Around the World in 80 Books discussion

1. France: L'evento\Annie Ernaux
2. France: L’orage \ Romain gary
3. (read)Poland: Yarmeh and Keyleh\ Isaac Bashevis Singer
4. Missed January
5. (read)Egypt: Palace Walk\ Nagib mahfouz
6. Russia: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich\Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
7. (read)Ghana : His only wife\ Peace Adzo Media
8. Argentina: Thanks \ Pablo Katchadjian
9. (read) Poland: Swimming in the dark \will m watt
10. (read)Germany: Three comrades\ Erich marie Remarque
11. Kenya: Unbury our dead with song \Mukoma wa Ngugi
12. S.Korea: Almond \Won pyung Sohn
13. France: François le Champi\ George Sand
14. (read)Britain\Mali : The book Smugglers of Timbuktu \Charlie English
15. Nigeria: The fishermen \ Chigozie Obioma
16. Trinidad and Tobago : Hungry ghosts\ Kevin Jared Hosein
17. (read)China: Death notice \ Zhou Haohui
18. USA: How the Garcia girls lost their Accents \ Julia Alvarez
19. (read) Rwanda: Cockroaches\Scholastique Mukasonga
20. Russia: The Kreutzer Sonata\Leo Tolstoy
21. Missed February
22. Italy: Anton Chejov\ Natalia Ginzburg
23. (read)Cameron: The impatient \ Djail Arnadou Arnal
24. (read)Guyana: The far away girl \ Sharon maas

Finished listening to March selection : swimming in the dark\will m watt.
This is a historic novel of Poland in the begging of the 80s with a gay angle .
Its a small story but it opens up beautifully.

Finished listening to April choice : The far away girl\ Sharon Mass .
Takes place in Guyana - a country i knew almost nothing about.
From that perspective it was a good tour around the world and ill be back .
The book is told in a simple manner - i have no other way to describe it - as if the way Rita the seven year old that starts the book sees the world is how the author writes it.
It took me time to get used to it but in the end it won me over and i liked it . Added a new country to my ever growing list of places to visit in real life.

Finished listening to June choice : Death notice\Zhou Hauhui
a Thriller set in China

Finished May choice : Yarmeh and Keyleh\ Isaac Bashevis Singer.
First part in Poland start of last century .
Second part in New york.
Translated from Yidish .
Written in a brutal blunt style. Keyleh broke my heart.

Finished July choice : a palace walk \ Nagiv Mahfouz.
what a beautiful book. it was a surprise - i expected it to be "heavy" book, but Mahfouz words flow around its characters - Highly recommended

Finished August Choice: The Impatient\ Djaïli Amadou Amal
beautiful book ( though that description feels a bit off ) that opens a door to Cameroon and espesially life of women in Cameroon.
the kind of books that i travel the world with books for. Highly recommanded.

Finished September Choice : Cockroaches\Scholastique Mukasonga
Important and very good memoir of the Author’s life in Rwanda from the sixties to the genocide and afterwards.
It’s the third book I read of Rwanda this year.
The first book was a nonfiction (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families) that lay the history of the conflict between Hutu and Tutsi and described the horrors of the Genocide and the war that broke afterwards. It
was written by American journalist and was very good . It lay the background that was sometimes missing in this book ( not criticizing – this book is more a personal view) .
The second one was a prose with a look of a Tutsi from Burundi which gave a different angle ( small country).
The importance of this book is the internal view – not just of the horrors, but also of the life. Of what it was to grow as a Tutsi in Rwanda, of making Banana beer or skipping school to follow Elephants.
I highly recommend this book – I wish to read more books of Rwanda and hopefully also books of Rwanda of the 21th century.

Finished October choice : three commerads\ Erich marie Remarque.
It was good, but did not do the effect All quiet.... did for me.
It felt like american novel.

Finished November choice :
Britain\Mali : The book Smugglers of Timbuktu \Charlie English
non fiction - it was interesting subject written in a non interesting way.

Finished December choice :
Ghana : His only wife\ Peace Adzo Media
this has been a great surprise - i loved it - part of the reason i travel the world in books.

Finished all this year choices - it was a great challange - i am sorry to see it will probably not continue next year