Around the World in 80 Books discussion

I made it a goal to try to read a book by an author and ideally set in the author's native country for every country currently (2014) in the United Nations which is 198 countries. The only deviation is to list the separate countries of the UK since I read so many books set there.

For the countries I visited from 2012-2014, it is easiest to list one book for each country if there was more than one book. If I listed all books, most would be the US and England with a few scattered here and there in Europe.

2012 to present:
136 countries 8 regions

Africa:
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Republic), Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Antarctica

Asia:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam

Caribbean:
Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados,Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago

Europe:
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Wales

Latin America:
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

The Middle East:
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

North America:
Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, USA

Oceania:
Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Welcome to the challenge, Laurie!

Thank you, Diane. I've gotten my list together for 2012-2014. I'll have to come back and add 2015, and I will add all books read so far. I'm afraid this year's list doesn't contain very many countries since I've focused on classics which have primarily been set in England and USA.

Here are many of the books I have read since 2012 but I added only a few set in the US or England.

2012-present
136 countries 8 regions

Africa:
Algeria - The Stranger by Albert Camus
Angola - A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa
Botswana - When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
Burundi - Small Country by Gaël Faye
Cape Verde - The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo by Germano Almeida
Central African Republic - African Tales: Folklore of the Central African Republic by Rodney Wimer
Chad - Told by Starlight in Chad by Joseph Brahim Seid
Comoros - A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg
Congo (Republic) - Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou
Democratic Republic of Congo - A Bend in the River by V.S Naipaul
Egypt - Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El-Saadwi
Equitorial Guinea - La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono
Eswatini - A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
Ethiopia - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Gabon - Awu's Story: A Novel by Justine Mintsa
Ghana - Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Ivory Coast - Aya: Life in Yop City by Marguerite Abouet
Kenya - A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Liberia - She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore
Malawi - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba
Mauritania - Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi
Mauritius- Eve out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi
Morocco - The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
Nigera: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Rwanda - The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya
Senegal - So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ
Sierra Leone - Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah
Somalia - Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
South Africa - July's People by Nadine Gordimer
South Sudan - A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, When Elephants Fight by Majok Tulba
Sudan - Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
Zimbabwe - The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

Asia:
Bangladesh- A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Cambodia - First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
China - Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
Georgia - The Sunny Night by Nodar Dumbadze
India - Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Indonesia - The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût
Japan - A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Kazakhstan - Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov
Malaysia - A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint
Mongolia - Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong
Myanmar (Burma) - Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin
North Korea - The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom by Blaine Harden
Pakistan - The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Philippines - Dusk by F. Sionil José
Singapore - Corridor: 12 Short Stories by Alfian Sa'at
South Korea - Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
Thailand - Bright by Duanwad Pimwana
Vietnam - The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Carribbean:
Antigua - Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
Barbados - Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Belize - Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell
Dominica - Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Dominican Republic - In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Grenada - The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross
Haiti - Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Jamaica - Augustown by Kei Miller
St. Kitts & Nevis - The Final Passage by Caryl Phillips
Trinidad & Tobago - Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

Europe:
Albania - Broken April by Ismail Kadare
Armenia - An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman
Austria - The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Azerbaijan - Ali and Nino: A Love Story by Kurban Said
Belarus - Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
Belgium - I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Bosnia & Herzegovina - The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Croatia - Thank You for Not Reading by Dubravka Ugrešić
Czech Republic - The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Denmark: The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
England - Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh; Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell; Xingu by Edith Wharton; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ; The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde; Middlemarch by George Eliot
Finland - The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
France - Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh; The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss; Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Germany - The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Greece - The Odyssey by Homer
Hungary - The Door by Magda Szabó
Iceland - Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Ireland - The Secret Place by Tana French; At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien ; A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
Italy - My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Latvia - High Tide by Inga Ābele
Liechtenstein - Malcontent's Monologue by Daniel Batliner in Best European Fiction 2013
Montenegro - Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knezevic
Netherlands - Midnight Blue by Simone van der Vlugt
Northern Ireland - An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor and Milkman by Anna Burns
Norway - The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
Poland - Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
Portugal - Empty Wardrobes by Maria Judite de Carvalho
Romania- The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller
Russia - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
San Marino - The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove
Scotland - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Spain - Don Quixote by Miquel Cervantes
Sweden - A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and Roseanna by Maj Sjowall
Switzerland - Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Wales - How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

Latin America:
Argentina - All Yours by Claudia Piñeiro
Bolivia - Our Dead World by Liliana Colanzi
Brazil - Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis
Chile - The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Colombia - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Ecuador- Family Album: Stories by Gabriela Alemán
El Salvador - Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya
Guyana - Frangipani House by Beryl Gilroy
Peru - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Suriname - Oroonoko by Aphra Behn

