Places Tess has read

I'm going to jump in! Location, location, location! My rule is lax: books set in a specific country. My reading at this stage in my life is for pleasure, for the most part. That being said, if the book does not provide an atmospheric feeling or a historical tidbit, I'm not going to count in my global reads. My fav genre is historical fiction, psychological thrillers, and classics. I do not like fantasy or magic realism, which might be why I put down many of the books I peruse set in South & Central America.

I must have joined in 2016 and this has fallen by the wayside. I'm for the most part retired now, still teach just one class per semester, so I should be able to keep current!

I will start with books I have read beginning in 2022 as well as those I had posted in 2016. (A couple were earlier--they were unique) I'm also going to limit my books in this group to 5 books per country. My main thread is in the Category Challenge group where I keep lists by years.

I hope to pick up many BB's I need to fill in my blanks!

ETA I also added Tahiti, Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles. I have read books from all of these locations and feel that putting them with France or the US doesn't do the reads justice. Also added historic Sicily.

ETA If the books are rated 4/5 I will post them even if I already have 5 for that area. Besides, it will remind me to read more widely!

visited 64 states (28.4%)
Try Neptyne, the programmable spreadsheet

Great to have another member on this challenge!x Very addictive, I warn you...

Afghanistan
1. Caravans by James Michener
2. Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan's Deadly Pech Valley by Ronald Fry
3. The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini
5. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

Albania
1. Country Where No One Ever Dies (Eastern European Literature Series) by Ornela Vorpsi

Algeria
1. The Eight by Katherine Neville (France & Algeria)

Andorra

Angola

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina
1. Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Pears Paul Read

Armenia

Australia
1. The Dry by Jane Harper
2. The Woman in Black by Madeleine St John
3. The Mother-in-law: A Novel by Sally Hepworth
4. The Nowhere Child by Christian White (took place in Both US/Australia)
5. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Austria
1. Hotel Sacher by Rodica Doehnert
2. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
3. The Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell

Azerbaijan

Bahamas

Bahrain

Bangladesh

Barbados

Belarus

Belgium
1. Gas! The Battle for Ypres, 1915 (The History of World War One) by J. McWilliams (took place in Flanders, in modern day Belgium)

Belize

Benin

Bhutan

Bolivia

Bosnia and Herzegovina
1. The Judgment of Richard Richter by Igor Stiks

Botswana

Brazil

Brunei

Bulgaria

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Cambodia

Cameroon

Canada (unamed specific locations)
1. The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister
2. Journey by James Michener

Alberta
1. Obasan by Joy Kagawa

British Columbia

Manitoba

New Brunswick

Newfoundland/Labrador

Northwest Territories

Novia Scotia
1. Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nunavut

Ontario

Prince Edward Island

Quebec
1. The Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers

Saskatchewan

Cape Verde

Central African Republic

Chad

Chile

China
1. Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
2. The Secret Talker by Geling Yan
3. One Bright Moon by Andrew Kwong (also took place in Australia)
4. The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel
5. A Single Swallow by Ling Zhang
8. Mao's Last Dancer by Cunxin Li
9. The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

Colombia
1. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
2. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

38 Comoros

Congo, Democratic Republic of the
1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
2. The Taste of Fear by Jeremy Bates

40 Congo, Republic of the

41 Costa Rica

42 Croatia

Cuba
1. The Price of Paradise by Susana Lopez Rubio

44 Cyprus

Czech Republic
1. A Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. Most of this book was set in Bohemia, today mostly encompassing the Czech Republic.

Denmark
1. Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
2. The Two Baronesses: A Romance by Hans Christian Anderson

47 Djibouti

48 Dominica

49 Dominican Republic

50 East Timor

51 Ecuador

Egypt
1. The Sekhmet Bed by L.M. Ironside
2. The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by G.A. Henty
3. The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
4. Brothers by Angela Hunt

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Estonia
1. The Girls, Alone: Six Days in Estonia by Bonnie Rough

Eswatini

Ethiopia
1. The Wife's Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam

Fiji

Finland

France
1. The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy
2. The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
3. The Designer by Marius Gabriel
4. The Chanel Sisters: A Novel by Judithe Little
5. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Laura Redniss
6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens My 2nd fav book of all time!
7. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy My 4th fav book of all time!
8. Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe by Leo Bretholz

