Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Will update as I read:

1 Across
✔︎Mystery- The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood 23 Jan
✔︎Over 500 Pages- Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975 by Hannah Arendt 20 Feb
✔︎Translated from French:- Ladivine by Marie NDiaye translated by Jordan Stump 22 Feb
✔︎Set in Asia: this one in South Korea The Plotters by Un-su Kim translated from Koream by Sora Kim Russell 26 Feb
✔︎Immigrant experience: Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye translated from French by John Fletcher 14 Feb

2 Across
✔︎Translated from Spanish-The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli translated by Christina MacSweeney 19 Jan
✔︎Set in Africa - Ghana No Sweetness Here and Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo
✔︎Historical Fiction - The Revolution of the Moon by Andrea Camilleri 03 April
✔︎Award Winning The Aosawa Murders 28 Jan
✔︎Woman Author -This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith 05 Jan

3 Across
✔︎Set in South America: Argentina Betty Boo by Claudia Piñeiro 10 Feb
✔︎Sci Fi/Fantasy: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin 20 Jan
✔︎Wild Card The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran by Masih Alinejad 05 Feb
✔︎Translated from Chinese: Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue 19.Feb
✔︎ Classic (+50 years old) - Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford 18.May

4 Across
✔︎Memoir When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors 08 Feb
✔︎Set During a War- Fires of London by Janice Law 18 April
✔︎ Set in Oceania Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones 02 June
✔︎YA or Children's: We Set the Dark on Fire 28 Jan
✔︎Translated from Japanese: Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto translated byGiorgio Amitrano and Michael Emmerich 03 March

5 Across
✔︎Caribbean Author: (Haiti) Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat 25 Feb
✔︎Graphic Novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel 12 Feb
✔︎Translated from Portuguese: Caín by José Saramago translated by Margaret Jull Costa 24 Feb
✔︎Set on an Island To the Island of Tides: A Journey to Lindisfarne by Alistair Moffat 07 April
✔︎Set in a MENA country (mostly but not exclusively Egypt): Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki 14 April

Progress:

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So far I've completed 2 books and have started another.
Completed:
Woman author category: This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith. Creepy story about obsessional unrequited love. Ended up reading another book by the same author, not for the challenge: The Talented Mr. Ripley. Ms. Highsmith had a knack for telling a compelling story featuring very unattractive, creepy characters.


Translated from Spanish category: The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. A strange, surrealistic book set in Mexico.

Just starting now for the Sci Fi/Fantasy category, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, a book I've been meaning to read for years.

Progress:

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Finished Sci Fi:The Left Hand of Darkness and Mystery: The Darkest Secret

Currently in Progress:
Award Winning: The Aosawa Murders
YA: We Set the Dark on Fire

Progress:


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currently in Progress:
*Wild Card: The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran
*Memoir: When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

I very much liked The Aosawa Murders, which won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel, but was not so much enthralled with We Set the Dark on Fire. I just don't think I'm the target audience for YA novels. I didn't mention at the last update that I liked The Left Hand of Darkness but was quite disappointed by The Darkest Secret.

Keeping the x's and o's straight is too much, so I'll just update my initial post instead.
I finished the last 2 memoirs by Masih Alinejad and Patrisse Khan-Cullors. I tend to read a fair amount of memoirs, but I never seem to find them completely satisfying. I think memoirists quite naturally include lots of details that they must to make the story complete, but that aren't all that interesting to those of us who don't intimately know the people/events. Also perhaps many who write memoirs are not really professional writers, instead people who've done things other people want to learn about. Both books were worth reading, but both meandered a bit, were at times repetitious, and contained overly detailed descriptions. Just comes with the memoir territory.

Latest reads(enjoyed both) were:
fun mystery Betty Booby Claudia Piñeiro (set in S.America; Argentina)
another memoir, but graphic novel this time: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Current read for the Immigrant Experience category is Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye

Finished 4 more:

Two by Marie NDiaye: Ladivine and Three Strong Women. Of the two, I liked the second one better. I read the first for the French translation category, and second for immigrant experience (France-Senegal).

My long read was Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975 by Hannah Arendt. This was dense, but provided a lot to think about (politics, philosophy, etc.)

For a book translated from Chinese I read Can Xue's Love in the New Millennium. This was a pretty strange book, which I usually don't like, but I did like this one. It's unique and hard to describe.

Latest books read (and I liked all of them, but my favorite of this bunch was probably The Plotters about an assassin in a futuristic version of Korea):
Asia (South Korea): The Plotters

Caribbean (Haiti): Claire of the Sea Light

Translated from Portuguese: Cain

Translated from Japanese: Goodbye Tsugumi

Enjoyed these 2 quite a bit:
To the Island of Tides: A Journey to Lindisfarne by Alistair Moffat a sort of memoir/history/travel journal about the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland, England.

and an entertaining historical novel set in 17th century Sicily about a little known female viceroy:
The Revolution of the Moon by Andrea Camilleri

Next, for the book by an African author, I plan to read a book by Ama Ata Aidoo

I read No Sweetness Here and Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo from Ghana. It was a book of short stories, ok to good, but not amazing.

For a book from a MENA country, I read Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki. It was non-fiction mostly having to do with Egypt, but also covered some other countries in North Africa as well as Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Informative on the topic. The author is Canadian with family in Egypt.

For a book set during a war, I read Fires of London by Janice Law, a mystery set during the time of the Blitz in WW2. Meh...not that great.

Just a few more to go...not sure what I'll read next.

I finished Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford on the 18th of May for the classic (50+ years). It was published in 1949 and is a romantic comic novel. Based on reviews, I thought I would love this book, but I thought it was just so-so. There are two companion novels, but I think I will skip these.

For my final read for this challenge (Oceania, I plan to soon take up Mister Pip by the New Zealand author Lloyd Jones

To close out this challenge, I read and enjoyed Mister Pip set during the Bouganville civil war in Papua New Guinea.