Around the World discussion

When our bookish friend and former moderator, Jenny Colvin, passed away in May 2022, she still had 51 places left to complete the first full Around the World reading challenge that she had started in 2012. As a tribute to Jenny and the inspiration she provided to many of us, we thought it only fitting to attempt to finish Jenny's list in 2023.

Rules:
1. Anyone can participate by pledging to read one or more books for the places on Jenny's list. Although the challenge begins on 1 January 2023, you can join at any time during the year.

2. The book/s can be set there, the author can be from there, or the author can live there.

3. Books can be in any format or genre, and there are no page limits.

4. Double-ups are allowed. That is, just because I want to read a book set in Tibet, doesn't mean that you can't also include a book for Tibet.

5. Nominations and progress reports should be posted in this Challenge thread so that we can keep Jenny's list up to date.

6. Jenny was considering recommendations from friends and followers for some places. This might help to choose a book, but it is not expected that you rely on them.

Have fun and read widely!

The list will be maintained in the next post. Comment to make your pledge, seek recommendations, make suggestions, and most importantly - report your progress throughout the year.

ASIA
✅ Afghanistan
- Recommendation Dancing in the Mosque
- Recommendation The Kite Runner
✔️ Read Dancing in the Mosque (Lilisa)
Macau
- Recommendation Pilgrimages: Memories of Colonial Macau and Hong Kong
Maldives
Paracel Islands
Spratly Islands
✅ Tajikistan
✔️ Read Tajikistan (Lilisa)
Tibet
✅ Turkmenistan
✔️ Read The Tale of Aypi (Rachel)

AFRICA
✅ Burkina Faso
- Recommendation So Distant From My Life
- Pledge American Spy (Rusalka)
✔️ Read Proverbs & Tales from Burkina Faso (Catherine)
✅ Burundi
- Recommendation Small Country
✔️ Read Baho! (Rusalka)
✔️ Read Small Country (Catherine)
Central African Republic
- Pledge Co-wives, Co-widows (Catherine)
Chad
✅ Comoros
✔️ Read A Girl Called Eel (Rachel)
- Pledge The Kaffir of Karthala (Catherine)
✅ Cote d’Ivoire
- Recommendation The Bitter Side of Sweet
- Pledge The Bitter Side of Sweet (Andrea)
✔️ Read A Gazelle Ate My Homework: A Journey from Ivory Coast to America, from African to Black, and from Undocumented to Doctor (Catherine)
✔️ Read Aya: Love in Yop City (Rachel)
✅ Guinea
- Recommendation The King of Kahel
✔️ Read In the Company of Men (Rachel)
Guinea-Bissau
Mayotte
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
- Pledge Voices: Short stories from the Seychelles Islands (Catherine)
Togo
- Recommendation An African in Greenland
- Pledge An African in Greenland (Catherine)
✅ Western Sahara
✔️ Read Stories of the Sahara (Lilisa)

CARIBBEAN
✅ Antigua and Barbuda
- Recommendation At the Bottom of the River
- Recommendation Annie John
✔️ Read At the Bottom of the River (Lilisa)
✅ Costa Rica
✔️ Read The Adventurer's Son (Andrea)
Grenada
- Pledge Crystal Rain (Rusalka)
Nicaragua
- Recommendation The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War
- Recommendation The Inhabited Woman
- Recommendation Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea
Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Pledge Rivers of Time: Why is Everyone Talking to Philippa? (Karen)
Saint Lucia
- Recommendation Walcott (poetry)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

EUROPE
✅ Belgium
- Recommendation War and Turpentine
✔️ Read War and Turpentine (Rachel)
Liechtenstein
Malta
- Pledge Ironfire (Lilisa)
Man, Isle of
San Marino

MIDDLE EAST
✅ Bahrain
✔️ Read Bahrain (Lilisa)

PACIFIC
Cook Islands
✅ Timor
✔️ Read The Canal House (Andrea)
✅ Fiji
- Recommendation (author) Epeli Hauʻofa
✔️ Read Getting Stoned with Savages (Lilisa)
Marshall Islands
- Pledge Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (Rusalka)
Micronesia, Federated States
Nauru
✅ New Caledonia
✔️ Read Miss Benson's Beetle (Andrea)
Niue
✅ Northern Mariana Islands
✔️ Read Turtle Under Ice (Lilisa)
✅ Solomon Islands
✔️ Read Devil-Devil (Andrea)
Tonga
- Recommendation (author) Epeli Hauʻofa
Tuvalu
✅ Vanuatu
✔️ Read Boxed Wine at Sunset (Lilisa)

SOUTH AMERICA
Bolivia
- Recommendation The Puma Years
- Pledge The Puma Years (Rusalka)
Easter Island
- Recommendation Easter Island
French Guiana
✅ Suriname
- Recommendation The Cost of Sugar
- Recommendation The Riverbones: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname
✔️ Read The Cost of Sugar (Lilisa)

Thanks so much for leading this effort and your work on this Andrea - much appreciated!

I’m definitely in and looking forward to participating in this tribute to Jenny. She was a great inspiration in her worldwide reading travels and fearless in her foray into new and distant lands.

Can’t wait for the list to include some locations for my 2023 travels around the world!

Lilisa wrote: "Thanks so much for leading this effort and your work on this Andrea - much appreciated!..."

Thanks Lilisa, it's been my pleasure.

Personally, I'm pledging to read at least 4 books for this challenge:
New Caledonia - Miss Benson's Beetle
Solomon Islands - Devil-Devil
Cote d’Ivoire - The Bitter Side of Sweet
Costa Rica - The Adventurer's Son

Updated: I will pledge to read from TEN places:


🔺Afghanistan: Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son (I’ve had my eye on this one - I think I spied it on Jenny’s list earlier this year)

🔺Antigua and Barbuda: At the Bottom of the River

🔺Bahrain: Bahrain or In the Country (this one has a short story set in Bahrain)

🔺Fiji: Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu

🔺Vanuatu: Boxed Wine at Sunset

🔺Suriname: Added this sixth location as I see my library has The Cost of Sugar

🔺Malta: Ironfire

🔺 Western Sahara: Stories of the Sahara

🔺Tajikistan: Tajikistan

🔺Northern Mariana Islands: Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario

Yes! Will be lovely to finish for Jenny what she started!
Will have a look what I can contribute - love that some of these are pretty tricky.

I have a couple of recs for people looking:
Micronesia, Federated States - My Urohs is a poetry collection, The People in the Trees
Togo - Dirty Feet

This is not a recommendation, but I read Journey to Death for Seychelles.

I have a few things on my to read list, but I will need to see what I can get access to. In the meantime, I will pledge to read:

Burundi - Baho!

Alright, I will sign up to a couple more that I have been able to track down:

Grenada - Sugar Money
Burkina Faso - American Spy
Marshall Islands - Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter

Ones I found that might be good for others who can get them for less that $40 and/or find them in the library are Turtle Under Ice or 500 Words or Less which possibly could work for Northern Mariana Islands? Probably will need to find more info on the author, but a lead!

I enjoyed American Spy Rusalka - hope you’ll like it.

Great job on finding two for Northern Mariana Islands! My library has Turtle under Ice. If no one pledges for Northern Mariana Islands, I could add it, but I’ll wait for now. I think we will have a tough time finding reads for some locations, so accepting a link/connection should work. Folks will need to explain the link, such as:

The author, Juleah del Rosario of Turtle under Ice is Chamorro and Filipina. The Chamorro people are the indigenous people of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Mariana Islands.

Here are some book ideas for locations:

Macau: The Red Pole of Macau (I enjoy this Ava Lee series!)
Turkmenistan: Walking to Samarkand: The Great Silk Road from Persia to Central Asia (Turkmenistan is one of the countries the author traveled along the Silk Road. I’ve read the book - it’s a good one too)
- Tibet: here’s my Tibet shelf for ideas - https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Central African Republic: Co-wives, Co-widows - I haven’t read it but it looks interesting
Comoros: Tales from the Torrid Zone: Travels in the Deep Tropics - I shelved this book as Comoros and well as a few other locations. The author travelled through 88 countries. I wonder if there are other locations we have on our list he traveled to thst I didn’t include on my shelf. Worth checking out the book.
Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent/Grenadines:
The Spice Necklace: A Food-Lover's Caribbean Adventure. The author sailed extensively in the Caribbean. Grenada is one location I shelved the book. With this book too, I wonder if there are locations we have on our list she traveled to thst I didn’t include on my shelf. Worth checking out this book.
St. Vincent/Grenadines: Windward Family: An atlas of love, loss and belonging (too bad I read this one a week or so ago, so I can’t claim it for this challenge! 🤨)

One more book idea:

Belgium: V2: A Novel of World War II

I was pretty surprised too, Lilisa! I was looking for Fiji, Tonga, etc more in the south of the Pacific where we have a lot of connections with and found those instead.

