Announcing the Tag for December

[Anita]

Technically there is still time to vote, but frankly there's no point because the run away winner is:

international

Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.

Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as "international" on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.

One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...

We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.

Happy Reading!!! I can't believe we've nearly reached the last month of the year.

[[deleted user]]

phew - so glad it's not western.

Here's my list - be warned it's a very long one!

The book thief
Pachinko
Memoirs of a geisha
Born a crime
Life of pi
Love in the time of cholera
Like water for chocolate
Exit west
Snow flower and the secret fan
A gentleman in Moscow
My sister, the serial killer
The unbearable lightness of being
Normal people
The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared
The nightingale
Lolita
Broken harbor
The prince
Faithful place
The odyssey
The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society
Swing time
War and peace
Wild swans
Disappearing earth
Say nothing
Home fire
The count of monte cristo
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead
A river in darkness
The heart’s invisible furies
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine
The woman in cabin 10
Girl, woman, other
Madame bovary
We should all be feminists
Doctor Zhivago
The art of war
Beneath a scarlet sky
The devotion of suspect x
The boy in the striped pyjamas
Queenie
The night tiger
Disoriental
A brief history of seven killings
White teeth
The beautiful mystery
Less
The curious incident of the dog in the night time
The wonder
Red notice
Sophie’s world
The ocean at the end of the lane
Burial rites
The night circus
Dubliners
Unmarriageable
The travelling cat chronicles
Lullaby
Call me by your name
Inferno
Bury your dead
The boy who harnessed the wind
Ali and nino
A rule against murder
Who fears death
The thorn birds
Girl with a pearl earring
Snowblind
All this I will give to you
The girl who smiled beads
A rising man
A fatal grace
The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold fry
A discovery of witches
Brooklyn
Jar city
The turn of the key
Milkman
The lost man
Lethal white
The thirst
The long way home
The last wish
Death at la fenice
Whose body?
State of wonder
Casino royale
Raven black
Wolf hall
Celestial bodies
Gods of jade and shadow
10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world
A nearly normal family
The department of sensitive crimes
The chestnut man
The truth about the harry Quebert affair
Circe
The girl in the tower
The gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue
Notes from underground
Station eleven
A trick of the light
The brutal telling
And then there were none
How the light gets in
The professor and the madman
A room with a view
The strange case of the alchemist’s daughter
The cruellest month
David copperfield
The sense of an ending
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Giovanni’s room
The cellist of Sarajevo
Middlesex
Cleopatra
From doon with death
Veronika decides to die
A long petal of the sea
A woman of no importance
About the night
What the wind knows
An orchestra of minorities
Magpie murders
The architect’s apprentice
In a dark, dark wood
The nature of the beast
The spy who came in from the cold
A spy among friends
The phantom of the opera
Red sparrow
The unpleasantness at the Bellona club
Mrs Dalloway
Unnatural death
The five red herrings
Ulysses
Cyrano de Bergerac
The winter queen
Roseanna
The thirteenth tale
The Iliad
Oryx and crake
Year of wonders
Dear mrs bird
The mercies
Blackout
The darkness
Get a life, chloe brown
Red, white & royal blue

[Meli]

Wow, quite a list!

What a great tag, so many possibilities!
By statistics of my reading habits alone I should likely just accidentally read for the tag without trying 😂

[Barbara M]

Wow Jenny! That is long! I have at least one of those on my list too.

I have these on the first few pages of my TBR:
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (China)
The Likeness (Dublin)
Pachinko (Japan)
The Bookseller of Kabul
The Prisoner of Heaven (Portugal)

and a few more but I probably won't make it all the way through what I have here!

[Jason]

I am going to read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

[Booknblues]

I'm very happy with this tag as it is one of my favorites and the one I voted for.

Top on my TBR list for this is Shuggie Bain.

[Lyn]

I am so excited. I have a few options on my book shelf, including
A Letter of Mary
West with the Night
The Anodyne Necklace
Pachinko
Dreams of Joy

So many options!!!

[Book Concierge]

Well, in December one of my F2F book clubs is discussing
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes.
So, that title is at the top of my list.

I'll also be finishing up Anthony Horowitz's Moonflower Murders (England doesn't seem very "international" but then again, you do need a passport to travel there from the USA)

And another F2F book club's December discussion will be on
The White Umbrella by Brian Sewell ... about an Englishman who rescues a small donkey he witnesses being abused somewhere in the middle of Pakistan and vows to bring Pavlova home ... even if the two of them have to walk the entire way!



If I have room / time for more, I'll try to concentrate on authors from other countries, rather than just international settings written by American authors.

[Book Concierge]

Jason wrote: "I am going to read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier"

Oh .. I have that book (somewhere here in the house ...)

[Karin]

Happy day! This is what I voted for.

There are so very many fabulous international novels, that where would I begin to list all of the great one? And unless you are doing a challenge that specifically calls for American books, then you can fill any genre with international books!

A few five star international books (from so very many) that I have read are:

The Republic Of Dirt--an award winning one--but it's even better if you read the first one first which I gave 4 stars to, so it's also good (it's a duology)

Anything Vinyl Cafe on audio by Stuart McLean (it's also good written, but he is BRILLIANT at reading his stuff), and ideally on a CD and not in the broadcasts where he talks first. It's a mix of poignant and funny short stories.

I have a few international books I am already planning to read.

[LibraryCin]

Jason wrote: "I am going to read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier"

That's a good one!

[Joanne]

I am going to try to find a copy ofNight Soldiers, as it came up for the Unofficial Trim for me. If I have the time, I won a give away for Sisters of War and I need to readFrom Russia with Blood: The Kremlin's Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin's Secret War on the West for another challenge. This is an easy tag to fill for me, November was the pits-I just got my book today, so no idea if I can finish it or not.

[Nicole R]

I admit that when I saw the options for December, I was the least excited about this tag. But, as I poke around, I am finding so many books that I want to read! Definitely going to be a good month.

I want to challenge myself a bit with this tag and select books that are written by international authors and take place internationally.

Having said that, the two books that are currently topping my options list are:
A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Uganda)
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy (Australian)

After that, these are the next two that caught my eye:
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (Ghana/Ghanaian American)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (England)

[Jgrace]

My son gave me 6 months of book-of-the-month club for Christmas last year. So far I've only read two of the books that I acquired. I have an unrealistic goal of getting to all of them before the end of the year. I still have these to read:
The Girl with the Louding Voice
A Burning
The Paris Hours
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

But the holidays encroach and odds are the only one I'll get to is the new Lady O'.

[Karin]

Jgrace wrote: "My son gave me 6 months of book-of-the-month club for Christmas last year. So far I've only read two of the books that I acquired. I have an unrealistic goal of getting to all of them before the en..."

I hadn't realize that the Book of the Month Club still existed. I read many of their titles growing up because my parents were members.

[LibraryCin]

I have plenty that fit, but the one that seems to help up with a few other challenges is most likely what I'll go with:

The Bat / Jo Nesbo

[NancyJ]

I'm looking for books around the world about the (Dec) holidays, or set during the holidays. So I far I have mostly books from the UK. (Is there a South American Bridget Jones?)

What is the name of the book (it was also made into a movie) about soldiers who have a cease fire for xmas and actually celebrate together?

Thanks Cindy for mentioning the Jo Nesbo series (I was thinking it was Swedish, not Norwegian).

[NancyJ]

From Shereads - best international books of 2020.

https://shereads.com/best-internation...

Does anyone have lists like this from previous years?

I'm also going to look at my kindles from Amazon's World Days.

[Shelly]

Not sure what I am going to read, but here are some suggestions. These were all 5 star reads for me.

