Where in the World are You Reading Now?

I thought it might be fun to have a general thread where we can comment on the books we're reading now.

I just finished my first manga for a challenge in another group. The book was Library Wars Love & War Vol 1 by Kiiro Yumi. It's the first of a very long series about book censorship and an elite team of fighters trying to overcome it. It's a style called shoujo (spelled various ways) meaning it would appeal to adolescent girls - the typical big eye girls, hunky guys, adolescent type love interest. Reading a book 'back to front' and the panels right to left was a bit of a challenge at first.

It was my fifth Japanese read, so another country completed.

I'm currently reading The Shipping News by Anne Proulx. Although I already have five books completed for Canada, I'm also trying to read one set in each province, so this will be my Newfoundland read.

I love Annie Proulx' work! I've just finished first two books in to the WONDERFUL 'Alberta' trilogy by Norwegian writer Cora Sandel. Right now am trying to finish my first Czech title Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek.

Hi Starbox -

I loved The Shipping News.

The Alberta Trilogy sounds wonderful; I've added them to my very long list I keep on my Home page.

I just finished a great ER read: The Street of Eternal Happiness. It's a US reporter's story of the people living and working in a single street in Shanghai. It was a lovely meld of current events and the backstories. DD spent a year at a college in Shanghai, so even though my '5 books from China' is long past, I continue reading them.

DD is currently in Thailand shepherding a group of high school students. I haven't yet found a Thai book that I would like to read, so I'd love some suggestions.

Hi Streamsong, The Street of Eternal Happiness looks really interesting. There's too many books I want to read to ever catch up! (And people I work with, knowing I like reading, keep bringing me books that I totally don't want to read but feel duty bound to have a go at, which slows things down further!) RE: Thailand. I don't know if you like non-fiction, but I read a fascinating book called Little Angels about boys going into the monastic life and their lifestories. I've also got Anna Leeonowens (Anna & King of Siam) memoirs as free Project Gutenberg download on Kindle waiting to be read.
Have just finished 2nd book for Belarus: very beautifully written All that is Solid Melts into Air about Chernobyl and am reading first for Venezuela, The Hacienda which looks promising.
Happy reading xx

Thank you, Starbox. I will order a copy of The Little Angels from Amazon. It's especially perfect because DD brought me a Thai singing bowl and was trying to explain the differences to me between Thai and Tibetan Buddhism.

After finally adding all the books tagged in my LT library, I did find that I have read a few books set in Thailand- the first of Colin Cotterill's Jimm Juree series called Killed at the Whim of a Hat and the dystopian The Windup Girl.

I definitely need to read more South American fiction. It's a real hole in my map of countries read.

Hi everyone, I'm in the Mediterranean re-reading Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. It's about ships but doesn't look anything like The Shipping News! (which I haven't read, or indeed heard of before.)

>7 Orbasan: Hi and welcome! Hope you have fun!

One of the problems of LibraryThing is that you hear about far more great books than you can read in three lifetimes. It's a wonderful problem to have!

(But conversely I have read the odd 'turkey' just because it's set in some way-out place!)

>8 streamsong: It drives me crazy! But as starbox said, there's rubbish too, and it can be difficult to pick until you've read a hundred pages or so. Nothing worse than getting through a book and thinking "what a complete waste of time".

England with Pride and Prejudice and Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy
Transylvania with Dracula by Bram Stoker
T'ang China with poems by Wang Wei

Just done Solomon Islands (The Isles of Unwisdom) which was OK but not on my list of recommendations. Gave up on Cuba (Pig's Foot) but really enjoying Belgium (Dear Departed)

Italy (Florence) and England - A Room with a View by E.M Forster (1908)
Scotland - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886 - set in 1751)

I just finished The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson for Sweden. I received this as an LTER book so I will be writing a full review - but I was pretty meh about it overall. It did finish up my five books from Sweden, though. Woot!

I'm currently reading Anarchy and Old Dogs, a part of the Laotian coroner, Dr Siri Paiboun, mystery series.

Australia (Melbourne) - The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (1886). The nineteenth century's best-selling mystery novel and the inspiration for Conan Doyle to write the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet.

I'm in New York with Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos and likely to be there for a while since it's a long book!

South Africa - King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard (1885)

Papua New Guinea with Euphoria by Lily King - great read

Italy - The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1765)
London & Greece - The Magus by John Fowles (1965, set in 1953)

I put aside Mahanttan Transfer for a bit. I'm now travelling between England and Ireland in the spy novel Watchman by Ian Rankin, which is set during the 1980s IRA terrorist bombings.

Just finished a re-read of Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz (Poland) and am now between Russia (Kolyma Tales) and USA (We Need to Talk about Kevin).

Really reading in the southern U.S. right now with both of my reads: Frazier's Ridge, North Carolina in book 6 of the Outlander's series and Maycomb, Alabama in Go Set A Watchman.