Gabon

Gambia

Georgia
1. My Dear Son: The Memoirs of Stalin's Mother by Keke Jughashvili

Germany
1. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
2. The Woman in the Moonlight: A Novel by Patricia Morrisroe
3. A Small Circus by Hans Fallada
4. Irretrievable by Theodor Fontane
5. The Berlin Zookeeper by Anna Stuart
6. The Children of Hamelin by Theresa Sinclair

66 Ghana

Greece
1. A Man At Arms by Steven Pressfield
2. The Complete Fables by Aesop
3. The Last Days of Socrates by Plato
4. The Theban Plays by Sophocles
5. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

68 Grenada

Guatemala
1. In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende Takes place in the U.S., Chile, Guatemala

70 Guinea

71 Guinea-Bissau

72 Guyana

Haiti
1. Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

74 Honduras

Hungary
1. The Girl with the Golden Scissors: A Novel by Julia Drosten (takes place in the old Austria-Hungarian Empire

Iceland
1. The Greenhouse by Audur Ava Olafsdottir
2. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

India
1. Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March
2. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
3. The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
4. The Rains Came by Louis Bromfield
5. Rani Laxmibai: Warrior-Queen of Jhansi by Pratibha Ranade

Indonesia

Iran
1. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Iraq
1. The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Ireland
1. The Hungry Road: The gripping and heartbreaking novel of the Great Irish Famine by Marita Conlon-McKenna
2. Tread Softly on my Dreams by Gretta Curran Browne
3. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
4. Shadow of a Century: An Irish Love Story by Jean Grainger
5. West Cork by Bungey

Israel
1. The Land Beyond the Sea by Sharon Kay Penman (Crusades, primarily in Jerusalem)
2. The Lost Sea of the Exodus: A Modern Geographical Analysis by Glen Fritz (is thought to be primarily in modern-day Israel)
3. The Source by James Michener
4. All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan

Italy
1. Galileo's Daughter by David Sobel
2. Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Gregory Hays
3. The Silver Pigs (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries, 1) by Lindsey Davis
4. The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
5. The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
6. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Sicily
1. The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250: A Literary History (The Middle Ages Series) by Karla Mallette

Ivory Coast

Jamaica
1. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Japan
1. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
2. The Honjin Murders (Detective Kindaichi Mysteries) by Seishi Yokomizo
3. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
4. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hildebrand
5. Hiroshima in History and Memory by Michael J. Hogan
6. Hiroshima by David Hersey

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Kenya

Kiribati

Korea, North (Democratic People's Republic of)
1. The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James Michener. Action took place at the border(s) between North/South Korea.

Korea, South (Republic of Korea)
1. Three Tigers, One Mountain: A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan by Michael Booth
2. The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck

Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan
1. Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov

Laos

Latvia

Lebanon

Lesotho

Lesser Antilles
1. The Violins of Saint Jacques by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Liberia

Libya

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Madagascar

Malawi

Malaysia
1. Old Filth by Jane Gardam (Takes place in Malaysia, Singapore, and Great Britain equally)

Maldives

Mali

Malta

Marshall Islands

Mauritania

Mauritius

Mexico
1. Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.) by Susan Shelby Magoffin. (Encompasses both New Mexico and Mexico)
2. 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea by Jonathan Franklin. Memoir begins and ends in Mexico.
3. Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé expedition. Containing a description of a tour through Texas. With an account of the capture of the Texans and their march, as prisoners, to the City of Mexico by George Wilkins Kendall
4. The Tiger Came to the Mountains by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Micronesia

Moldova

Monaco

Mongolia

Montenegro

Morocco
1. The Lioness of Morocco by Julia Drosten

Mozambique

Myanmar
1. The Narrow Road to the Deep North: A novel by Richard Flanagan Took place during WWII when Myanmar was called Burma
2. The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason (Burma)

Namibia

Nauru

Nepal

Netherlands
1. Dancing with the Enemy: My Family's Holocaust Secret by Paul Glaser
2. Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
3. Far Away Across the Sea by tellegen-toon