For interests sake, also found Year of the Reaper which is by an author born in Guam.

And glad to hear you enjoyed American Spy. I think I got it off your and Jenny's recommendations. I think she shelved it as Martinique.

Thanks ladies, I have updated the list. Thanks also for the new recommendations.

If anyone is tempted by Bolivia, I should point out I was the person who recommended The Puma Years to Jenny. It was one of my top reads in 2021.

I did look for that Andrea, and couldn't find it last night on my second hand bookshop. I will keep my eyes open though! Sounds great.

I am going to change my Grenada read however to Crystal Rain, as I just received it in the mail and didn't realise that was the island that the author was from. Jenny introduced me to this author when we were discussing Caribbean SciFi a few years ago here. She met this author and liked him. I believe she did not finish this book though... Ah well! I will give it a go!

So sorry to hear of Jenny's passing...I had not realized.

I didn't do much Around The World reading in 2022, but am hopeful for this next turn.

Coincidentally, I just ordered a secondhand book set in St. Kitts and Nevis: Rivers of Time: Why is Everyone Talking to Philippa? by June Goodfield.

It is a complete mystery to me and I had only heard of the author through the 500 Great Books by Women reading list.

Karen - here’s the thread on Jenny’s passing that was posted earlier in the year:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Good luck on some Around the World reading in 2023! And great about the St. Kitts and Nevis book - it’ll be interesting to hear what you think when you get to it. Cheers!

Thank you Lilisa - I have gone back and found that thread.

You all inspire me to begin again.

Andrea wrote: "When our bookish friend and former moderator, Jenny Colvin, passed away in May 2022, she still had 51 places left to complete the first full Around the World reading challenge that she had started ..."

I would like to commit to read:

TURKMENISTAN: The Tale of Aypi by Ak Welsapar
COMOROS: A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir
BELGIUM: War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans

I would also recommend for Western Sahara: Stories of the Sahara by the quirky traveler Sanmao and for Bolivia Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan

Thanks Rachel - your books have been added

Yay great you’re joining us in the challenge, Rachel! I will have to add the Western Sahara book - sounds interesting.

This is a lovely idea! Since I am restarting my African Reads this year, I will do Africa. I've some slotted in for various African countries and I don't mind retracing my steps and reading from a country I've already covered.

To be edited:
Burkina Faso
- Recommendation So Distant From My Life
- Pledge American Spy (Rusalka)
Burundi
- Recommendation Small Country
- Pledge Baho! (Rusalka)
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
- Pledge A Girl Called Eel (Rachel)
Cote d’Ivoire
- Recommendation The Bitter Side of Sweet
- Pledge The Bitter Side of Sweet (Andrea)
Guinea
- Recommendation The King of Kahel
- Recommendation The Dark Child - Camara Laye (Catherine)
Guinea-Bissau
- Recommendation: The Ultimate Tragedy by Abdulai Sila (Catherine)
Mayotte
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Togo
- Recommendation An African in Greenland
Western Sahara
- v difficult! I read some poems by Bahia MH Awah and put them through Google Translate (they are in Spanish)

Yrinsyde wrote: "This is a lovely idea! Since I am restarting my African Reads this year, I will do Africa. I've some slotted in for various African countries and I don't mind retracing my steps and reading from a ..."

That’s great, Catherine! Let me know when you’ve finished editing and I’ll update the master list.

Here are my selections so far:

Ivory Coast - A Gazelle Ate My Homework
Burkina Faso - Wood Never Becomes a Crocodile; Baby Chick Never Consults the Sparrow-Hawk
Togo - An African in Greenland (thought I am looking for another option)
Comoros - The Kaffir of Karthala

I'll read Small Country for Burundi

Yrinsyde wrote: "Here are my selections so far: Burkina Faso - Wood Never Becomes a Crocodile; Baby Chick Never Consults the Sparrow-Hawk..."

Thanks Catherine. I've updated the list. Had some trouble finding your Burkina Faso title, but according to Amazon, the one I linked is the same book by Luc Zio. Can you please check?

Yay, Yrinsyde - great that you’re participating in this challenge. Lovely that you’ll be taking on quite a few locations - thanks!

