Around the World in 80 Books discussion

So it looks like I'm coming in at the end of this challenge for this year but I'm going to do my best to see how many of the 80 I can get. Lucky for me I'm a fast reader lol. I'm going to start out in the USA and then travel to Europe. My plan is to stick with books that I enjoy reading which are mostly historical fiction. I figure I can tour around Europe for a bit before moving on to Asia, the Middle East and so on.

I have just finished Love Times Three by the Dargers which is set in Utah, USA. From there I plan on moving to France with the book The Second Empress by Michelle Moran.

That's all I have planned out for now but I'm looking forward to continuing to plan my journey around the world!

Laurel wrote: "So it looks like I'm coming in at the end of this challenge for this year but I'm going to do my best to see how many of the 80 I can get. Lucky for me I'm a fast reader lol. I'm going to start out..."

Welcome to the group and to the challenge, Laurel! You can count any books you have read since last October. You can also continue this list next year as a circumnavigator. Happy reading!

Thanks Diane! I just finished The Second Empress by Michelle Moran which is based in France. Its a great book about the life of Empress Marie-Louise of Austria who was the second wife of Napoleon. It was a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in historical fiction.

My next stop is Spain where I'm going to be reading Shadow of the Wind. I've partially planned out my route and the books to accompany them. You can see my map here.
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en

So I decided to add a book for England that I had read earlier this year called the Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory to my trek since it is getting close to the deadline. I added it in before the France book and continued by journey from there

Yesterday I finished Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon. It was a really interesting book with a story within a story. This book was set in Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War and centers around a boy who finds a book in the Cemetery of Books and is determined to find out more about its author. Shadow of the wind follows the boys journey and his life as he searches for the author. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good novel to read. while it is long, its also a book that can suck you in and make you forget how long it is.

Now onto my next post/stop which is Portugal!

So four books down and for the fifth I read Codex 632 by Jose Rodrigues dos Santos. This book is similar to the DaVinci Code in that it is centered on discovering the hidden life of Christopher Columbus and his true identity. It was hard to get into at times and there were parts where I had trouble staying concentrated on the book but overall I think it was a good read.

My next stop is Morocco where I will be reading Stolen Lives: 20 Years in a Desert Jail.

Last night I finished Stolen Lives: Twenty years in a Desert Jail. It was a pretty good book, kind of hard to follow the timeline in the beginning but it was a good read. Next stop is Algeria where I'll be reading The Plague.

I've decided to move on from The Plague. I was not a fan of the book and found it very difficult to get through. I did read a majority of the book but couldn't bring myself to finish it.

My next stop is Niger where I'll be reading Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa. I'm looking forward to the next bunch of books which are all based in Africa, a continent I'm very interested in.

I finished both Riding the Demon and the next book on my list Half of a Yellow Sun.

Both books were pretty good but hard to get into since they aren't the usual style of writing I like to read. Though that is the best part about this challenge, reading different books that you never would have before.

The next book I"m going to be reading is Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin set in Cameroon. Hopefully this book will be easier to get interested in than the past few books I've read

I have just finished my 11th book Havoc by Jack Du Brul. It was a very interesting action/adventure book that spanned centuries. This was a much different book that the ones I have been reading.

The next book I"m reading is about the Democratic Republic of Congo called Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher.