Sssnoo's 2020 TBR Challenge

[Sandra]

Update Dec 29: My third year of this challenge is completed. Yahoo!!!

Updated in June -- I swapped out Uruguay for Venezuala as I read a book from Uruguay earlier this year. Yay for June "make changes" month.

I was flummoxed with to many choices so I picked my countries randomly using a random number generator and picking amongst my un-read countries. This is what I ended up with - a very diverse set of books covering all the regions of the world:

1 Phillippines When the Elephants Dance
👍🏻2 Taiwan The Bear Whispers to Me
3 Vanuatu Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu
4 Kazakhstan One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
👍🏻 5 Uzbekistan Cancer Ward
👍🏻6 Bulgaria What Belongs to You
👍🏻7 Cayman Islands The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
👍🏻 8 Dominica Wide Sargasso Sea
👍🏻9 El Salvador Bitter Grounds
10 Guatamala Tree Girl
11 Nicaragua Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve
12 Swapping for Venezuala Damnificados Uruguay The Tree of Red Stars
13 United Arab Emerites That Other Me
👍🏻14 Kuwait The Bamboo Stalk
15 Marshall Islands Melal: A Novel of the Pacific
👍🏻16 Armenia THE FOOL (Khenté) -
17 Botswana White Dog Fell from the Sky
👍🏻18 Comoros A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth
19 Lesotho Singing Away the Hunger: The Autobiography of an African Woman
20 New Zealand Leaves of the Banyan Tree
👍🏻21 Sudan Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
22 Tanzania Admiring Silence
👍🏻23 Finland Memory of Water
👍🏻24 Liechtenstein Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein

[Cheryl]

This looks like a really interesting list! I've just added The Bamboo Stalk to my TBR!

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward are both amazing! I hope you enjoy them if the relevant numbers are selected!

[Donna]

Wide Sargasso Sea is a wonderful book. Tree Girl is good as well. And snap - I also have Getting Stoned with Savages on my TBR list this year! I hope we both get to read it! :)

[Sandra]

Donna wrote: "Wide Sargasso Sea is a wonderful book. Tree Girl is good as well. And snap - I also have Getting Stoned with Savages on my TBR list this year! I hope we both get to read it! :)"

I moved Savages to my #3 as well so if 3 is picked we can read it the same month.

[Sandra]

I finished El Salvador Bitter Grounds I really enjoyed this novel. A family saga covering decades of El Salvador's history. I feel like I understand the country just a bit better snf that is why I read. On to Taiwan

[Sandra]

February book is finished. The Bear Whispers to Me

I enjoyed this book a lot. Most of all for its sense of place. Taiwan is in the news a lot, but I really do not know very much about the island. This book brought its natural elements to life through the eyes of a boy. Reading the small bits of prose in the indigenous language was also interesting, especially understanding that it is more related to the Polynesian languages. As this is a translated work I accept there were things lost to language differences, and I believe some questions/issues I had with the plot were more related to my lack of understanding of the language and culture. I do think the actual translation was excellent - the issue is that some thoughts and ideas were just not translatable.

I read to experience the world, and reading this book gave me insights into Taiwan that I would never get even by traveling there. If you also read to experience different cultures then you will likely enjoy this book.

[Sandra]

I read The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century for March #7 Caymen Islands.

I liked it OK, especially in the second half, but it is not a page-turner. The book could have been so much more. As it is, the writing is mostly in the passive voice and tells rather than "show" the action. Eunice's story is more interesting than the text.

The first half of the book reads like a research paper on the industrialization of New England mills, the poor working-class women that ran the mills and then the Civil War. There are better works describing this part of history.

If you read the book, skim it. It is heavily padded as there just wasn't enough documentation to make a full book. What I would like to read is a novelization of the story. Hmmm- maybe I should writie it. LOL

[Sandra]

April’s book, Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur, is completed earlier than the past few months. Tears of the Desert was a well written memoir with a strong sense of place. I learned a lot about the Darfur region and conflict, precisely why I had this book on my list.

[Sandra]

May is taking me to Armenia to read THE FOOL (Khenté) -

[Sandra]

June's book:

24 Liechtenstein Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein

[Sandra]

My May book, The Fool took me to Armenia and was a fantastic introduction to Armenian culture and history. This wasn't an "easy" read, but glad I read it.

[Sandra]

12 points total so far!

I am early for once this month, traveling to Liechtenstein Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein. There were not many options for this country and this was a short children's book. It was as advertised - a dated children's book but portraying the dairy cattle practices of this tiny Alpine country. So it was ok

[Sandra]

I finished Comoros, reading A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth.

I was not expecting to love this book but I did. A book about a fish, who would have thought? I loved this book. The characters were interesting, the story exciting (yes exciting) and it drew me in completely. I strongly recommend this book for anyone needing a good read for Comoros.

[Sandra]

August book took me to Finland for Memory of Water

This dystopian novel was a change of pace from the type of books I’ve been reading for this challenge. I enjoyed the unique twist on the dystopian genre this author gave. The story and setting were very engaging and I read the book in a little over a day. As th ebook drew to a close I wasn’t sure I was going to be satisfied with the ending, but the author wrapped the storyline up nicely.

[Sandra]

September and my 9th book for the 2020 challenge is completed, What Belongs to You, set in Bulgaria.

This book explores the life of an American teacher and a lover/prostitute he hooks up with and who comes in and out of his life for years. Not only did I get a sense of Bulgaria by reading this book, but I saw some of the worlds through the eyes of gay men coming of age. It was powerful and edifying to read.

[Sandra]

October is done! The Bamboo Stalk took me to Kuwait, but this book could also count for the Philippines. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a strong coming of age story that crossed two cultures, neither of which I know a lot about.

I have been reading some complicated novels lately with intricate plotting and hard to follow storylines, so I appreciated this quick-moving straight forward story. I wish more modern authors would write like this.

And here I am with 10 months completed! I do love this challenge.

[Sandra]

I finished The Wide Sargasso Sea for Dominica (and had a remedial Geo lesson learning that Dominica is not the same as The Dominican Republic lol).

I brushed up on Jane Eyre’s plot before I began this novel as I read it decades ago. It helped my appreciation and understanding of Rhys’ book considerably. This is the backstory of Rochester’s wife - the crazy woman in the attic. It is superbly written. The author changes point of view throughout the book. Often I find this technique bothersome and confusing, but in this context it worked masterfully to bring the reader into the radically different minds and motivations of Antoinette and Rochester.

If you are infatuated by Rochester and want to stay that way, you may not enjoy this book.

[Sandra]

I finished The Cancer Ward with a couple days to spare. This was a depressing novel, for sure, but stands as a masterpiece of fiction. The character studies are unrivaled.

[Rosemarie]

Have you read any other books by Solzhenitsyn?

[Sandra]

Rosemarie wrote: "Have you read any other books by Solzhenitsyn?"

I have not. I had One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as my Kazakstan pick, but I’m not sure I’ll soon be up (down?) for another of his books. While masterpieces of literature, they are very dark - and in a real way. Do you recommend one in particular?

[Rosemarie]

I recommend One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich- it's short and very powerful writing. It is a record of one day of his life in a camp.
I also read The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956, a condensed version of his diaries and learned a lot.
I have recently started reading his memoirs and have only read the introduction. I learned that he did suffer from a malignant tumor which somehow disappeared-a miracle?
I read Cancer Ward years ago, and it is a heavy read.