New Zealand
1. Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett

Nicaragua

Niger

Nigeria
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
2. Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town by Amos Tutuola
4. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

North Macedonia

Norway
1. The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) by J. S. Drangsholt
2. Kristin Lavransdatter by Ingrid Undset

Oman
1. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi

Pakistan

Palau

Panama
1. Cruising Panama's Canal: Experience the sights, sounds and thrills of cruise travel, told with the wit and charm of travel memoir writers Al & Sunny Lockwood by Al Lockwood

Papua New Guinea
1. Victory An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad (called New Guinea when the book was written)
2. Lost in Shangri-La (Enhanced Edition): A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Michael Zukoff (New Guinea)

Paraguay

Peru

Philippines

Poland
1. Night by Elie Wiesel
2. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
3. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
4. The Thief of Auschwitz by Jon Clinch
5. The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
6. From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust by Lucille Eichengreen

Portugal

Puerto Rico
1. Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade

Qatar

Romania
1. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Russia
1. Dreams of My Russian Summers: A Novel by Andreï Makine
2. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
3. Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg
4. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Parts I & II)
5. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
6. Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg
7. The Gates of November by Chaim Potok
8. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
9. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Rwanda
1. Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story…and Why It Matters Today by Edouard Kayihura

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Samoa

San Marino

151 Sao Tome and Principe

152 Saudi Arabia

153 Senegal

Serbia
1. The Tiger's Wife by Tia Obrecht (Yugoslavia at the time)

155 Seychelles

156 Sierra Leone

Singapore
1. The Seventh Moon by Marcus Gabriel

158 Slovakia

159 Slovenia

160 Solomon Islands

161 Somalia

South Africa
1. War Serenade: An EPIC WWII Love Story by Jill Wallace
2. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
3. The Covenant by James Michener
4. The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner

South Sudan

Spain
1. Miracle in Seville by James Michener
2. The Light of the Fireflies by Paul Pen
3. Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving

Sri Lanka
1. The Elephant Keeper's Daughter by Julia Drosten
2. The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon Samuel White Baker

Sudan
1. Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games Lopez Lomong

Suriname

Sweden
1. The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator by Joakim Palmkvist

Switzerland
1. The Gustave Sonata by Rose Tremain

Syria

Tahiti
1. The Moon and SixPence by W. Somerset Maugham

Tajikistan

Tanzania

Tasmania

Thailand
1. What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

Togo

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago

Tunisia
1. The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai

Turkey
1. Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
2. The Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin set in Turkey/France

Turkmenistan

Tuvalu

Uganda

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

England
1. The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles #1) by Bernard Cornwell
2. The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill
3. Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope
4. The Chilbury Ladies' Choir: A Novel by Jennifer Ryan
5. The Tudors by Neville and Antonia Fraser Williams
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte My #1 fav book of all time!

Northern Ireland

Scotland
1. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Wales

United States
US South, West, Alaska, Hawaii
1. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. West from Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco, 1915 by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe
4. A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
5. Hawaii by James Michener
6. Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story Andrea Warren
7. The Gift Upon the Shore by M.K. Wren My 6th favorite all time book! (Pacific Northwest)

US North, East
1. Mrs. Poe by Lynne Cullen
2. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
3. Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati
4. Chesapeake by James Michener
5. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne by 3rd fav book of all time!
6. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George
7. Starling of the White House; The Story of the Man Whose Secret Service Detail Guarded Five Presidents From Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt by Edmund Starling My 5th fav book of all time!
8. Homeland by John Jakes

186 Uruguay

187 Uzbekistan

188 Vanuatu

189 Venezuela

Vietnam
1. The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
2. Postcards from Nam by Uyen Nicole Duong (takes place in the U.S. and Vietnam)
3. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien short stories, some take place in Vietnam, some in the U.S.

191 Yemen

192 Zambia

193 Zimbabwe

UN General Assembly observer states:
Palestine
Vatican City

Other states:
Abkhazia
Artsakh
Cook Islands
Donetsk
Kosovo
Luhansk
Niue
Northern Cyprus
Sahrawi
Somaliland
South Ossetia
Transnistria

Non-UN recognized possibilities:
Antarctica
1. A Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
2. To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration by Edward J. Larson Encompasses, Arctic, Antarctica, and K2
3. Shackelton's Journey by William Grill

Greenland
Tibet

As expected, the US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia filled up quickly! Surprised by China! Lots of holes to work on here!

