Around the World in 80 Books discussion

There are a lot of unread books from 2020 which are carying over, since I dropped off of my tour a bit the second half of the year. There is no way I will get to most of these, given the hectic nature of my current life. My goal is to try to make it to at least 80. I am trying to read new-to-me authors whenever possible (authors new-to-me are marked with an *). I have included a few destinations that aren't recognized countries. If a lot of these seem obscure, it's because I am running out of more commonly read books by new-to-me authors in a lot of countries.

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

Abkhazia: The Last Of The Departed*
✔Afghanistan: The Man Who Would Be King
Albania: A Short Border Handbook*
✔Algeria: All Men Want to Know*
American Samoa: Tutuila*
Andaman Islands: Island's End*
Andorra: 32 Yolks*
Angola: Sacred Hope*
Anguilla: The Holy Piby*
Antarctica: The Lost Men*
Antigua and Barbuda: Musical Youth*
✔Argentina: All My Goodbyes*
Armenia: The Fool*
✔Australia: Cocaine Blues*
✔Austria: The Guiltless*
Azerbaijan: Solar Plexus, A Baku Saga*
Bahamas: Learning to Breathe*
Bahrain: Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems*
Bangladesh: Fever*
Barbados: In the Castle of My Skin*
Belarus: King Stakh's Wild Hunt*
Benin: Doguicimi: The First Dahomean Novel*
Belgium: The Sorrow of Belgium*
Belize: On Heroes, Lizards and Passion*
Bermuda: Bending The Continuum*
Bhutan: The Circle of Karma
Bolivia: Immanent Visitor*
✔Bosnia: Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan
Botswana: The Screaming of the Innocent*
✔Brazil: Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
Brunei: Some Girls: My Life in a Harem*
Bulgaria: A Short Tale of Shame*
Burkina Faso: Thomas Sankara Speaks*
Burundi: A Soul for Sale
Cambodia: Stay Alive, My Son*
Cameroon: Season of the Shadow*
✔Canada: The Tin Flute*
Canary Islands: The Girl of Ink and Stars*
Cape Verde: Other American Dreams*
Central African Republic: My Country, Africa*
Chad: Mango Rain*
Chechnya: Hadji Murad
✔Chile: By Night in Chile
✔China: The Book of Chuang Tzu*
✔Colombia: Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord
✔Comoros: A Girl Called Eel*
Congo: Tribaliks: Contemporary Congolese Stories*
Congo (DRC): Tram 83*
Cook Islands: Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka*
Costa Rica: Weathered Men & The Four Mirrors: 2 Novels of Afro-Costa Rican Identity*
✔Cote d'Ivoire: The Blind Kingdom
Croatia: Hotel Tito*
✔Cuba: The Black Cathedral*
Curacao: The Miracle of Small Things* or The Roar of Morning*
Cyprus: The Dead of August*
✔Czech Republic: The Little Town Where Time Stood Still*
✔Denmark: The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved*
Djibouti: Passage of Tears
Dominica: Black and White Sands*
✔Dominican Republic: Clap When You Land
East Timor: Jazz, Perfume & the Incident*
Ecuador: The Day of Yesterday*
✔Egypt: Pharaoh
El Salvador: One Day of Life*
✔England: Cecilia*
Equatorial Guinea: Shadows of Your Black Memory*
Eritrea: The Conscript*
✔Estonia: Vivarium*
Eswatini: Scarlet Odyssey*
Ethiopia: The Shadow King*
Faeroe Islands: The Black Cauldron (Heinesen)*
✔Fiji: The Agonist*
✔Finland: The Woman Who Borrowed Memories
✔France: Hill*
French Guiana: The Jungle and the Damned*
French Polynesia: Island of Shattered Dreams*
Gabon: The Fury and Cries of Women*
Galapagos: Enchanted Islands*
Gambia: Chaff On The Wind: A Novel*
Georgia: A Man Was Going Down the Road*
✔Germany: The Safety Net
✔Ghana: His Only Wife*
Gibraltar: Rock Black Ten Gibraltarian Stories
✔Greece: Astradeni*
Greenland: The Girl Without Skin*
Grenada: That Time in Bogles: A Carriacou Tale*
Guadeloupe: Anabasis*
Guatemala: The Iguana Speaks My Name*
Guinea: Tropical Circle*
Guinea-Bissau: Anos Ku Ta Manda*
Guyana: Carnival*
Haiti: The Colour of Dawn*
✔Hawaiian Islands: Sharks in the Time of Saviors*
Honduras: The Common Grief*
Hong Kong: Lust, Caution: The Story*
✔Hungary: Niki: The Story of a Dog*
✔Iceland: The Poetic Edda
✔India: Can Love Happen Twice?*
Indonesia: Man Tiger*
✔Iran: The Conference of the Birds*
Iraq: A Portal in Space*
✔Ireland: The Talk of the Town*
✔Israel: And the Bride Closed the Door*
✔Italy: The Betrothed*
✔Jamaica: The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion*
✔Japan: The Boy in the Earth*
Jordan: The Bride of Amman*
Kazakhstan: Ballad of Forgotten Years*
Kenya: Kill Me Quick*
