Chaos Reading discussion

In writing up the details for each Group Read, I always include the nationality of the author. I've noticed that it has been a very long time since we've read anything from outside the US (except for the odd UK author), so I've decided to go for a bit of diversity with the next Group Read. This time, the theme will be..



AUTHORS FROM OUTSIDE OF THE US & UK
If you're looking for inspiration, we have several group book shelves with recommended reading by authors from: Asia, Russia and Latin America. We also have a great thread on Nordic Lit that I'm working on putting up as a shelf. (Feel free to add more suggestions to these threads as you're trawling through too.)

Rules: Add a comment to this thread to nominate books that fit the theme. The intention is to generate a great and varied list of books to select our next group read from. Nominations will close in about a week, at which point I'll post a Group Poll for us to vote on our preferred read.

Everyone gets up to TWO book nominations each
New Rule
You can nominate up to FIVE books each, but each book you nominate must have an author from a different country.

Looking forward to seeing a long list of noms!

I'm going to start with my first nomination: Doghead by Morten Ramsland, who's a Danish writer. I picked this up in a sale a couple of years ago, and it has been shouting at me in very large font from my bookshelf ever since. If you look closely at the Chaos Reading banner on the Group Home page, you can probably even spot it.

Struggling to narrow down my picks for this theme. I may have to up the limit.. [edit - Done. Limit increased!]

Yep, this one is wide open on the possibilities! The ones nearest the top of my TBR pile are Rock Crystal, which came up during the aborted "books by country" thread, and The Wandering Falcon.

Ugh. Please don't mention that thread! "Aborted" is an excellent term. :)

Oh, I've been looking for an excuse to buy We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, so I'll nominate that too. The author's Zimbabwean.

HHhH by Laurent Binet (France)
Veronika Decides to Die (Slovenia) by Paulo Coelho (Brazil)
Blindness by José Saramago (Portugal)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria)
Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy (Hungary)

Karen wrote: "HHhH by Laurent Binet (France)
Veronika Decides to Die (Slovenia) by Paulo Coelho (Brazil)
Blindness by José Saramago (Portugal)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (Algeria)
Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy ..."

Brilliant! Those are all either on my TBR or my bookshelf :)

Some wonderful nominations already!

I'll suggest:
- Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Hearn Lafcadio (born in Greece, spent time in America, died while living in Japan)
- African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou (Congo)
- There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Russia)
- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (China)
- Three Generations by Yom Sang-seop (Korea)

Marc wrote: "- Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Hearn Lafcadio (born in Greece, spent time in America, died while living in Japan)
- African P..."

Some awesome choices.

Karen wrote: "Some awesome choices."

Thanks! I'm eyeing up HHhH and Metropole from your list.

Marc wrote: "Karen wrote: "Some awesome choices."

Thanks! I'm eyeing up HHhH and Metropole from your list."

Isn't this a great group?

Karen wrote: "Marc wrote: "Karen wrote: "Some awesome choices."

Thanks! I'm eyeing up HHhH and Metropole from your list."

Isn't this a great group?"

Yep. Metropole definitely caught my eye as well! I've only read a couple stories from Kwaidan, but the rest of the book is on my TBR as well. There's also an amazing movie based on these stories.

Whitney wrote: "Yep. Metropole definitely caught my eye as well! ..."

I actually ordered a copy of that two weeks ago. Great minds..!

Marc wrote: "..
I'll suggest:
- Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Hearn Lafcadio (born in Greece, spent time in America, died while living in Japan)
- African P..."

Fantastic. More books to add to my TBR!

I'm eying up African Psycho too. Gargh! Why can't I read more quickly?! Too many books. Too many books!

Ruby wrote: "I'm eying up African Psycho too. Gargh! Why can't I read more quickly?! Too many books. Too many books!"

I used to be kind of a snob when it came to audiobooks, but being within walking distance of work means that I've been able to get through a lot more books this summer thanks to them. Definitely not all books work well as audiobooks, though. So the TBR will continue to rise into the sky.