Adventures in Australia by William H. G. Kingston (1885). A writer of boys' adventure yarns and a number of travel books.
Tahiti - Captain Cook : His Life, Voyages and Discoveries by William H. G. Kingston (1871)
Scotland (and Australia) - Lament for a Maker by Michael Innes (1938). This features many quotes from Dunbar's poem Lament for the Makaris (ca.1505) with it's continuous refrain from the Office of the Dead : timor mortis conturbat me. And quite a bit of Scots dialect.
I'm on an Appleby run at the moment so plenty of English settings with :
Death at the President's Lodging (1936)
Hamlet! Revenge (1937)
The Spider Strikes (1939)
all by Michael Innes

I just finished my first book set (partially) in Sierra Leone, Lawrence Hill's historical novel Someone Knows My Name.

I've been sauntering around the world - mostly reading in French -, most recently in Japan in reading Haruki Murakami, Écoute le chant du vent suivi de Flipper 1973. I was also in Austria with La mort, entre autres by Philip Kerr, Canada with The Long Way Home by Louise Penny and France with Maman a tort by Michel Bussi.

> 26 Love all the countries you're visiting!

I've read twol set in countries I've already completed: France The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and for Ireland the short story A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.

I also finally finished my Early Reviewer book, The Drone Eats With Me by Atef Abu Saif about the Gaza Strip and Palestine. I learned a lot with this one.

I'm currently reading Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows set in an unnamed South American country.

I forgot to mention Mexico in Michael Connelly's Black Ice where Inspector Bosch works with the Mexican police to resolve a cross-border case.

I'm back from Jamaica in Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks - a great look into Rastafarian culture!

>27 Cecilturtle: >28 Cecilturtle: I'm impressed by your reads and the number of countries you've visited! Rule of the Bone sounds interesting.

I just finished Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife. Although the Balkan countries that make up the locations in the book are not identified, since she was born in Serbia and considered Serbian American, I've added her as my first read in Serbia.

Does anyone have any goals for their global reading this year? I'd love to add books to 10 new-to-me countries, but not sure I'll make it.

#29 I've heard good things about The Tiger's Wife. No Global Challenge goals... my real goal is to put my smart phone down and get back to real reading! I'm sure I'll wander the world in the process...

Yes, I read Tiger's Wife last year; although it doesn't state it's set in Serbia, I seem to remember a few clues including an airport named after a scientist (Tesla Airport is in Belgrade.) x

>30 Cecilturtle: yeah, mostly, I'm wandering, too. :-)

>31 starbox: Thanks for the input! I didn't know that.

I just finished my fifth book for Italy, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Lovely. I'll probably go on with the series.

I recently finished the Ferrante series - absolutely unputdownable!

I've been staying in the more common waters of England, France and the United States. If I come across more exotic shores, I'll be sure to mention them!

Have recently visited Morocco (The Final Bet) and Saudi Arabia (The Consequences of Love); currently in Maldives (Gatecrashing Paradise). Couldnt manage Malaysia's Garden of Evening Mists - SO boring!

I haven't been on Library Thing for ages as I've actually moved from France to Australia (along with books, cats and piano)! So getting back to reading around the world rather than flying around it (armchair travel is a lot easier).

This week, I listened to a fabulous rendition of A Passage to India by E M Forster. The reader is Sam Dastor - I can't recommend this highly enough - a real tour de force. So India in the 1920s.

And in England again - the 1930s this time - with Right Ho, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse. Another audiobook read by Martin Jarvis.

I like to put the dates of the settings as places obviously change over time. I read a lot of books set in England but it's so different depending on the era, it's almost like visiting a different country each time.

Read a couple of new authors for me this week - Jo Nesbø and Liane Moriarty.

Three books by Jo Nesbø set in Oslo - The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star. Although not a trilogy in that each book has a story complete in itself, there are threads running through which are not tied up until the last book. So definitely to be read in this order. There are a lot more books starring detective Harry Hole so plenty of crime reading to come in Norway.

Liane Moriarty is an Australian author and I thoroughly enjoyed Big Little Lies. When I began reading I thought it wasn't really my style of thing but as I got into the book I loved the quirky humour and the realistic absurdity of the situations.

The book starts in a very light vein but gradually gets into more serious situations. It's set around a group of parents and their kindergarten children. It's a microcosm of relationships and politics and is focussed from the point of view of the women in the novel - the three main characters being Madeline, Jane and Celeste.

I have already borrowed another book by Moriarty and am delighted to have discovered something new and very different to my usual fare.

Just finished Mary Renault's masterly The Persian Boy, set on Alexander the Great's campaign through Persia, Central Asia & India (another one for Uzbekistan) and am about to visit Micronesia with Hanya Yanagihara's The People in the Trees..

It's good to see posts here again!

