Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Challenge dates: January 1, 2021 - December 31, 2021
Genre: Any genre. Books chosen may be by setting or by native/resident author
Page length minimum: No minimum page length

Here is the catch: You will not be choosing your own destinations. The ATW80 Randomizer will choose your countries for you. You may trade in a country you do not want to read, but it will cost you an additional 5 countries. Once you have read all of the countries in your initial list, you may consult the Randomizer for a new list, if you choose.

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I chose 10 countries to begin 2021:

Togo = Dirty Feet
Andorra = 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line
Algeria = Wolf Dreams
Albania = Chronicle in Stone
Uzbekistan = The Railway
Lithuania = The Music Teacher
Taiwan = Green Island
Micronesia = My Urohs
Luxembourg = The Expats
Barbados = The Best of All Possible Worlds

This one is going to be a year...

Out of the blocks finally.

Luxembourg - The Expats

Enjoyable, fluffy, European, spy novel. If you can't find a read for Luxembourg and that sounds like your thing, go for it. I did not enjoy the ending at all, but others didn't seem to mind it. So worth the experiment then!

Micronesia - My Urohs

Oh I am not a poetry fan. I can appreciate the insight into contemporary society in Micronesia, and understand the feeling of being in a between space and not belonging. But a novel will always do it for me more than a poem.

Togo - Dirty Feet

If you want a book to stir a feeling of movement or transience, this is it. Although sometimes transience is not the best state of being. This book explores the ideas of a migrant, a traveler, a transient. For better and for worse.

Taiwan - Green Island

On the night that Taiwan's civil uprising in favour of democracy happens in 1947, a girl is born. The movement is quashed, and this is the story of that girl and her family over the next 50 years in Taiwan and the US.

Algeria - Wolf Dreams

This is a really good book for understanding how a fundamentalist is made. It's not rocket science, it's classic manipulation. But long game stuff. The book explains this well, but it does drag in the middle.

Barbados - The Best of All Possible Worlds

Sci fi book from a Barbadian writer. Hard core sci fi, another planet, multiple human races descended from us. However the take away read from this for me is just as important today as in 2000 years time (or whenever) - difference is never as great or as important as you think it is, and people have more in common than we give credit for. Feel like there are a few governments around at the moment who could deal with learning that lesson.

Only 4 to go!

Albania - Chronicle in Stone

What does war look like from the perspective of a child who has only experienced war? That's really the takeaway of this book. Everything is normal, until something isn't. Like the soldiers in your town changing from country to country every couple of days. The strange is normal, and the normal is strange when as a kid you know nothing else.

Lithuania - The Music Teacher

A drunk policewoman sees ghosts, I think, is supposed to be investigating a murder maybe but tells you instead about a teacher who groomed her. Lots. There is apparently a twist but I stopped caring around 100pp so I just wanted it to end instead of revealing things with 5 pages to go. There's a cat. Actually there is two if you include the boss'. Maybe that is important, I actually have no idea.

Andorra - 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line

Eric Ripert went from growing up in St Tropez and then Andorra, to working in some of the best restaurants in the world in Paris in the 1980s. This is the story of how that happened and the experiences he had. Very much about his childhood, not his experiences in the USA just as fair warning.