And by my earlier comnent, I meant isn't THIS, the Chaos Reading group a great group. Everyone nominates such interesting stuff.

Karen wrote: "And by my earlier comnent, I meant isn't THIS, the Chaos Reading group a great group. Everyone nominates such interesting stuff."

Heehee! We are a bit awesome, aren't we? :)

I've added so many books to my TBR list just from this Chaos group that I now have to figure out how I'm going to reincarnate myself!

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño is a fevered torturous dream. Bolaño's book 2666 Part B is another excellent choice.

With the first, By Night in Chile, the rhythms and references are such that a familiarity with Pablo Neruda is helpful.

Marc wrote: "I've added so many books to my TBR list just from this Chaos group that I now have to figure out how I'm going to reincarnate myself!"

Bahaha! I may have to add that to the opening blurb on the Group home page..

CD wrote: "By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño is a fevered torturous dream. Bolaño's book 2666 Part B is another excellent choice..."

Hard to go wrong with Bolaño! I've never seen that "Part B" added to the "2666" title before, but the cover looks like the edition I own. Anybody know anything about this? I'm not sure if my cover says "unabridged" like this one...

Marc wrote: "CD wrote: "By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño is a fevered torturous dream. Bolaño's book 2666 Part B is another excellent choice..."

Hard to go wrong with Bolaño! I've never seen that "Part B" ..."

I wondered about this as well. Only thing I found was articles discussing how a 6th section had been 'discovered', but I don't think that's related.

Nominations will close tomorrow, so there are only about 24 hours left to get your noms in..

I'm going to nominate Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, since the copy I ordered arrived today. Also, because this:

Ruby wrote: "Bahaha! I may have to add that to the opening blurb on the Group homepage..."

That kind of celebrity exposure will go straight to my head. I'm just warnin' ya. ; )

I love love love Bolaño! Let's get Bolaño'd out our nut. I would like to nominate:
Out by Natsuo Kirino
Popular Hits of the Showa Era by Ryū Murakami
Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena
Midnight's Children by duh
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
I will not be upset if none are chosen so long as everyone acknowledges how awesome my author portrait + cat is.
x x

Leo X. wrote: "I will not be upset if none are chosen so long as everyone acknowledges how awesome my author portrait + cat is.
x x ..."

Acknowledged! That is one awesome cat ;P

Ruby wrote: "Acknowledged! That is one awesome cat ;P"

Haha cheers ;D it's Sam, one of my sister's five cats- he likes long walks, being carried around and pooing in the bath :0)

Leo X. wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Acknowledged! That is one awesome cat ;P"
Haha cheers ;D it's Sam, one of my sister's five cats- he likes long walks, being carried around and pooing in the bath :0)"

I had a very clear mental image of that, until I realised that the cat probably isn't taking a bubble bath while he's pooing.

Ruby wrote: "I had a very clear mental image of that, until I realised that the cat probably isn't taking a bubble bath while he's pooing."

The only thing that entered my head was a tub-sized cat with a glass of champagne and a terrible pun like Margarita and The Master-sh**ter... I keep toying with it but it doesn't really get better than that haha!

I'll second that acknowledgement--that pic is awesome!

Truly an excellent cat picture.

I had a cat that liked to poo in the bath as well.

I'm just setting up the group poll, (so if you're quick you can squeeze in a late nomination or two) and am looking at the Bolano nominations. Technically, each person can only nominate one book per country (see the first post). I'm adding the first one mentioned (By Night in Chile) since it was first, and since it's shorter and therefore more people will read it.

I'm happy to also add 2666 as one of my remaining nominations, as long as the people who vote for it are also committed to reading it! It's a big 'un..

[edit: Also, what IS going on with all those different uncombined editions of that book? I know it was originally meant to be released as five different books (one per year, for financial reasons as he was dying), but his heirs had it published as one volume. Maybe it's to do with that? I'd fix it if I knew more.]

Also, Leo - you've got 3 Japanese authors there, which is against the rules (one book per country). I'm happy to include Popular Hits of the Showa Era as one of mine if you like, since it's so high on my TBR. I'm going to assume that you're accepting my offer and agreeing to nominate Satantango as one of your picks in return :)

You'll need to choose between Out & Parasite Eve. I know the latter can be difficult to get hold of (from personal experience).

If you're online, let me know. If not, I'll have to make some more executive decisions.. :)

For the sake of getting this poll up before I go to bed, I've made some executive decisions.

Firstly, Leo's picks are now as follows.
1) Out - Japan - as nominated
2) Midnight's Children - India- as nominated
3) The Piano Teacher - Austria - as nominated
4) Satantango -Hungary - swapped with Ruby for Popular Hits of the Showa Era
5) 2666 - Chile - swapped with CD for Parasite Eve , since he couldn't nominate two Bolano books. And I know you love Bolano :)

That means my nominations are..
1) Doghead - Denmark
2) We Need New Names - Zimbabwe
3) Autonauts of the Cosmoroute - Argentina
4) Popular Hits of the Showa Era -Japan
5) Pale Fire - Russia

..and CD's nominations are:
1) By Night in Chile - Chile
2) Parasite Eve - Japan

Leo and CD, please let me know if you have any objections, and if so we can try to fix things up tomorrow.

The poll will shortly be up on the Chaos Reading home page, or you can access it from the "Polls" link on the top right hand side of any CR Group screen.

G'night all!

Triggers because I read all of Sawyer's, and haven't read this one yet.
Quarantine for the same reason.
Oryx and Crake because I'm way behind on Atwood.
Never Let Me Go otherwise I'll probably never get to it…

So many good noms! I figured I didn't have to add to the count, since I'm gonna have a hard enough time choosing which to vote for as it is.

Derek wrote: "Triggers because I read all of Sawyer's, and haven't read this one yet.
Quarantine for the same reason.
Oryx and Crake because I'm way behind on Atwood.
Never Let Me Go otherwise I'll probably neve..."

Sorry, Derek. You missed the closing. Plus I think you had more than one Canadian in there!

With Pale Fire in the lead, I feel the need to point out that while technically Nabokov is from outside the US, he was an American citizen at the time of writing Pale Fire, and it takes place in the US. So does this book really fits the spirit of this group read theme?

Whitney wrote: "With Pale Fire in the lead, I feel the need to point out that while technically Nabokov is from outside the US, he was an American citizen at the time of writing Pale Fire, and it takes place in th..."

Gargh! This is what happens when I try nominating an author I'm not very familiar with. I wish someone had pointed it out earlier.

Oh well. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it..

For the record, I did google Nabokov beforehand to check, and the Google summary (from Wikipedia) says this:
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-born novelist. Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer.

That was enough for me.

The theme was about getting some diversity in the the authors' cultural background, not necessarily where the book is set. I didn't realise he was a US citizen when he wrote Pale Fire, but I guess that doesn't change his cultural heritage does it? It probably would have been better if it was set outside the US, but I didn't check that for any of the other nominations either.

Ruby wrote: "For the record, I did google Nabokov beforehand to check, and the Google summary (from Wikipedia) says this:
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-born novelist. Nabokov's first nine novels ..."

You make a case for sure, I was just throwing it out there. He did spend most his life in places outside the US. It just seems to be not so much a change of scenery as the same scenery from the point of view of someone originally from another country. I guess I just find it a little disappointing that in trying to get some more diversity, we may choose to read what is to a large extent another American novel that slips through on a technicality.

And, because I am borderline autistic, I'll add that Encyclopedia Britannica list him as a" Russian-born American novelist and critic", the Library of America includes Pnin, Pale Fire, and Lolita in their catalog, PBS included him in their American writers series, and he himself wrote "I’m an American writer, born in Russia, educated in England, where I studied French literature before moving to Germany for fifteen years… My head speaks English, my heart speaks Russian and my ear speaks French”.