Nice to see you here, Tess - this is an amazing group for obscure BBs! :)

>11 Jackie_K: TY! Obscure BB's, just what I need!;)

Welcome, Tess! I've added several countries to my list, thanks to you! Specifically: Tahiti, Puerto Rico, and Antarctica .I passed on the Lesser Antilles, since I am struggling with all the small island countries I already have on the list.

>13 labfs39: I added the Lesser Antilles because I read a book set in St. Jacques

>14 Tess_W: I would add it too, if that were the case for me. :-)

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende. A great read that begins in Haiti, moves to Cuba, and finally New Orleans. I'm going to count this as Haiti, as I already have fulfilled by US category and I have another book on my shelf based in Cuba.

I've decided to break the U.K out a little more: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Also going to divide the U.S. into north/east and south/west/Alaska/Hawaii

I read The Gates of November by Chaim Potok. This was a non-fiction read, but read like a novel. It was the story of the Slepak family from the days of Bolshevism to the son's eventual emigration to Israel. Potok collected information from the family through taped interviews and photographs. This Jewish family suffered terribly under Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Tikhonov regimes. From Potok's epilogue, ""Can we learn something from these chronicles about iron righteousness and rigid doctrine, about the stony heart, the sealed mind, the capricious use of law, and the tragedies that often result when theories are not adjusted to realities?" 272 pages 5 stars

>18 Tess_W: I have that one on the shelves. Nice to know that it will be a good read.

All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan Can a young Jewish woman and a young Palestinian man find love? Written by an Israeli author. Most of the story takes place in NYC, but the last quarter takes place in Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Since the author is Israeli and the book is partially set in the Mideast, I'm placing this under my Israeli reads.

The Price of Paradise by Susana Lopez Rubio This was a free Kindle read of 2019. It was billed as a historical fiction; although I would disagree. It is PERHAPS a historical romance, but that is even stretching the historical sense. This book takes place in Cuba during the 1950's and deals with the lives of those involved with the Mafia. I found it to be fantastical and little is mentioned of history at all. Che does make an appearance for three pages and one sentence about Batista. The book does not evoke either place or time in me. The writing is rudimentary while the reading was the perfect Castilian accent. (The main character was an emigre from Spain) 385 pages 2.75 stars and a meh!

>21 Tess_W: Ugh. I'll pass.

COLOMBIA

I read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez This book is all over the place, so it is very difficult for me to review. Firstly, I needed a family history chart to read the book. Many male children had the same exact name as their father, for generations. I started out listening to this on audio, but had to also get the book to follow along as just listening was not enough to keep my thoughts organized. Yes, Marquez won the Pulitzer Prize for this book. But is it readable? Is it enjoyable? Both negatives for me! I guess at the core of my dislike is the magical realism. Magical realism is inane to me; I can't take it seriously. It is a very pessimistic book set in the "fictional" town of Maconda for 100 years. Maconda is both desolate and also a very busy town with the banana plantation and the uprising of the slaves. The theme of this book, according to Tess, is the futility of life. If you are upset by pedophilia, incest, child abuse, rape, prostitution, and bestiality, senseless violence and killing, just to name a few, this book is not for you!

MEXICO

The Tiger Came to the Mountains by Silvia Moreno-Garcia This was a short story that took place in Mexico and was really a comment on the 1905 (?) revolution as played out in the fears of fending off wild animals. 27 pages Free Prime reading from March, 2022. In this case, I got what I paid for! 2.5 stars

RUSSIA

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Paternak, a re-read for about the 3rd time. This book touched my heart when I was in my early 20’s, and now that I am aware of the history behind the book and of the USSR/Russia from 1905-WWII, it means even more. I’m not going to review the particulars because I’m sure everyone is aware of them. I think this is a novel that has withstood the test of time and imparts place and time very succinctly. I will probably re-read again if I am still on planet earth in 20 years! 5 stars (as usual). 706 pages "They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the "blaze of passion" often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet.”