Frayda’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2021)

Frayda’s comments from the Around the World in 80 Books group.

Additional reads that were not on my February tbr for this challenge:

South Africa: Sugar Town Queens
England: Loveless

Status after two months: 13/80 books

K wrote: "Is any one else reading this? I finished it and thought it was pretty good. She shows the humanity of Nahr and other Palestinians as they deal with their struggles, moving from country to country. ..."

I will start reading it today or tomorrow!

an award-winning book set in Australia or Oceania
-> The Lost Man (Barry Award for Best Novel 2020 and others; set in Australia)

a BTBA (Best Translated Book Award) winning or nominated book set outside of the US or the UK
-> Horses of God (BTBA nominee 2014; set in Morocco)

(and I second She Would Be King for Liberia)

My February tbr for the challenge:

❌China: Dream of Ding Village
✅ Zimbabwe: Nervous Conditions
✅ Qatar: Love From A to Z
✅ Canada: The Testaments

I also read Blaue Frau for Finland in January which was initially not on my tbr for January.

That makes 8/80 books that I read for the challenge in January.

Is anyone reading this? Idk but it doesn't sit well with me that the author chose a disabled person as the narrator and decided to write him the way she did...

My January tbr for the challenge:

✅ Germany: Die Schwarze Madonna: Afrodeutscher Heimatkrimi
✅ Norway: The Mercies
✅ Slovakia: Samko Tále's Cemetery Book
✅ Brazil: Where We Go From Here
✅ New Zealand: Quiet in Her Bones
Canada: Station Eleven
✅ Japan: Confessions
✅ USA: An Emotion of Great Delight

I will join the atw in 80 books challenge for the first time. In 2022 I want to read at least 80 books that are set in 80 different countries in all the eight (nine) specified regions.

Status: 77/80

North America
USA: An Emotion of Great Delight
Canada: The Testaments

the Caribbean
Antigua and Barbuda: Little Eyes
Haiti: The Salt Roads
Barbados: A Caribbean Mystery

Latin America
Brazil: Where We Go From Here
Chile: E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core!
Costa Rica: Twisted Games
Mexico: If the Shoe Fits
Argentinia: Fever Dream
Venezuela: It Would Be Night in Caracas
Cuba: Your Heart My Sky

Europe
Germany: Die Schwarze Madonna: Afrodeutscher Heimatkrimi
Slovakia: Samko Tále's Cemetery Book
Finland: Blaue Frau
Norway: The Mercies
England: Loveless
Italy: Lore & Lust
Denmark: The Chestnut Man
Ukraine: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
Sweden: Anxious People
France: Keeper of the Lost Cities Illustrated & Annotated Edition: Book One
Poland: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Bulgaria: What Belongs to You
Ireland: The Henna Wars
Greece: Circe
Romania: A Dowry of Blood
Spain: All the Feels
Austria: Carmilla
Russia: Metro 2033
Serbia: Pink Slip
Belgium: Villete
Switzerland: Blutbuch
Georgia: The Pear Field

Africa
South Africa: Sugar Town Queens
Zimbabwe: Nervous Conditions
Ghana: Remote Control
Equatorial Guinea: By Night the Mountain Burns
Liberia: She Would Be King
Botswana: Empire of Ivory
Algeria: A Bookshop in Algiers
Morocco: Horses of God
Egypt: The City of Brass
Nigeria: Lightseekers
Burundi: Small Country
Sierra Leone: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Senegal: At Night All Blood Is Black
Tunisia: The Ardent Swarm
Ethiopia: Finding Joy

the Middle East
Qatar: Love From A to Z
Iran: The Stationery Shop of Tehran
Kuwait: Against the Loveless World
Yemen: The Vanishing
Lebanon: The Wild Ones
Afghanistan: Wir sind noch da! Mutige Frauen aus Afghanistan
Iraq: Frankenstein in Baghdad
Turkey: Black Powder War
Israel: Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix
Saudi Arabia: Love from Mecca to Medina
Syria: Refugee
Palistine: Minor Detail

Asia
Japan: Confessions
Taiwan: The Membranes
India: Blue-Skinned Gods
Vietnam: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Korea: The Vegetarian
Pakistan: We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir
China: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Malaysia: Queen of the Tiles
Hong Kong: Second Sister
Singapore: Last Tang Standing
Oman: Celestial Bodies
Cambodia: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Oceania/Australia
New Zealand: Quiet in Her Bones
Australia: Horribly Harry
Fiji: The Honeymoon Prize

Antarctica
Antarctica: Champion

1) a selection set in Kuwait
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

2) an award-winning book set in Central or South America
Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin (Argentinia; Shirley Jackson Award for best novella 2017)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

3) a Pulitzer Prize-winning book set outside of the US or the UK
The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar (Libya; 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

I nominate:

Schindler's List (set in Poland, Booker Prize 1982)

Who Fears Death (set in a future version of Sudan, World Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2011)