>36 Orbasan: I like your idea of adding the date of the setting. I think I'll start doing that, too.

>37 Orbasan: I 've been meaning to try the Jo Nesbø books for several years. Thanks for the nudge.

>38 starbox: I remember when Mary Renault 's novels were hugely popular, but I don't think I've read any. I also haven't read anything from Micronesia, so I've made a note of People in the Trees.

I just finished The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It's the story of an South Vietnamese officer who was actually working for the North; and continued to work as a double agent as a refugee in the US. A bit too much graphic torture, but good about the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective. It won the Pulitzer in 2016.

And it's my 5th book for Vietnam, bringing me to 17 countries completed with five books. (Yay!)

>38 starbox: Thanks for reminding me about the Alexander Trilogy - I read Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy many, many years ago, and I was so distraught at the end of the second book that I couldn't bear to read the last book about the break up of Alexander's empire. I think a reread of the first two and then Funeral Games would be a good idea.

>39 streamsong: I really enjoyed Mary Renault's other books as well - The Last of the Wine, The King Must Die and Bull from the Sea. The last two are the story of Theseus. All of her books are well worth a read.

I've read a few more Jo Nesbø books too - his first Harry Hole The Bat set in Australia, mainly in Sydney and The Redeemer and The Snowman set in Norway - Oslo and Bergen. I don't think I'll count these in my tally though - I'd rather try some other authors for Norway.

One I will count is set in Israel and the West Bank - Croc Attack by Assaf Gavron. The chapters alternate between Croc, an Israeli who survives a number of terrorist attacks, and Fahmi, an Arab who is in a coma thinking about his past. Gradually the two characters come together - you'll have to read the book to find out how!

I've been away travelling the world from Norway to Iran and now the desert of Libya in L'ombre de Thot.

Ingushetia, smallest of the Russian republics in Our Game by
John Le Carré.

Happy 2018! I wishing everyone many wonderful books and many new countries to explore.

I'm currently reading Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez for a literature seminar on January 2nd. This is my first book for Colombia - a great way to start off the new year!

I've just read a popular novel from Indonesia: The Rainbow Troops, it was even made into a movie.

And have now started a book from South Africa: Begging to be Black by Antjie Krog. It's started very interesting, a white woman, who has been very involved with ANC, gets dragged into the aftermath of a murder.

So far I've read two books in April that I've added to my global list.

The first, Judas, was set in Israel by well known Israeli author Amos Oz. This one was part of a literature seminar that I've been taking, and is the second by Oz that I've read. Both were thought provoking and interesting reads. I'll be reading more by Oz.

The second book is Mouths Don't Speak by Katia D Ulysse. I received this one from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I don't have my review written yet, but it's about a hugely dysfunctional upper class Haitian family in the months after the earthquake.

Last month I read a very interesting book called Emerald Labyrinth written by a scientist doing field work in the Republic of the Congo. I was very sad to read about the recent massacre of Park Rangers in the Virunga National Park, the home of the rare mountain gorillas.

https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2018/apr/09/six-virunga-park-rangers-killed-...

I'm coming to the end of a book about gender and politics in eastern Europe, Reproducing Gender, it could count for several countries, but as I have already got 5 books in a few of those countries already then I'll have to think about which one I want to count it for (probably Hungary because two of the three chapters which I particularly liked on Hungary are by Hungarian academics, and I don't have much for Hungary yet). Then I'm going to start another one based on scholarship in the same region (my PhD was based in Romania and Moldova, hence my interest in eastern Europe generally and the fact that I have tons of books from there!), Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition (I need to check but I think that book might feature a chapter or two on one of the 'stans, so would be good to count fort hat!).

To celebrate Global Reading Day, Amazon (US) is offering 9 kindle books absolutely free from 9 different countries. The offer is good through 4/24.

https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world

I'm in Newfoundland, Canada marching through the Memoirs of a Blue Puttee.

I'm slowly working through Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines.

I’m still fighting off various tribes in ancient France with Julius Caesar in his The Gallic Wars.

I'm hanging out with Jamilia in Kyrgyzstan.

>51 labfs39: That's a fantastic novel!

I am in a dystopian Egypt with Here is a Body.

>52 Dilara86: I am also in Aziz's dystopian Egypt, waiting in The Queue.

I'm mainly in Turkey with Snow and Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers, but today I picked up Spirited Away, so I may make a quick detour to Japan.

>53 ELiz_M: The Queue was my first choice, but I went for Here is a Body because I could get it on scribd...

I've been traveling around all the Oceania islands (Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia) with The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux. It's a bit of a misnomer because Theroux was escaping a divorce and he tended to see the bleak before the happy, but it certainly brings to life all the thousands of islands.

I darted to Slovakia/Hungary for I Have Lived a Thousand Years and am now back in Turkey (thanks to the Asian Book Challenge) with The Bastard of Istanbul.