Kiribati: Migrations, Myth and Magic from the Gilbert Islands
Korea, North: The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag*
✔Korea, South: Land*
Kuwait: The Bamboo Stalk*
Kyrgyzstan: Munabia*
Laos: How to Pronounce Knife*
Latvia: Flesh-Coloured Dominoes*
Lebanon: Confessions* or De Niro's Game*
Lesotho: Everything Lost Is Found Again* or Little Suns
Liberia: Bound to Secrecy*
Libya: The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984*
Liechtenstein: Rapids
Lithuania: Those Whom I Would Like to Meet Again*
Luxembourg: In Reality: Selected Poems*
Macau: Ghostly Whispers: Thirteen Ghost Stories Set in Macao*
✔Madagascar: The Aye-Aye and I
Malawi: Honour and Other Stories*
✔Malaysia: The Gift of Rain
Maldives: Ocean Hues*
✔Mali: The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa
Malta: The White Lady of Marsaxlokk*
Marshall Islands: Melal: A Novel of the Pacific*
Martinique: Black Shack Alley*
Mauritania: The Desert and the Drum*
Mauritius: The Prospector*
✔Mexico: Mexican Gothic*
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: Horses of God*
Mozambique: We Killed Mangy-Dog and Other Stories*
Myanmar: From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey*
Namibia: Battlefront Namibia*
Nauru: The Undesirables: Inside Nauru*
Nepal: Palpasa Café*
✔Netherlands: The Boy Between Worlds*
New Caledonia: The Wreck*
New Zealand: Once Were Warriors*
Nicaragua: The Inhabited Woman*
Niger: Harmattan*
✔Nigeria: Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree*
North Macedonia: pH Neutral History*
Northern Ireland: Puckoon*
✔Norway: Blood on Snow*
Oman: Unoriginal Tales: Ten Fantastical Stories from Oman*
✔Pakistan: Are You Enjoying?*
Palestine: In the Presence of Absence*
Panama: When New Flowers Bloomed: Short Stories by Women Writers from Panama*
✔Papua New Guinea: Bastard*
Paraguay: I, the Supreme*
✔Peru: The Word of the Speechless*
Philippines: Dogeaters* or When the Elephants Dance*
✔Poland: The Tin Drum*
✔Portugal: Blindness
Puerto Rico: Call Me Maria*
Qatar: The Holy Sail*
✔Romania: The Snows of Yesteryear*
✔Russia: Demons
✔Rwanda: The Barefoot Woman
Saint Kitts & Nevis: Cambridge
Saint Lucia: Omeros
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines: Spirits in the Dark*
✔Samoa: Leaves of the Banyan Tree
San Marino: My Life Story of a Grateful Immigrant Who Lived the American Dream*
Saudi Arabia: A Girl Like That*
✔Scotland: A Disaffection*
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: The Blue Tower*
✔Solomon Islands: She: Poems*
Somalia: Born in the Big Rains*
✔South Africa: Cruel Crazy Beautiful World: A Novel*
✔South Sudan: When Elephants Fight
✔Spain: Tristana*
Sri Lanka: Mosquito*
Sudan: The Book of Khartoum: A City in Short Fiction*
Suriname: A Journey Into Another World: Sojourn in Suriname*
✔Sweden: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared*
✔Switzerland: Green Henry*
Syria: The Teeth of the Comb & Other Stories*
✔Taiwan: Notes of a Crocodile
Tajikistan: The Disobedient Wife*
Tanzania: Admiring Silence or In the Shadow of Man
Thailand: Bright*
✔Tibet: Among the Tibetans*
✔Togo: An African in Greenland*
Tonga: American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps*
Trinidad and Tobago: No Language Is Neutral*
✔Tunisia: The Ardent Swarm*
✔Turkey: My Name Is Red
Turkmenistan: The Revenge of the Foxes
✔Tuvalu: Tuvalu: A History*
Uganda: Kintu*
✔Ukraine: The Blind Musician*
✔United Arab Emirates: The Romance of Antar*
✔United States: Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition*
✔Uruguay: Empty Words*
Uzbekistan: The Dancer from Khiva*
Vatican City: Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's*
Venezuela: The Poetess Counts to 100 and Bows Ou*
✔Vietnam: The Sympathizer
Virgin Islands Hurricane Child*
Wales: The Long Dry*
Yemen: Hurma*
Zambia: Kumukanda*
Zanzibar: Gravel Heart
✔Zimbabwe: We Need New Names*

Those are some great titles, and most of them are new to me -- thanks for the idea list! I'll be curious to hear what you think of books like The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir, The Bamboo Stalk, and Omeros (which I enjoyed) and I, the Supreme (which... I did not). Happy reading!

Mome_Rath wrote: "Those are some great titles, and most of them are new to me -- thanks for the idea list! I'll be curious to hear what you think of books like [book:The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle..."

Thanks!

Thanks for the list. Some interesting books, and great ideas.