably the protagonist? eg. Policeman, Doctor, Nurse, Tea..."

See message 14.