I’m trying to get home to Italy from Cambodia with Tiziano Terzani in A Fortune-Teller Told Me.

I'm hoping to avoid the Passage of Tears while exploring Djibouti.

I'm in British Columbia with A Killer in King's Cove

I'm in Latvia and it's High Tide.

I'm spending A Winter in Majorca with George Sand.

I'm reminiscing with the former residents of Katalin Street in Budapest.

I'm in Athens listening to the gossip and reminiscences of the The Daughter.

I'm in Sweden with L'Homme inquiet by Henning Mankell, a Wallander mystery... too bad I already have my count of 5 for Sweden :)

I'm reading my first book for Lebanon, An Unnecessary Woman.

ETA: Actually my fifth book for Lebanon, not my first!

I'm travelling through Syria, Egypt and Greece with What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad, a book about Syrian migrants.
Most of the book seems to take place in Egypt and Greece but it refers to Syria, so I'll probably add it to my list under that country.

Currently searching for Santa Claus in Baghdad.

Now I'm Reading Lolita in Tehran.

I've travelled through the French countryside with La Mare au Diable by George Sand, then popped to the USA in Louisiana and Washington DC with The Pelican Brief by John Grisham.

I'm reading State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton. It's an international espionage thriller where the characters go to Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and even a little bit in Oman. A great book for Global Travelling!

I started The Colonel by Iranian novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi.

I'm now reading My Grandmother's Braid. It's about Russian immigrants in Germany.

I'm Botswana with The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's less about detective fiction as it is about portraying life in Botswana, so I recommend it for local colour. Some passages are set in South Africa as well.

I read a Venezuelan picture book called The Caiman, which is based on the true story of a pet caiman that the author rode on as a child. Now I'm returning to Palestine to read Gaza Mom. It's a collection of the author's blog posts and news articles from December 2004-August 2010.

>75 labfs39: I really like the sound of Gaza Mom, but can only find abridged editions.

>76 Jackie_K: Hmm, my copy is by Just World Books and is 442 p. Here is a link to the book on the publisher's website. On Amazon, I see there are some used copies for a lot less. When I look on Bookfinder.com, I see new copies for less too.

hey, sooo does anyone have a good book reclamation?

I'm travelling from Nigeria to the US with The Bad Immigrant.

I'm finally reading outside of the anglophone world, with Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky, set among Russian emigrants living in Berlin. And I've started a book of short stories set in Iran, Seasons of Purgatory by Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipour.

>80 RidgewayGirl: I look forward to your comments on the Bronsky. I haven't read that one yet—the only one with a young female protagonist. I read a compelling review of Seasons of Purgatory lately.

I'm just leaving Iraq after reading The Corpse Washer. Fantastic book, but not exactly cheery. Next up is a palate-cleansing mystery set in WWII Germany, Journey to Munich.

I'm all over the place in Burnt Shadows. It opens in Nagasaki, then goes to Delhi, and now Pakistan. Not sure where we will end up!

I'm back from France, Canada, Belgium, Germany and Poland in Dibbouks by Irène Kaufer.

I'm also in France and England with Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, but I'm having trouble finishing it.

I've just left Afghanistan, covered in Earth and Ashes.

I finished a short Afghani novel called The Patience Stone.

I travelled to Canada, Spain, Mexico, the US (California), France, and Indonesia in the thriller J'ai dû rêver trop fort by Michel Bussi.

I'm remaining in Afghanistan with The Swallows of Kabul.

I'm in Canada with The Break by Katherena Vermette, and in England with Clouds of Witnesses by Dorothy Sayers

My third Afghani book in recent weeks: A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear. Both it and The Patience Stone are by Atiq Rahimi.

I'm enjoying the latest Backman novel, Anxious People (Swedish)

I'm in the sketchy part of Casablanca, Morocco with Straight From the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui. The translator for this book, Emma Ramadan, also translated a book I read earlier this year, In Concrete by Anne Garréta.

I'm leaving Afghanistan after reading a third Atiq Rahimi novella, Earth and Ashes.

I've finished wandering the streets of Montreal with both Histoires sans suite and Le Cahier noir by Michel Tramblay.

I'm in post-war Japan in The Great Fire.

Having finished the entertaining Straight From the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui and translated by Emma Ramadan, which was set in the streets of Casablanca, Morocco, I'm beginning Bitter Orange Tree, by Omani author Jokha Alharthi and translated by Marilyn Booth.

Bitter Orange Tree sounds right up my alley!
I am in a small village in the Po valley, in Italy, being both entertained and appalled by the antics of Don Camillo and his friend/nemesis Peppone.

I just finished books set in Latvia and the Soviet Union, but am not counting them because they were written by American authors. Next up is a book by a Guatemalan author, but is set (so far) in Israel. It's called Monastery by Eduardo Halfon

Just left South Korea, having finished one of the oddest (and more unpleasant) books I've read, The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Now back in Germany, following up the excellent Measuring the World with Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt The Invention of Nature. At least in Germany for now - he got about a bit!