The Middle East:
Afghanistan - And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Iran - Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Iraq - The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
Israel - A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman
Jordan - I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached
Kuwait - Guapa by Saleem Haddad
Oman - Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
Qatar - 800 Days in Doha by Penelope Gordon
Saudi Arabia - Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening by Manal Al-Sharif
Syria - The Pianist from Syria: A Memoir by Aeham Ahmad
Turkey - My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
United Arab Emirates - The Sand Fish: A Novel from Dubai by Maha Gargash
Yemen - Sold by Zana Muhsen

North America:
Canada - Still Life by Louise Penny; Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper; The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
Costa Rica - At the Bottom: A Woman's Life in Central America by Luisa Gonzalez
Cuba - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Honduras - Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure by Christopher S. Stewart
Mexico - Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
USA - Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck; Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel by James Baldwin; The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Oceania:
Australia - The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart
Fiji - Kalyana by Rajni Mala Khelawan
Kiribati - A Pattern Of Islands by Arthur Grimble
Marshall Islands - Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island by Peter Rudiak-Gould
New Zealand - The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Papua New Guinea - Euphoria by Lily King
Tonga - The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux
Tuvalu - The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific by Julia Whitty
Vanuatu - Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost

29 countries, 8 regions

Africa: Egypt

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El-Saadawi

30 Countries, 8 regions

Asia: Mongolia

Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

31 Countries, 8 regions

Asia: Myanmar (Burma)

Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin

32 Countries, 8 regions

Asia: Pakistan

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

33 countries, 8 regions

Asia: North Korea

The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom by Blaine Harden

34 countries, 8 regions

Asia:Philippines


Dusk by F. Sionil José

35 countries, 8 regions

North America: Cuba

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

36 countries, 8 regions

Oceania: Tonga

The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux

37 countries, 8 regions

Antarctica

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

38 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
South Africa
July's People by Nadine Gordimer

39 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Northern Ireland
An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor

40 countries, 8 regions

Oceania:
Papua New Guinea

Euphoria by Lily King

41 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Wales

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

42 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
Central African Republic

African Tales: Folklore of the Central African Republic by Rodney Wimer

43 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Switzerland

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

44 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
Mauritania

Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

45 countries, 8 regions

North America:
Honduras

Jungleland: A Mysterious Lost City, a WWII Spy, and a True Story of Deadly Adventure by Christopher S. Stewart

46 countries, 8 regions

Latin America:
Chile

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

47 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Sweden

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Africa:
Morocco

The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

48 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
Sierra Leone
Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah

49 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
Cape Verde
The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo by Germano Almeida

50 countries, 8 regions

Caribbean:
Antigua

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid

51 countries, 8 regions

The Middle East:
Turkey
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

52 countries, 8 regions

Oceania:
New Zealand

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

53 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Finland

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

54 countries, 8 regions

Africa
Zimbabwe

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

55 countries, 8 regions

Africa:
Ghana

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

56 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Latvia

High Tide by Inga Ābele

57 countries, 8 regions

The Middle East
Iraq

The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon

58 countries, 8 regions

Europe:
Albania

Broken April by Ismail Kadare

59 countries, 8 regions

Asia:
China

Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

60 countries, 8 tregions

Asia
Kazakhstan

Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov

61 countries, 8 regions

Asia
Cambodia

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung

62 countries, 8 regions

Asia
South Korea
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

63 countries, 8 regions

North America
Costa Rica
At the Bottom: A Woman's Life in Central America by Luisa Gonzalez

64 countries, 8 regions

Latin America
Colombia
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

65 countries, 8 regions

Caribbean
Grenada
The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross
The small island country in the book is called Camaho, but it is definitely Grenada in disguise.

66 countries, 8 regions

The Middle East
Iran
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

67 countries, 8 regions

Africa
Senegal
So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ

68 countries, 8 regions

Caribbean
Dominican Republic
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Laurie wrote: "68 countries, 8 regions

Caribbean
Dominican Republic
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez"

I just read Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which reminded me of this true story which Alvarez based her book on. How did you like her book?

Mome_Rath wrote: "Laurie wrote: "68 countries, 8 regions

Caribbean
Dominican Republic
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez"

I just read Junot Diaz's [book:The Brief Wondrous L..."

I enjoyed it very much. Alvarez comments at the end that it is a fictional biography and not an accurate portrayal of the women since she did not know them or have access to family members to find out the personalities of the four sisters. But she wanted to capture the spirit of them and their struggle for freedom which I think she did admirably. I wonder what the surviving sister thought about the book.

Wow -- I'd be interested, too, in learning what the surviving sister thought of the book. Fully fictionalizing historical figures is unavoidable for those from previous eras; I'm surprised Alvarez wasn't able to find any contemporary family or friends who could provide insight. I'll keep this book on my to-read list; it sounds fascinating.

Laurie, I read the book a few years ago and also enjoyed it very much, even though it was sad. The film version of the book is enjoyable too, almost as much as the book.

69 countries, 8 regions

Latin America
Brazil

Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis

70 countries, 8 regions

Europe
Slovenia

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

Updated map of my travels

71 countries, 8 regions

Latin America
Suriname

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn