37. A book from the Are You Well Read in World Literature list

[[deleted user]]

thanks jackie! that's such a handy sheet for my spreadsheet.

stacey, i don't think it'd be cheating to read a sequel! i always think it makes more sense to slightly stretch a prompt so it'll fit something you're actually interested than forcing yourself to read something you're not

[Ann]

I’m going to read The Door by Magda Szabo.

[Calvin]

World Literature is my Achilles' Heel, for sure. I hadn't read many of them, but I own a copy of Embers and I really want to read Les Liaisons Dangereuses, so it will be either of those. Or both.

[SadieReadsAgain]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
The Tiger's Wife
2. What country (or countries) is it from?
The Balkans
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
I've read 16/17 of the first 150 on the spreadsheet and have about six others on my shelves, so could do better. But of those I've read, some good ones are: Madame Bovary, The Summer Book, Lullaby, Fever Dream, The House of the Spirits, Call Me By Your Name and Wide Sargasso Sea

[Nikki]

I have read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah for this prompt.
It's his memoir of growing up in poverty as a mixed race boy in South Africa, just as apartheid was ending.
I have read 28 from the list - not many!!!

[Sherri]

I read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk for this prompt. I didn't like it.

[Wendy]

I ended up reading The Invention of Curried Sausage, which was a bestseller in Germany in the '90's, and I really liked it. I had been led to believe it would be humorous. There are a few humorous moments, but mostly it concerns a German woman hiding a German naval officer in the final days of WWII. She is supposedly telling her story as an old woman to a young man (the author?) in an assisted living facility. He only wanted her to tell him the truth of how the famous dish "Kurrywurst" was invented, and he gets a lot more story than he bargained for! Though not funny per se, the story is still touching and relatively upbeat, given the setting.

I have now read 93 off the list!

[Joan]

1. What are you reading for this prompt? Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
2. What country (or countries) is it from? South Africa
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend? Sadly not many. I would recommend The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

[Samantha]

1. What are you reading for this prompt? Ms Ice Sandwich - this list is just too long for me, Ellie mentioned this in the comments and thought it sounded quirky and fun so choose it.
2. What country (or countries) is it from? Japan
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend? I have no idea how many I have read but of the ones I know of I would recommend -
Ms Ice Sandwich
Like Water for Chocolate
Crazy Rich Asians
Bear Town

[Pamela, Arciform Mod]

1. What are you reading for this prompt? The Shadow of the Wind
2. What country (or countries) is it from? Spain

It's so good to find a book that works with a book group book. Although this list has SO many good books in it!

[Leah]

1. What are you reading for this prompt>

I read Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali, a rather sad love story.

What country is it from?

It is from Turkey.

How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?

44, though I've read other books from some of the authors listed.

Recommendations (from what I can remember): Madame Bovary ; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; Kristin Lavransdotter; Sea of Poppies; The Map of Love.

[Marie]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
2. What country (or countries) is it from?
Nigeria
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
Yeaahhh.....6 of them. And quite a few of those were due to reading challenges. I don't generally gravitate towards world literature .... which is a big part why I keep doing these challenges, they push me into finding books I wouldn't have stumbled across under my own volition.
I recommend:

[Severina]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

2. What country (or countries) is it from?
It takes place in Italy. I read that the author was born in Egypt, spent some time in Italy and then moved to the United States.

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?

I've read 9 of the 239 books on the list, and the vast majority of them I have never heard of. No recommendations, really.

[Tsipi]

There are a ton of books on this list I really want to read! How to choose....

I've read a respectable 46 books from the list already (top 5%), which is a boost to the ego that drooped terribly going through page after page of books I haven't read...

Anyway, here are books that I read and also recommend:

* Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
* Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
* Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
* Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
* The Perfect Nanny (originally: Lullaby) by Leïla Slimani
* The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
* In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

[Jill]

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason

What country (or countries) is it from? Iceland

How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend? Including this one 15 I thought this one was well worth a read

[NancyJ]

I read:
Things We Lost in the Fire (Mariana Enriquez) - Argentina, short story collection (includes some fantasy/horror)

I also read these and was able to fit them into other spots:
The Night Tiger - Malaysia fantasy, mystery
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - China during the Cultural Revolution, lovely surprising story
Crazy Rich Asians (Kevin Kwan) - Singapore, Shanghai, many other locations. Funny, crass, entertaining
The Sympathizer - Vietnam during and after the Vietnam War - powerful book about a spy and re-education

I read 25 books on the list before 2021, and I read 5 so far in 2021

Recommendations:
* A Thousand Splendid Suns - I most highly recommend this book. It's relevant to current changes in the world. +Muslim prompt
*Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows (Balli Kaur Jaswal) - Highly entertaining and enlightening book about culture clash. +Muslim
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson) -Thrilling series
Like Water for Chocolate - romantic fantasy
The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) - literary fantasy
Beartown (Fredrik Backman) - Hockey town meets Me-too
Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) - everyone should read this once in their life.
Homegoing (Yaa Gyasi) - Enlightening, stories revealing the history of slavery
Exit West (Mohsin Hamed) - strange and dreamy +muslim prompt
In the Time of the Butterflies - political unrest in the Caribbean
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov) - challenging classic
The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa) - gentle and lovely
Convenience Store Woman (Sayaka Murata) - quirky book about the role of work in our lives
Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) - Beautiful, sad story
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - sweet wartime story

Plus the five books at the top of the post.

[Stacey]

1. What are you reading for this prompt? It's been so many years since I read this, so I decided to re-read the incredible One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
2. What country (or countries) is it from? While it's set in a fictional town of Macondo, most likely it's based on the author's hometown of Aracataca, Colombia.
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend? I've read a lot of these novels, but there's so many left to go! What a great list! Some of my favorites:

Black Box
Bangkok Wakes to Rain
My Brilliant Friend
Cutting for Stone
Fifth Business
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
1Q84

[Michelle]

What are you reading for this prompt?

No spoilers, but it did make me cry

2. What country (or countries) is it from?
Japan

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
Looks like I am not all that well rounded in my worldly reading. Only read 11 on the list, but enjoyed

The Boy in the Suitcase
The Travelling Cat Chronicles
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
The Phantom of the Opera

These I have not read since I was a kid...
Anne of Green Gables
Heidi
Pippi Longstocking

[Steve]

I asked this in the spreadsheets thread but figured I'd post here too:

Does anyone have a spreadsheet version of the "well read in literature" list challenge? https://www.listchallenges.com/are-yo...

I see there's a "print" feature that'll list them all to C&P into a spreadsheet, but curious if anyone has already made one in their own sheets that they'd be willing to share. The limitation on the print feature is that it'll only give the title, and sometimes randomly the author or another term in parenthesis.

[Suzanne]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
Beartown

2. What country (or countries) is it from?
This book is from Sweden.

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?

I've read 35 of the books. I especially recommend:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Homegoing
The White Tiger
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Midnight's Children

[Marie (UK)]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
The Fishermen

2. What country (or countries) is it from?

Nigeria

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
I have read 20 on the first page of the full list

DON'T bother with The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Favourites
The Count of Monte Cristo id the best book of all time
I also loved
War and Peace
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
The Reluctant Fundamentalist and
Sophie's World

[NancyJ]

Steve wrote: "I asked this in the spreadsheets thread but figured I'd post here too:

Does anyone have a spreadsheet version of the "well read in literature" list challenge? https://www.listchallenges.com/are-yo..."

Steve,
I have a list in a Word file, which is probably the same one you have. It's missing a lot of author names and there are some other inaccuracies. It would have been wonderful to have the country names.

[GailW]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
2. What country (or countries) is it from?
Ghana
3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
I have read 40, with more than a dozen more of them sitting on my bookshelves waiting to be read. Below are just some of my favorites for my recommendations from the list:
Homegoing
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Kite Runner
The Shadow of the Wind
Exit West
Chess Story
Convenience Store Woman
The Bastard of Istanbul
Anil's Ghost

[Tiffany]

I read Lolita by Russian-American author, Vladimir Nabokov. It takes place in France & the US.

I've read 28 books on the list & would recommend:

Homegoing
The Garden of Evening Mists - one of the most beautiful books I've ever read
Half of a Yellow Sun
Like Water for Chocolate, and
Things Fall Apart

[Joanne]

I was planning to read The Boy in the Suitcase but it was taking too long to come in from the library so I went with Beartown instead.

After finishing this book I have now read 36 books from the list. I still have more on my tbr but am a bit disappointed as I thought that number would be higher.

[Dana]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

2. What country (or countries) is it from?
China.

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
4 books:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason
I recommend all of these.

[Pam]

This is one of the prompts I still have left but it's not because I can't fill it! I have over 50 I definitely want to read. Of the 8 books I commented on last Oct, I've read one but used it for a different prompt. I own at least 17 so my thought is to pick one of the shorter ones. I'm looking at Frangipani, The Metamorphosis, or The Leopard. I keep coming across references to Kafka so I may go with The Metamorphosis. I already have the other 2 books slotted for 2022.

[Anne]

I have just read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by May Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
It is from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

I have read 13 books off the list. Having looked at it there are lots I would like to read. I can recommend Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery, and The Piano by Jane Campion and Kate Pullinger.

[Andrea]

I read At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien for this prompt. It takes place primarily in Ireland. Officially, I have read 24 of the listed books, but I have read many unlisted works by the listed books' authors.

[Evelyn]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

2. What country (or countries) is it from? Japan

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?

[Marie]

I read The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, which is set in the Dominican Republic.

I've read 13 books on the list, of them I'd recommend The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Kite Runner, Born a Crime and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

[Laurel]

I read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. This is primarily set in Ghana and the US.

For other prompts this year, I read My Sister, the Serial Killer and Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood. Overall, I’ve read 20 of the books on the list.

[Lizzy]

I am rather liking The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić. it is a fictionalized version of events that take place on and around a real bridge in Bosnia - from its building in the 15th century into the 20th century.

[Chrissy]

I've been reading (listening) to The Fishermen for weeks now, and there's nothing wrong with it but I just can't seem to get through it! Hopefully by the end of the holiday weekend I'll finish - less that 3 hours left to listen.

I've read a good number of the books on the list (53?) - I think my favorites are:
Homegoing
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
The House of the Spirits
Beartown
Crazy Rich Asians
Anne of Green Gables

[NancyJ]

In the end I read these for my first and second rounds:

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimeara (New Zealand)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, Ina Rilke (China)

I would recommend them both

[Pam]

Saving this prompt for last and reading The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It is Italian.

[Hannah]

1. What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, which was beautiful.

2. What country (or countries) is it from?
It's set in Budapest, Hungary, mostly during and after WWII.

3. How many books on the list have you read? Which ones would you recommend?
It's a strange list, isn't it? I enjoy the variety, but it is a little haphazard, with lots of repetition of certain authors/countries! It turned out that I read a bunch off this list this year, so I'm pleased about that. My total is 39 books.

Anyway, I have many favorites, but here are some of the ones I think are lesser known to recommend:
Woman at Point Zero (Egypt)
So Long a Letter (Senegal)
I Am the Messenger (Australia)
Midnight's Children (India/Pakistan)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italy)