>99 Willoyd: You're not the first person I've heard say that about The Vegetarian. I've avoided reading it for that reason.

>100 labfs39:
No, I wouldn't bother. Glad it was a library book!

I’m hunkered down in Baghdad with journalists during the first Gulf War in In Extremis: The Life and Death of War Correspondent Marie Colvin.

I'm just back from travelling across the US and the Netherlands in The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

>102 varielle: I read that a year or so ago, it's so good. Even better is On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin which is all of her articles from all the various war zones she reported from.

I'm spending time with refugees from Tibet, both in Nepal and in Canada in We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama. It took a little while for me to warm to this book, but I'm going to be sorry to finish it.

I'm spending time with refugees from Tibet, both in Nepal and in Canada in We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama, a Tibetan writer who was born and raised in Nepal.

I'm reading my first book of for this month's Asian Book Challenge. It's a collection of short stories by Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian.

von Humboldt is now on the Orinoco, whilst, in parallel, I'm with Simon Armitage on the Pennine Way (starting in Scotland), reading Walking Home for a book group next week.

I finished my book and now I have a question for anyone willing to venture an opinion. The book I finished was by an author who was born and raised in Nepal, but considers herself Tibetan. For the purpose of this challenge, I'm planning to count her for Nepal, with a note about her origins. I don't want to count her for China, for obvious reasons.

What you you think?

>109 RidgewayGirl: Where was the book set? I think you should list the book wherever you want, but I consider country of birth, current nationality, original language, and setting when I am confronted with tricky ones. Occasionally I also drill down to how old they were when they left their original country and where they were educated. Since starting this challenge, I've been much more aware of how globally mobile much of the world's population is.

>110 labfs39: It's largely set in Nepal, where the author was born and lived until she was an adult. But I'm wondering about honoring her statement that she is Tibetan, and thinking that nationality is such a slippery thing and bound to become more so as we all become more mobile and people can have strong ties to multiple countries and the weakest tie might be to the place they were born.

>111 RidgewayGirl: It's your list! I think honouring where she's from is a fine criterion!

I'm reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer. It's a bit of an unpleasant, nostalgic read despite the humour. It's allowing me to travel to the USA, Mexico, France, Germany, Morocco, Italy and India.

I'm reading Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. Excellent so far

>113 labfs39: I loved that book!

I'm reading Regardez-nous danser by Moroccan writer Leila Slimani. It is the sequel to Le pays des autres which is equally beautiful and so evocative of a time (post WWII and Morocco's Independence from France). My Mom who grew up there during the 1950s loved every page as truly representative of that time.

Leaving hot and sunny South Africa for the Snow Country of Japan.

Now in the American Midwest, reading Sinclair Lewis's Main Street.

I'm in South Africa with Nadine Gordimer's None to Accompany Me. Apparently it's one of her most intimate novels... yet still a bit cold for me although I do appreciate how her characters reflect the political landscape and show its complexity.

Staying in Japan to read a collection of stories about the aftermath of the atomic bombings. It's called The Crazy Iris and is edited by Kenzaburō Ōe.

>119 labfs39: Great minds think alike! I'm also in Japan, with a short story collection by Yoshimura Akira about death(s), illness and World War II.

I remained in Japan and read the eponymous story in A Riot of Goldfish, but declined to read the second. Just not in the right mood.

I'm in Albania and Italy with Crossing by Pajtim Statovci. It's really good.

I'm travelling with Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki during His Years of Pilgrimage. We've started in Japan, but I hear Finland is in our future.

I stayed in Japan to revel in The Easy Life in Kamusari.

I'm travelling to Begium, France and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Premier sang by Amélie Nothomb

I just finished Grass, a graphic novel by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim. It takes place in Korea and China.

Please Look After Mom is told from the perspective of different family members after a woman goes missing on a trip to Seoul from the countryside.

I read a graphic novel about families separated during the Korean War and The Waiting game as they play the lottery for reunification.

I'm in Ukraine and Poland in the late 17th century with Taras Bulba.

I'm on a cattle car going from Lithuanian to a Siberian gulag in Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel.

I’m in a mythological Kenya with The Perfect Nine daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi, originators of all Gikuyu clans.

Now I'm reading By Night in Chile.

I'm in a cafe in Japan where you can time travel, if you sit in a certain seat, but have to be back Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

I'm in Uashat, an Innu reserve in Côte-Nord, in the North-East of Quebec, where the narrator teaches at a school named Manikanetish.

I was in Belgium and France with Le Livre des soeurs by Amélie Nothomb and in Massachusetts with Mercy by Jodi Picoult.

Canción took me to Japan and Guatemala, and now I'm in the Vietnamese jungle reading a Novel Without a Name.