The Gift of Rain
The Heart's Invisible Furies
The Orphan Master's Son
Cutting for Stone
Exodus
The Nightingale
All Quiet on the Western Front
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

[NancyJ]

From Last week's thread:

This is the beginning of my international list for 2020-2021. (I've barely gotten past Ireland)

Apeirogon - middle east
Ask Again, Yes - Ireland correction - Irish immigrants in NY
Case Histories - UK (also works for Bingo)
Hamnet - UK
Anxious People - Sweden
A Long Petal of the Sea - Spain
Girl, Woman, Other -UK, diverse
Apeirogon -Middle East
The Master and Margarita -Russia
P.S. I Love You - Ireland
Crazy Rich Asians - Singapore, NY, Hong Kong
Death at La Fenice - Leon, mystey series - Italy
The Bear and the Nightingale - fantasy series - Russia
Next book in the Maisie Dobbs series -UK
Shuggie Bain - Scotland
The Astonishing Color of After - Taiwan
Take a Hint, Dani Brown - UK romcom
Transcendent Kingdom Ghana - US immigrant story
The Garden of Evening Mists -Malaysia
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
A Gentleman in Moscow
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
Against the Loveless World
The Satapur Moonstone
Paper Wife

WINTER books
Zuleikha
Louise Penny series set in Quebec
Bear and the Nightingale,
Swedish mystery series --- (author?)

NOV- DEC OVERLAP books
Whale RIder - Book-screen, Indigenous, international
Amadeus - Book-screen, International
Third Man - Book Screen, International

International Christmas Season books

Hercule Poirot's Christmas
A Christmas Carol\
The Night Before Christmas- Gogol
The Snow Queen =Denmark
Nutcracker - Germany

Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Goose - audible
Lady Osbaldestone and the Missing Christmas audible Carols
Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Intrigue audible
Lady Osbaldestone’s Plum Puddings

The Deal of a Lifetime Backman
Bridget Jones's Diary
Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I
The Gift Ceceilia Ahern
The Christmas Sisters
Twelve Days of Christmas
Royal Holiday

[NancyJ]

Recommendations
When All Is Said- Ireland, a story of a life
Beartown - Sweden, winter
The Book Thief - Germany, wwii
The Heart's Invisible Furies - Ireland, lgbtq
A Ladder to the Sky
The Widows of Malabar Hill - India, mystery series
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
Still Life - Quebec mystery series
White Chrysanthemum - Korea, sad
The Air You Breathe - south america, music
What the Wind Knows - Ireland, historical fantasy
What Alice Forgot- -australia, contemporary

Bio fiction
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

Non-fiction (sad but true)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

[Kimber]

Shelly wrote: "Not sure what I am going to read, but here are some suggestions. These were all 5 star reads for me.

The Gift of Rain
The Heart's Invisible Furies
[book:The Orphan ..."

I second Cutting for Stone - it was one of the best books I read last year. I also thought Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Born a Crime were excellent reads.

[Nicole R]

Kimber wrote: "I second Cutting for Stone - it was one of the best books I read last year. I also thought Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Born a Crime were excellent reads."

Born a Crime was a great audio! Trevor Noah narrates it.

[Robin P]

Yes, that is the only way to do Trevor Noah's book!

Maybe I will finish The Splendid and the Vile which I started a few months ago. I read a lot of books set in England but I'm sure I have other options.

[Jenni Elyse]

So glad it's not Western. I can do International and I can even make it Epic, lol.

Recommendations
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris
The Breakdown by BA Paris
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I also have a special recommendation for The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking. With Seasonal Affective Disorder coming on and being more prevalent this year due to the pandemic, I think we can learn a lot from this concept of hygge. It has been helping me anyway.

My Plans
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
In the Woods by Tana French
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

[Joanne]

I have a few recommendations-all 4 and 5 star reads for me

A Long Petal of the Sea
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Cutting for Stone
Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
The Fountains of Silence
Skeletons at the Feast
City of Thieves
The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence

[annapi]

For mystery lovers:

I just discovered the Wyndham & Bannerjee mystery series by Abir Mukherjee, it's set in 1920's British India. First book is A Rising Man.