Andrea - I finished my first book - The Cost of Sugar for Suriname.

Lilisa wrote: "Andrea - I finished my first book - The Cost of Sugar for Suriname."

Yay! First place ticked off. How does that look? ⬆️

Looks good!

That's correct! They've changed the title. I'll adjust mine.

"Yrinsyde wrote: "Here are my selections so far: Burkina Faso - Wood Never Becomes a Crocodile; Baby Chick Never Consults the Sparrow-Hawk..."

Thanks Catherine. I've updated the list. Had some trou..."

You might find more choice for the Western Sahara by looking for Spanish Sahara. The Spanish occupied the region and pushed out the Berbers and other indigenous groups. Lots of literature is in Spanish. I found it really difficult to find things labeled Western Sahara. Now I'm finding more options!

Mayotte is not a country. It's a French island off the coast of Mozambique. So ... I guess this doesn't count?

Yrinsyde wrote: "Mayotte is not a country. It's a French island off the coast of Mozambique. So ... I guess this doesn't count?"

Yeah, that’s the thing - it’s Jenny’s list. That’s why I’ve been trying to consistently call them ‘places’ rather than ‘countries’. I think some of these places are going to be difficult to find a book for.

Ok, got a book for Seychelles: Voices: Short stories from the Seychelles Islands[Kindle Edition]

Yrinsyde wrote: "Mayotte is not a country. It's a French island off the coast of Mozambique. So ... I guess this doesn't count?"

From Jenny's blog, she was aiming to read "a book from every country plus as many island/standalone territories that are geographically unique from their parent countries as I can."

Similarly why Easter Island is on the list. She definitely embraced the "challenge" aspect of this.

Andrea wrote: "Thanks ladies, I have updated the list. Thanks also for the new recommendations.

If anyone is tempted by Bolivia, I should point out I was the person who recommended [book:The Puma Years|56930703..."

I'm an idiot, or maybe just own too many books. I actually own this. Let's see how we/I go :D

And hey - I found this: Lusophone African Short Stories and Poetry after Independence. Pricey but maybe an academic library near you has it? It covers Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, San Tome Principe, and Mosambique. Short stories by authors from these countries - in English!

Yrinsyde wrote: "And hey - I found this: Lusophone African Short Stories and Poetry after Independence. Pricey but maybe an academic library near you has it? It covers Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, San Tome Principe, ..."

Great find!

Lusophone African Short Stories and Poetry After Independence: Decolonial Destinies

Bahrain done! I finished Bahrain by Robert Cooper. I’m so glad I read it - it’s a great way to learn quick facts about countries/locations through this series. Note - this is a different link for the newest edition published in 2020. I updated the GR details and added the cover image.

Lol on you owning The Puma Years, Rusalka!

I've finished my New Caledonia book, Miss Benson's Beetle. It was a 3-star read for me. Luckily I have read this country before, or I may have felt short-changed, as it wasn't clear from the (British) Author's Note whether she had visited there. But it did have me researching airfares, so... Job done, I'd say!

I finished At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid for Antigua and Barbuda - short stories. I was underwhelmed - two stars :-(

I will add the following:

Malta: Ironfire
Western Sahara: Stories of the Sahara
Tajikistan: Tajikistan
Northern Mariana Islands: Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario

Lilisa, you are on fire! 🔥🔥🔥

I’m sorely tempted to add a few more, but I know my limitations 😆 Maybe I’ll review at mid-year.

The good thing is that my library has these books and some of these locations are new for me, so all good!

I've finished A Gazelle ate my Homework for Ivory Coast. It was very entertaining!

Yrinsyde wrote: "I've finished A Gazelle ate my Homework for Ivory Coast. It was very entertaining!"

Yay! Sounds like fun.

I finished Boxed Wine at Sunset for Vanuatu. It was a great read - 5 stars, review to come in a few days.

Lilisa wrote: "I finished Boxed Wine at Sunset for Vanuatu. It was a great read - 5 stars, review to come in a few days."

That sounds promising 🤩

I am reporting that I have read my Burundi book - Baho!.

Out of the starting blocks.

I have finished reading Proverbs and Tales from Burkina Faso. It's a cute small book with lovely illustrations. Some of the proverbs are recognisable. My husband and I chuckled at one and we are using it now! Underwear today is better than pants tomorrow. :D