I've just started The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al-Aswani, set in a fine old building in Cairo.

I'm spending a lot of time in Canada, first in Ontario with Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, and second in Québec with Le cahier rouge by Michel Tremblay, the second book in a trilogy.

Goodness, it's been a while since I updated here. Since I last posted, I've read The Blue Sky a wonderful autobiographical novel of life on the Mongolian steppe. Then I skipped to England to read a memoir about a Jewish boy growing up in a London mill town during WWI called The Invisible Wall. Next an espionage novel set in Israel, London, Paris, Montreal, and New York. And I just finished tonight the Burmese memoir From the Land of Green Ghosts.

>139 labfs39:
Goodness, it's been a while since I updated here.
Me too. Since I last posted (when I was in the American Mid-West), I have spent a fair bit of my time in my native UK, reading both fiction (the first 2 volumes of A Dance To The Music Of Time) and non-fiction (Robert Tombs's This Sovereign Isle), the latter as part of my attempts to understand what I see as the madness of Brexit. Otherwise, I've had a brief excursion to pre-war Ukraine with Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin, and a longer stay in the American South, firstly in Mississippi with Perceval Everett's excellent The Trees, and currently with Carson McCullers* in Georgia through The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, which I'm really enjoying.

*edited to correct author's name. Thank you to >141 labfs39: for spotting!

>140 Willoyd: Nice mix of books. I think you mean Carson McCullers?

I am now reading the Japanese novel, The Ten Loves of Nishino, which I'm liking but not loving. Sorry Nishino. I liked her Nakano Thrift Shop much more.

>141 labfs39:
I think you mean Carson McCullers?
Whoops. Of course!! Have now edited it - thank you.

I'm in the Netherlands in the 2060s (?) with Les imparfaits (De onvolmaakten) and it looks very much like the nineties, but with more advanced technology.

I'm in Malaysia with The Night Tiger.

>144 labfs39: I'll be interested in what you think, as I have that lined up for Malaysia too - we're reading it in my book group for December.

>145 Willoyd: I'm 75 pages in and enjoying it. Not super heavy, but interesting details about 1930s Malaysia.

I'm in Romania (as well as France and other Western countries) with Les exportés

I'm not in any particularly exotic spots: Baltimore with The Accidental Tourist (Anne Tyler), Paris with Les bleus à l'âme (Françoise Sagan) and Toronto with Shrewed (Elizabeth Renzetti).

In Kenya, at the time of independence, reading A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o - excellent!

>149 Willoyd: I've owned that forever, but haven't read it. Sounds like I should move it up the queue.

>150 labfs39: Definitely. It really is good. Not a long read either. Chatting about it the other day with some more widely read members of one of my bookgroups, and they all rated it too, so not just me!

I'm reading The Gray Earth. It picks up where The Blue Sky left off, with our young protagonist becoming a student in the state-run communist boarding school in Mongolia.

I read my first book from Singapore, Crazy Rich Asian, which I unexpectedly enjoyed. I thought it was going to be chick lit, but it had a biting humor and satire that made it fun. Now I'm reading War and Me: A Memoir by Iraqi author Faleeha Hassan, and Fires on the Plain by Shohei Ooka. It is about a Japanese soldier during WWII who is abandoned in the Philippines.

In 17th century Wurttemberg (Germany) reading about Johannes Kepler's defence of his mother against charges of being a witch in The Astronomer and the Witch by Ulinka Rublack. Very interesting and well written.

I'm in the mountains of Mexico in the 1950s, in a creepy old mansion with Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and in Amsterdam in the 1970s with The Sergeant's Cat and Other Stories by Janwillem van de Wetering.

I'm in the Sundarbans of Bengal, caught up in The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh.

>156 Dilara86: Ooh, I read that earlier this year and enjoyed it. I will look forward to your review.

I'm reading a memoir by a young Dutch woman who was interned on Sumatra during WWII. Song of Survival would be the basis for a documentary of the same name and inspire a film adaptation called Paradise Road.

Moved from Wurttemberg to Turkey, in Ten Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak

Moved from Wurttemberg to Turkey, in 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak

>157 labfs39: It probably was your review that prompted me to take it down the TBR shelf!

I've just finished a Slovak novella: L'écuyère (The equestrienne) by Uršuľa Kovalyk - the empty space under "Slovakia" in my reading list was starting to weigh on me...

I've just finished crisscrossing Great Britain with The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin in Scotland Hiss and Hers by MC Beaton in England.

I've got two books going: Besieged about the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and The Confessor, a thriller set in Munich and Vatican City.

I'm in England and Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe, with Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook.

I've moved to Malaysia, with The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo, a book group read that we chose from the Big Jubilee read list.

>165 Willoyd: I read that a month or so ago. Quite different.

