rocketjk's goes forward and back

Greetings! I only recently became aware of this group. I've been posting annual threads at the Reading Globally group, but I think I'll add one here. For fun, I'm going to recreate my global reading by gleaning from my annual RG threads, beginning with my first on way back in 2010! For that group I include every book, based on where the book takes place rather than who wrote it. So an American writing a book in English that takes place in France would count as a reading visit to that country. For this thread I'm going to be much more conscious of including books written by authors from the countries in which the books take place, though allowing myself some wriggle room. I will add short posts as I add books.

2010: 19 points
2011: 5 points
2012: 8 points
2013: 3 points
2014: 2 points
2015: 7 points
2016: 4 points
2017: 14 points
2018: 5 points
2019: 8 points
2020: 8 points
2021: 4 points
2022: 5 points
2023: 2 points
Total: 94 points

AFRICA
Kenya
West with the Night by Beryl Markham (memoir) - 2017

Rwanda
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan (short stories) - 2010 (Each story takes place in a different country. What I think is the best of the stories {they're all excellent} takes place in Rwanda.)

ASIA
Bangladesh
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam - 2016

China
1000 Years of Joy and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei (memoir) - 2022

India
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri - 2015
Fireproof by Raj Kamal Jha - 2016

Iran
In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: a Memoir of Iran by Christopher de Bellaigue (non-fiction) - 2015 (Not written by a native of the country but by someone who lived in the country for many years.)
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar - 2021

Mesopotamia
The Epic of Gilgamesh translated by N.K. Sandars - 2018

Myanmar
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh - 2018

South Korea
The Innocent by Richard E. Kim - 2010

The Philippines
When the Rainbow Goddess Wept by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard - 2010

Viet Nam
Land of Frozen Laughter: a Community Development Volunteer in the Vietnam War, 1967-1969 by John Lewallen (Not written by a native of the country but this is a memoir by someone who experienced the Vietnam War as a community worker employed by an NGO.) - 2017

CARIBBEAN
Dominican Republic:
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez - 2011

Haiti
Foreign Shores by Marie-Hélène Laforest - 2020
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C. L. R. James (history) - 2022

CENTRAL AMERICA
Guatemala
One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta - 2010

EUROPE
Austria
Reigen, The Affairs of Anatol and Other Plays by Arthur Schnitzler - 2014
Reigen, The Affairs of Anatol and Other Plays by Eva Ibbotson - 2017

Belarus
The Zelmanyaners: A Family Saga by Moyshe Kulbak - 2021

Bosnia & Herzegovinia
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon - 2013

Croatia
The Jews of Dubrovnik: a Walk Through Space and Time from the Early Days to the Present by Vesna Miovic (non-fiction) - 2017
Veli Jože by Vladimir Nazor - 2017

Czechoslovakia
The Tenor Saxophonist's Story by Joseph Škvorecký - 2013

Denmark
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen - 2015

England
My Favourite Year: A Collection of New Football Writing edited by Nick Hornby (non-fiction) - 2010
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham - 2010
The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters - 2020
Hot Money by Dick Francis - 2010
The Need of Change by Julian Street - 2011

Finland
What the People of the Wilderness Used to Believe In by Oili Räihälä (non-fiction) - 2012
Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi - 2016
Under the North Star by Väinö Linna - 2017
The Uprising by Väinö Linna - 2017
Reconciliation by Väinö Linna - 2017

France
International Short Stories (Vol. III - French) edited by William Patten (short stories) - 2010
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac - 2010
Maigret and the Pickpocket by Georges Simonen - 2012
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery - 2014
Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 by Marc Bloch (memoir/history) - 2020

Germany
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada - 2017
Deductions from the World War by Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven (non-fiction) - 2017
All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski - 2019
John Heartfield: Laughter is a Devastating Weapon by David King and Ernst Volland (biography/art history) - 2022

Greece
Back to Delphi by Ionna Karystiani - 2017
Nine Greek Dramas edited by Charles William Eliot - 2020

Hungry
The Gates of the Forest by Elie Wiesel - 2010

Ireland
The Woman Who Walked Into Walks by Roddy Doyle - 2010
A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle - 2015
The Run of the Country by Shane Connaughton - 2016
A Little Bit of Ireland by John Finan - 2018
Guerilla Days in Ireland: a First-Hand Account of the Black and Tan War (1919-1921) by Tom Barry (memoir) - 2019

Italy
The Ciano Diaries 1939-1943: the Complete, Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1936-1943 by Count Galeazzo Ciano (non-fiction) - 2015
The Child of Pleasure by Gabriele D'Annunzio - 2019
Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue - 2020

