Around the World discussion

I've been at this so long I'm starting to run out of books for certain countries. There are a few unread books from 2019, which will roll over into the following list (if not completed this year). I am hoping to read new-to-me authors whenever possible (new authors are marked with an *.

Here's where I have been in previous years: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

✔Abkhazia: The Goatibex Constellation*
Afghanistan: My Forbidden Face*
✔Albania: The Country Where No One Ever Dies*
✔Algeria: The Bridges of Constantine*
American Samoa: Tutuila*
Andaman Islands: Island's End*
Andorra: 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line*
✔Angola: Mayombe*
Anguilla: The Holy Piby*
Antarctica: The Lost Men*
✔Antigua and Barbuda: Ladies of the Night*
✔Argentina: Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings
Armenia: The Fool*
✔Ascension Island: The Devil's Ashpit: and other Tales of Ascension Island
✔Australia: The Dry*
✔Austria: The Radetzky March*
Azerbaijan: Solar Plexus, A Baku Saga in Four Parts*
Bahamas: Climbing Clouds: Stories And Poems From The Bahamas*
Bahrain: The Red Hand
✔Bangladesh: Sultana's Dream and Padmarag*
Barbados: In the Castle of My Skin*
✔Belarus: The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga*
Benin: Agotime* or As She Was Discovering Tigony
✔Belgium: Pallieter*
Belize: On Heroes, Lizards and Passion*
Bermuda: Bending The Continuum*
✔Bhutan: Dear Seday: Letter from the Mountains*
Bolivia: Turing's Delirium*
Bosnia: Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan
Botswana: When Rain Clouds Gather
✔Brazil: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands*
✔Brunei: For You, I Do*
Bulgaria: The Physics of Sorrow*
Burkina Faso: Thomas Sankara Speaks*
✔Burundi: Baho!*
Cambodia: Music of the Ghosts
✔Cameroon: Behold the Dreamers*
✔Canada: Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel*
Canary Islands: The Girl of Ink and Stars*
Cape Verde: Other American Dreams*
✔Central African Republic: Le Dernier Survivant De La Caravane*
Chad: In the Dead Heart*
Chechnya: Hadji Murad
✔Chile: Bonsaï*
✔China: The Invisibility Cloak*
✔Colombia: Delirium
Congo: Black Moses
Congo (DRC): Tram 83
Cook Islands: Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka*
Costa Rica: Assault on Paradise*
Cote d'Ivoire: The Blind Kingdom
Croatia: Our Man in Iraq*
✔Cuba: Selected Writings of Jose Marti*
Curacao: The Miracle of Small Things* or The Roar of Morning*
Cyprus: The Dead of August*
✔Czech Republic: City Sister Silver*
Denmark: The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved*
✔Djibouti: Évanescence*
Dominica: Black and White Sands*
Dominican Republic: Tentacle*
East Timor: Jazz, Perfume & the Incident*
Ecuador: The Day of Yesterday*
✔Egypt: Proud Beggars
El Salvador: One Day of Life*
✔England: Mother's Milk*
Equatorial Guinea: Shadows of Your Black Memory*
✔Eritrea: Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law*
Estonia: The Man Who Spoke Snakish*
✔Eswatini: When the Ground Is Hard
✔Ethiopia: The Afersata*
✔Faeroe Islands: Walpurgis Tide*
Fiji: Death on Paradise Island*
✔Finland: The True Deceiver
✔France: Germinal and Claudine's House*
French Guiana: The Jungle and the Damned*
✔French Polynesia: Frangipani*
Gabon: The Fury and Cries of Women*
Galapagos: Enchanted Islands*
✔Gambia: The African*
✔Georgia: One More Year*
✔Germany: Pavel's Letters*
✔Ghana: Our Sister Killjoy
Gibraltar: Rock Black Ten Gibraltarian Stories
✔Greece: Clouds*
✔Greenland: Last Night in Nuuk*
Grenada: Angel*
✔Guadeloupe: The Restless*
Guatemala: The Popol Vuh*
Guinea: Tropical Circle*
✔Guinea-Bissau: Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amilcar Cabral*
Guyana: Carnival*
✔Haiti: Ayiti*
Honduras: The Common Grief
Hong Kong: Lust, Caution: The Story*
✔Hungary: Iza's Ballad*
✔Iceland: Stone Tree*
✔India: All About H. Hatterr*
Indonesia: Man Tiger*
✔Iran: Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran*
✔Iraq: The War Works Hard*
✔Ireland: The Story of Lucy Gault*
Israel: All Backs Were Turned*
✔Italy:Bebo's Girl*
✔Jamaica: Abeng*
✔Japan: The Twilight Years*
Jordan: The Bride of Amman*
✔Kazakhstan: Paper-Thin Skin*
✔Kenya: The Promised Land*