>166 labfs39:
I was going to read The Garden of Evening Mists for my Malaysian book, but given this was chosen for one of my book groups, it seems a pity to waste the opportunity! Got off to an easy, very readable, start.

>167 Willoyd: Garden of Evening Mists is a wonderful book, beautifully written and deep. I hope you get to it someday, but I would never pass up the opportunity to cross off two items with one book!

I finished Dust Child in two days. Wonderful novel about an orphan looking for his Vietnamese mother and American GI father. Now I've returned to Singapore, this time for a much more serious book than the Crazy Rich Asian books, called How We Disappeared. It's a novel about a woman who was taken into sexual slavery by the Japanese in WWII.

Now I'm in Poland with a young boy who survived Flossenburg concentration camp, in a book called Romek's Lost Youth.

I've moved from Malaysia to Togo, reading Michel the Giant by Tete-Michel Kpomassie, but we'll be transferring fairly soon to Greenland, as the subtitle in the book is 'An African in Greenland' - it's primarily an account of his experiences living with the Inuit.

>171 Willoyd: I read that book recently, and thought it was excellent. Although rather too much raw offal for my liking!

I've been dillydallying around the United States, from Mississippi to Maine, but I'm finishing the year in Iceland with Arctic Chill(Hiver arctique) by Arnaldur Indridason.

After a 600 page sojourn in the US, I'm on the road again reading, Agent Sonya. Currently in Singapore, I will accompany her to Russia, Germany, England, and various other locales before the cold war is over.

Ethiopia, via Samuel Johnson's History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, although he (Rasselas) does get about a bit! (Doesn't count for my global challenge!)

My first global challenge book of 2023: The Ardent Swarm by Tunisian author Yamen Manai. So far it's excellent.

I an vacationing in Tokyo where is is almost Cold Enough for Snow.

I've been immersed in Morocco with La Civilisation, ma Mère!... by Driss Chraïbi where two brothers recount their mother's emergence from ancestral to worldly beliefs, gaining her emancipation to create a more peaceful, more just world. It's a beautiful novel, and a wonderful homage to women.

I'm now in Poland with Czeslaw Milosz and The Captive Mind and Russia with Joseph Brodsky and Nativity Poems.

I'm in Ukraine with an Early Reviewers anthology of contemporary Ukrainian authors and poets: Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing from Ukraine. I've already technically completed my 5 books for Ukraine, but I can swap out one of the non-native Ukrainian authors I've read for this one.

I stumbled through Poland and Sweden in WWII with Anita Lobel in No Pretty Pictures, and now I'm exploring the Maghreb of Algeria in So Vast the Prison.

From Ethiopia, I've moved to the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), reading Alain Mabanckou's Black Moses.

I crossed A River in Darkness making my way from North Korea back to Japan, and then hung out in a lab in Cambridge, England working on The Double Helix.

I have finished Waiting: A Novel of Uganda's Hidden War in Uganda and am now in Madagascar, with Ambatomanga, la douleur et le silence by Michèle Rakotoson.

I've left Berlin, having finished 1,000 Coils of Fear by Olivia Wenzel, and am now in WWII-era Cairo with Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz and also in west Africa with How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (author is Camaroonian, but the country is left unnamed).

Have you ever flown over Sweden on the back of a goose? Nils and I are having Wonderful Adventures.

I'm spending my time between California and Mexico in La fille de papier by Guillaume Musso

I just finished Hiroshima Diary written by a physician in the days after the atomic bombing.

I'm in inner Mongolia, which is part of China, riding a Black Steed, which is probably less scary than being turned into an elf and flying on the back of a goose!

>189 Dilara86: LOL

I'm in a little village on Cape Verde island listening to the Madwoman of Serrano.

I've reluctantly left Cairo, and am now in Sri Lanka with The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka.

I'm currently in the depths of Queen Anne London, in the third of David Fairer's Chocolate House trilogy, Captain Hazard's Game. Not a well known series - effectively self-published as apparently couldn't find an agent - but I love these, as has everybody else I know who has read them. Vivid, entertaining and utterly immersive, written by someone who knows that era and place inside out.

I'm back from Greece in L'Île des oubliés by Roger Seiter and Fred Vervisch, inspired by The Island by Victoria Hislop. It's a historical fiction on Spinalonga, an island off the coast of Crete, on which lived a colony of lepers, from 1900-1950 (roughly). A fascinating read.

Otherwise, I'm hopping around in the United States between New York and Indiana in Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, and New York and Paris in French Exit by Patrick DeWitt

I've jumped from California to Mexico, New York City, Paris, Bretagne, and Rome with a short stint in Seoul in La fille de papier by Guillaume Musso. It was a fun read.

What will be The Ultimate Tragedy for a Black Bissau-Guinean girl?

Since I last posted, I have read The Tuner of Silences from Mozambique and a short story, Native Dance: An African Story from São Tomé and Príncipe. I am now back in Mozambique reading The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy.