Kosovo
Under the Blue Flag: My Mission to Kosovo by Philip Kearny (memoir) (Written by an American but it is a memoir of his time taking part in War Crime Trials in Kosovo so it gets special dispensation.) - 2012

Northern Ireland
The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville - 2015
Milkman by Anna Burns - 2019
The Land of Cain by Peter Lappin - 2019
The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville - 2021
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (history) - 2022

Norway
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsen - 2020

The Pale of Settlement
Selected Short Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer - 2013
Tevye's Daughters by Sholom Aleichem - 2015

Poland
In My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer (memoir) - 2019
Satan in Goray by Isaac Bashevis Singer - 2022
The Family Moskat by Isaac Bashevis Singer - 2022
The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer - 2023

Romania
The Appointment by Herta Muller - 2018

Russia
The Hermitage: A Stroll around the Halls and Galleries by Sergei Vesnin, S. V. Kudri︠a︡vt︠s︡eva and Tatiana Pashkova (guidebook) - 2012

Scotland
The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith by Bruce Marshall - 2012

Spain:
War is Beautiful: An American Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil War by James Neugass (memoir) (Written by an American but it is a memoir of his time taking part in the Spanish Civil War so it gets special dispensation.) - 2011
Sepharad by Antonio Munoz Molina - 2012

Switzerland
I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch - 2012

MIDDLE EAST
Israel
A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman - 2017
Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments by Oz Shelach - 2021

Lebanon:
The Dream Palace of the Arabs: a Generation's Odyssey by Fouad Ajami (non-fiction) - 2011

Palestine:
Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between by Laila M. El-Haddad (non-fiction) - 2023

Yemen
From the Land of Sheba: Tales of the Jews of Yemen collected and edited by S. D. Goitein - 2017

NORTH AMERICA
Canada
Labrador by Choice by Benjamin Powell, Sr. (memoir) - 2010
Still Life with June by Darren Greer - 2011
Natasha by David Bezmozgis - 2012

Mexico
Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration by Sam Quinones (non-fiction) - 2017

USA
Darling Billy by Alice McDermott - 2010
Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver - 2010
Nemesis by Philip Roth - 2010
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac - 2010
Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros (short stories) - 2010

OCEANIA
Australia
Voss by Patrick White - 2018
Wilderness Trek by Zane Grey - 2018 (Grey was, of course, American, but he spent quite a bit of time in Australia and loved the country.)

SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina
The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof by César Aira - 2019
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin - 2020

Chile
Tierra Del Fuego by Francisco Coloane - 2020
Cape Horn and Other Stories from the End of the World by Francisco Coloane - 2020
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende - 2021

Colombia
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez - 2010
Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 2020

Peru
Death in the Andes by Mario Llosa Vargas - 2019

Welcome to the group! :)

OK! I have gone back through my Reading Globally threads, one per year starting in 2010, and added in all the books I thought appropriate for this country counting, using the group's general rules with a little wiggling to fit a few other books that I deemed worthy. All in all, using the 5-per-country maximum that seems reasonable to me, I've totaled 91 books over these last 13 years (2010 through 2022), spread over 49 countries, including the Pale of Settlement and Mesopotamia. As I finish list-appropriate books going forward, I'll add them to the table above, and provide a short post for each below. Cheers!

I like that you have included countries that don't exist anymore. For those I counted where the author's birthplace now lies, but I like the idea of keeping the memory of old places.

>4 RidgewayGirl: Thanks. I like to keep to the spirit of where it was that the stories were written and/or written about. So mythology that arose from Mesopotamia, for example, I think it appropriate to list as originating there.

My first Global Challenge-appropriate book is The Magician of Lublin, representing my fourth reading journey to Poland (all are by Singer) and the 92nd addition to my challenge. I've got a review posted on my Club Read thread. Cheers!

Somehow when I put up my past reading list when I first joined the group in January, I neglected to include Eva Ibbotson's wonderful novel, Madensky Square in with Austria. I reviewed the book in 2018, so I'm adding it now and giving myself an additional point for 2018, adding it, of course, to my total.

OK, I finally read outside the U.S. for the first time since my very first book of this year, finishing Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between by Laila M. El-Haddad. The book is a memoir told in blog posts of El-Haddid's experiences, and those of her family and fellow Gazans, living under the repression of the Israeli government and military during the 2000s. Very disturbing. Very important to read. Although I already had two books listed under Israel, this my first included here as Palestine.

>8 rocketjk: I agree with your assessment of Gaza Mom as both disturbing and important. If you ever feel like a graphic novel, Joe Sacco's Palestine was very good too.

I finally added Wales, via my reading of Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill, a very fine novel about a rural farming family near the Welsh/English border that takes place over the first eight decades of the 20th century.