Kiribati: Migrations, Myth and Magic from the Gilbert Islands
✔Korea, North: The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea*
✔Korea, South: Nowhere to Be Found*
Kosovo: Summer Is My Favorite Season*
Kuwait: The Bamboo Stalk*
Kyrgyzstan: The White Ship
Laos: Land of Smiles*
Latvia: Flesh-Coloured Dominoes*
✔Lebanon:The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing*
Lesotho: Everything Lost Is Found Again*
✔Liberia: She Would Be King*
✔Libya: Under the Tripoli Sky*
✔Liechtenstein: Alex Saves Christmas*
Lithuania: Thanks to My Mother*
Luxembourg: In Reality: Selected Poems*
Macau: Ghostly Whispers: Thirteen Ghost Stories Set in Macao*
✔Madagascar: Translations From The Night: Selected Poems Of Jean Joseph Rabearivelo*
Malawi: Honour and Other Stories*
✔Malaysia: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder*
✔Maldives: Dhon Hiyala and Ali Fulhu*
Mali: The Fortunes of Wangrin*
✔Malta: Children Come By Ship. A Novel from Malta*
✔Marshall Islands: Marshall Islands Legend and Stories*
✔Martinique: Slave Old Man
Mauritania: The Desert and the Drum*
Mauritius: The Prospector*
✔Mexico: Down the Rabbit Hole*
Micronesia: Micronesian Blues*
Moldova: Works of Vasile Alecsandri*
Monaco: Palace: My Life in the Royal Family of Monaco*
Montenegro: The Sun Watches the Sun*
Mongolia: The Cave of the Yellow Dog*
✔Morocco: M'Hashish*
✔Mozambique: The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy*
Myanmar: From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey*
✔Namibia: Battlefront Namibia*
Nauru: The Undesirables: Inside Nauru*
Nepal: Palpasa Café*
✔Netherlands: The Quest*
New Caledonia: The Wreck*
✔New Zealand: The Piano*
Nicaragua: The Inhabited Woman*
Niger: Harmattan*
✔Nigeria: Under the Udala Trees*
✔North Macedonia: The Catalyst 33*
✔Northern Ireland: The Confession of Saint Patrick*
✔Norway: Adventures with Waffles*
✔Oman: Celestial Bodies*
✔Pakistan: Basti*
✔Palestine: Dawn*
Panama: Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal*
✔Papua New Guinea: Modern Poetry from Papua New Guinea*
Paraguay: I, the Supreme*
✔Peru: A World for Julius*
✔Philippines: Anting-Anting Stories and Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos*
✔Poland: The Drowned and the Saved
✔Portugal: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Puerto Rico: Call Me Maria*
Qatar: The Holy Sail*
✔Romania: Existential Monday: Philosophical Essays*
✔Russia: The Case of Comrade Tulayev*
Rwanda: Cockroaches
✔Saint Kitts & Nevis: Adventure At Brimstone Hill
Saint Lucia: Omeros
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines: Spirits in the Dark*
✔Samoa: Blue Rain*
✔Saudi Arabia: Finding Nouf*
✔Scotland: The Trick is to Keep Breathing*
Senegal: Kaveena*
Serbia: Houses*
Seychelles: Echoes from the Oasis*
Sierra Leone: Ancestor Stones
Singapore: Crazy Rich Asians*
Slovakia: Slovak Tales for Young and Old*
✔Slovenia: You Do Understand*
Solomon Islands: Solomon Time: Adventures in the South Pacific*
Somalia: Born in the Big Rains*
✔South Africa: Nineveh*
✔South Sudan: The Cows of Shambat*
✔Spain: [book:The Back Room*
Sri Lanka: Mosquito*
✔Sudan: Sisters' Entrance*
Suriname: A Journey Into Another World: Sojourn in Suriname*
✔Sweden: The Christmas Oratorio*
✔Switzerland: Confessions
✔Syria: Death Is Hard Work*
✔Taiwan: Last Words from Montmartre*
Tajikistan: From Tajikistan to the Moon*
Tanzania: In the Shadow of Man
Thailand: Arid Dreams*
Tibet: Sky Burial* or The Life of Milarepa*
Togo: An African in Greenland*
Tonga: American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps*
✔Trinidad and Tobago: Golden Child*
Tunisia: Hope Has Two Daughters*
✔Turkey: The Life of Saint Macrina*
Turkmenistan: The Revenge of the Foxes
Tuvalu: The People's Lawyer*
✔Uganda: Return to the Shadows*
✔Ukraine: Baba Dunja's Last Love*
United Arab Emirates: Temporary People*
Uruguay: The Museum of Useless Efforts*
Uzbekistan: The Dancer from Khiva*
✔Vatican City: Love and Responsibility*
✔Venezuela: It Would Be Night in Caracas*
✔Vietnam: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous*
Virgin Islands Hurricane Child*
✔Wales: The Great God Pan*
Yemen: Hurma*
✔Zambia: The Old Drift*
✔Zanzibar: On the Wings of a Whisper*
✔Zimbabwe: Butterfly Burning

