Around the World discussion

I am mostly reading poetry books for this challenge (most of what I read is poetry). I very often find a new poet from a country and then read a whole bunch of their books, but I am only listing one book per country, just so I keep my numbers accurate. I don't want to count each country more than once.

1. Sweden:
Speak to Me: Swedish Language Women Poets / Tala Till Mig: Svensksprakiga Kvinnliga Poeter (Bilingual Edition in Swedish and English, facing pages) (This is a poetry anthology of Swedish women poets. This was great.)

2. Japan
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (a book about running and writing by my favorite writer!)

3. England
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (Everyone is always talking about how great this is and now so am I)

4. France
Geometries by Guillevic (really fun poems about geometric shapes)

5. Canada
Eunoia by Christian Bok (I realized I didn't know any Canadian poets, so I am on a quest to read more writers from Canada. These poems are really fun and interesting experimental poems)

6. Chile
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda (I haven't read any Neruda, and I'm so glad I did! His love poems are the best!)

7. Ireland
Why Not Say What Happened?: A Memoir by Ivana Lowell (I read this memoir because I have a terrible habit of reading memoirs about Robert Lowell's relatives. This one was also pretty bad, by Lowell's step daughter.)

8. Greece
Passions And Ancient Daystwenty One New Poems by C.P. Cavafy (His poems are great and I haven't read any by him before. I really want to read more of his!)

Welcome Valerie! So, is this your list of chosen books to read or are you putting together a list of read books as you go along?

These are ones that I read so far this year. I think it would be fun to put up a future list too, but I haven't planned it out yet.

9. Peru

Spain, Take This Cup from Me = Espa~Na, Aparta De MI Este CAliz: Poems by Cesar Vallejo. I really enjoyed Vallejo's style. He somehow made writing about war gorgeous.

10. Poland

Bells in Winter by Czesław Miłosz I liked his poems because he was able to see "the big picture" in absolutely any subject.

11. China

The August Sleepwalker by Beidao I am so glad I picked up his book. He is one of my new favorite poets. His poems are unique, gorgeous, and a pleasure to read.

12. Yugoslavia

Roll Call of Mirrors: Selected Poems by Ivan V. Lalic (These poems were great and surreal. I only picked this book up because I was looking in the foreign language poetry section at the Boston Public Library so I could read books for this group. Thanks group for getting me to discover wonderful poets I would have missed otherwise!)

Valerie wrote: "9. Peru

Spain, Take This Cup from Me = Espa~Na, Aparta De MI Este CAliz: Poems by Cesar Vallejo. I really enjoyed Vallejo's style. He somehow made writing about war gorgeous."

Thanks for the link to the page of English translations in your review. They are exquisite.

Isn't his writing gorgeous!?

14. Indonesia

Selected Poems by Chairil Anwar

I really liked this because I hadn't heard of him before and his writing was revolutionary to poetry in Indonesia.

15. Germany

Primal Vision by Gottfried Benn

I read him in Poetry Magazine and even though I think he kind of has a bad attitude (he is cruel), but his poems are unique and gorgeous.

13. Russia

This Lamentable City by Polina Barskova

It was nice to read a modern poet who is younger and a woman. I liked her poems best when they are surreal.

16. Romania

Romanian Poems by Paul Celan I loved the very surreal poems of Celan. I haven't read any of his poetry before so the book was a ton of fun! He usually wrote in German, but he was Romanian and wrote these poems in Romanian.

17. Ukraine

Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky

The writing is gorgeous, and the format is unique. I haven't read a book like this before.

18. Belarus

Collected Body by Valzhyna Mort Although this book contains my favorite poem, I liked her previous book better.


19. Korea

Anxiety of Words: Contemporary Poetry by Korean Women which had a few authors. I loved how feminist and surreal all the poets were.

I only set a goal of 20 books, and I am just one away, yay!

Whew, finally finished my goal of 20 books! Right at the last second!

20. Spain
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón This book was really fun and so well-written. I thought it was great!