I'm in Israel, specifically Jerusalem, with Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs, based on the Bible stories of Masada.

I'm travelling to Canada, the US and Haiti as I learn about Black History in North America with Petit traité sur le racisme by Dany Laferrière.

I've left Sri Lanka, having finished the excellent The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka and moved to Botswana for Call and Response, a book of short stories by Gothataone Moeng.

After a brief stopover in my home state of Maine for Five Tuesdays in Winter, I headed to Canada and the Great Lakes region looking for Station Eleven and am now in Denmark basking in the Altered Light.

I'm in India, reading a delightful anthology of essays and sketches, A Time for All Things.

I'm touring Europe: Ireland and Spain with Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry and Italy and France with L'enfant perdue by Elena Ferrante

I've been spending time in Nigeria, first with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her book Purple Hibiscus, which I really liked, and then with Buchi Emecheta and The Joys of Motherhood. Both were tough books to read, but well worth it.

I finished my second book for Pakistan with Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I know there was a controversy over the book but still good insight into the culture and geography of Pakistan.

I'm currently in Russia with Chaim Potok's The Gates of November. However, I think we are getting ready for a move to the U.S. I'm also with Isabelle Allende in Haiti with Island Beneath the Sea.

>205 Cecilturtle: I watched an interview with Mortenson and David Brokaw. The author insists that every incident in the book occurred. He said he and his co-author were pressed for time and melded some of the events together and by doing this some events were out of chronological order. He does admit to wrong doing in keeping the books and not keeping clear financial records. He has resigned from the board of the charity and apologized.

>205 Cecilturtle: Would it be worthwhile to you to read Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer to see the concerns? I found it really interesting and it's a short read -- more of an article really.

>208 RidgewayGirl: Yes - that's the article that I stumbled upon when I went to see where Mortenson was today. It soured the book a bit for me, but I couldn't help but being a bit skeptical about things running perfectly anyway: just ensuring that all those schools have teachers is almost impossible, let alone class materials, and maintenance - some were bound to be diverted to other uses.

I'm currently in Angola, reading The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa.

I finally left the Philippines and the Japanese memoir, Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story. I am now in England with Virginia Woolf in a Room of One's Own and Ethiopia with Beneath the Lion's Gaze.

Have moved on from Angola to Iceland, with History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir. An interesting read - not sure where it's going yet, although almost one-third the way in. Enjoying finding out though.

>212 Willoyd: I'm in Iceland too - reading Heida: A Shepherd at the Edge of the World by Steinunn Sigurdardottir. It's a memoir told in vignettes of varying lengths, as told to the author (she says she was inspired by Svetlana Alexievich's oral history projects where she only uses the people's voices and offers no commentary at all). It's very interesting.

>213 Jackie_K:
Sounds really good - will have to look for it.

I'm reading Little Big Lies by Liane Moriarty, which is set in Sidney Australia - this will be my fifth for that country.

I'm reading my second book from a Somali author, Black Mamba Boy. It opens in Yemen, then shifts to Somaliland (British), then Abyssinia.

I'm in Norway with La Soif, a Harry Hole mystery, by Jo Nesbø.
I'm also travelling from Minnesota to Brazil in State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Both are excellent thrillers.

I spent some time in Vienna and the Carpathian Mountains with The Winter Soldier, and now I'm in the Lake District of England with Amazons and Swallows.

>218 labfs39:

LOL! Swallows and Amazons is perhaps my all-time favourite series of children's books. I grew up with them - they were the first books I bought for myself out of pocket money that I actually collected (second-hand, each 2/6d old money - 12.5p new). Still love them as an adult, and have explored all the sites in the Lakes (they do exist, even if Ransome deliberately mixed up the geography) - I live a couple of hours drive away (and was there over the Easter weekend - visited Ransome's grave at Rusland church).

I've just moved on from Columbia (One Hundred Years of Solitude), to Japan, as have just picked up Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto. Am also reading Emma Smith's excellent Portable Magic, which covers books round the world, so flitting from pillar to post there.

>219 Willoyd: I'm only a few chapters into the first one, but I'm loving it (despite a few era-related quibbles- why do the girls always have to do the dishes?). I had owned four of the volumes, but not the first, so I finally found a copy (I wanted one that matched my others). So much fun, and even at my age, I'm inspired to want to get out on the water and camping.

I'm currently in Cuba with The Price of Paradise.

>220 labfs39:
(despite a few era-related quibbles- why do the girls always have to do the dishes?).

Because, in those days, they did! But there were the Amazons.....

Just whizzed through Ru by Kim Thúy, an absolute gem of an author. This novel was semi-autobiographical so moves between Vietnam and Canada, as the author did.

Just finished in Cuba in the 1950's with The Price of Paradise a meh book and am moving to Saint-Michel during WWII.