Hats off Diane - that’s an epic list! I look forward to browsing through it at leisure.

Always love your lists Diane, but I also learnt something this time. I had no idea that Abkhazia was a recognised state. Googling some more now :D

Rusalka wrote: "Always love your lists Diane, but I also learnt something this time. I had no idea that Abkhazia was a recognised state. Googling some more now :D"

It's a disputed territory and not independent as of yet.

Great list; I must look up Eswatini. I was wondering how to classify territories, autonomous zones, places like Tahiti. Speaking of French Polynesia, I also have Breadfruit as my choice there.

Great list Diane - “stealing” for sure!

Diane wrote: "It's a disputed territory and not independent as of yet."

Noted, but still. New one for me!

Karen wrote: "Great list; I must look up Eswatini. I was wondering how to classify territories, autonomous zones, places like Tahiti. Speaking of French Polynesia, I also have Breadfruit as my choice there."

Eswatini is the new name for Swaziland.

I'll be looking at your list for inspo for my African Book Journey! I see you have a Libyan author for a story about Libya. I'm reading In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar for Libya.

Yrinsyde wrote: "I'll be looking at your list for inspo for my African Book Journey! I see you have a Libyan author for a story about Libya. I'm reading In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar for Libya."

I enjoyed that one. Last year I read his The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between, which is also very good.

Impressive! I read Memed the year I focused on Turkey but most of these are not known to me.

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Impressive! I read Memed the year I focused on Turkey but most of these are not known to me."

Thanks! I'm running out of the more popular titles.

Diane wrote: "I've been at this so long I'm starting to run out of books for certain countries. There are a few unread books from 2019, which will roll over into the following list (if not completed this year). ..."

I was looking through your list one book at a time and just got done looking at Tentacle. It seems fairly interesting but I'm not positive about it especially after reviewing some of the comments. If you don't mind, what are your thoughts? I know you haven't read it but I know I often have some ideas before I 've even started a book. If you don't or would like to withhold judgement that's fine too. In that case though if you wouldn't mind letting me know what you think when your done reading it or have started doing so that would be great!

The Popol Vuh looks interesting, but I am unsure what country to put it under. It sounds like it is relevant to at least a few if not several. How did you decide to categorize it under Guatemala?

Rachel wrote: "Diane wrote: "I've been at this so long I'm starting to run out of books for certain countries. There are a few unread books from 2019, which will roll over into the following list (if not complete..."

I haven't read it yet, but I will let you know my thoughts when I do.

Rachel wrote: "The Popol Vuh looks interesting, but I am unsure what country to put it under. It sounds like it is relevant to at least a few if not several. How did you decide to categorize it un..."

I categorized it as Guatemala since it was written my the K'iche' Mayans who live mainly in Guatemala today. Guatemala's name also came from the K'iche. I believe the original manuscript was found in Guatemala, as well. This book could also be used for Mexico or Belize, since the K'iche' lived in the area where Guatemala and Mexico intersect, also crossing into the border of present-day Belize.