And there's Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan, the first Filipino detective novel.

The Emilia Cruz series by Carmen Amato is set in Acapulco, Mexico - first book is Cliff Diver.

Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series is set in Venice, Italy - first book is Death at La Fenice.

[Theresa]

Well, I personally am pouting it is not western, but relieved not epic!

Super easy to fulfill international from any of the TBR Towers, but want to recommend the superb Japanese police procedural I just read: Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seichō Matsumoto set in Japan, Japanese author. Superb and reasonable short.

[Theresa]

NancyJ wrote: "I'm looking for books around the world about the (Dec) holidays, or set during the holidays. So I far I have mostly books from the UK. (Is there a South American Bridget Jones?)

What is the name of the book (it was also made into a movie) about soldiers who have a cease fire for xmas and actually celebrate..."

The movie is Silent Night, but not sure the name of the book.

[Kimber]

Recommendations:


Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
The Leavers
The Summer Book
Beautiful Ruins

I have a lot of options for the International tag. I am going to start out my December reading with a book I just picked up this weekend that fits the tag:

Things in Jars
It's a gothic mystery set in Victorian London.

If time allows, these also sound like good international reads for December:

Sea of Poppies
The Shadow King
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

[NancyJ]

Theresa wrote: "Well, I personally am pouting it is not western, but relieved not epic!

Super easy to fulfill international from any of the TBR Towers, but want to recommend the superb Japanese police procedural ..."

I'll bet there are some Mexican westerns, and there are lots of sexy cowboys in Argentina I think,

[Holly R W]

Here are some favorites of mine:

Our Homesick Songs (Newfoundland, Canada)
Esperanza's Box of Saints (Mexico)
The Far Field (India)
Salt Houses (Palestine and the middle east)
The Art of Leaving (Israel)

[Rachel N.]

I have A Rising Man currently checked out from the library. Thanks for reminding me it fits the tag Anna. I'll wait until December to read it. I'm also hoping to get to The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

[Hebah]

Well, most of this tag is more literary than my tastes are leaning these days, but Talia Hibbert is from the UK, and I just bought Take a Hint, Dani Brown in Kindle sale, so that might be a good time to read it. Now that it's winter again, I could also listen to the sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale because that was great in audio, and I need a new thing to listen to.

[Nicole R]

Hebah, like you, “not being in the mood for literary” will be my biggest hurdle.

[Hebah]

I also just remembered I have Mexican Gothic waiting to be read! Or The House of Sundering Flames and The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard (French-Vietnamese author, one of my favs).

Ha! Take that, literary tag! I'm gonna read genre stuff even though my tag choice didn't win!

[Michael]

Hard to play ball with a tag like this. Useless to me as a category to organize or highlight a set of books. The only exception would be books on the topic of multinationalism vs. nationalism. E.g. about the failed League of Nations or the UN. And maybe a book like Exit West in which migrant portals made national boundaries ineffectual.

The egocentrism of taking the tag to mean "foreign" comes up when a reader outside America and other English speaking countries that dominate GR would have to tag lit from the latter as "international".

[Booknblues]

Rachel N. wrote: "I have A Rising Man currently checked out from the library. Thanks for reminding me it fits the tag Anna. I'll wait until December to read it. I'm also hoping to get to The 10..."</i>

Hayjay and I are planning on reading [book:The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, so would love it if you joined with us. The goal is to start the first weekend of December.

[Linda C]

My F2F book group is reading The Fox Hunt: A Memoir of Yemen and My Odyssey to America by Mohammed Al Samawi. This is a country that I haven't read anything about except in the news, so it will be a learning experience.

[Book Concierge]

Here are some title that my F2F Hispanic Book Club have enjoyed.

Cellophane by Marie Arana
Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor
Inés of My Soul by Isabel Allende
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos
The Time in Between by María Dueñas
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernières
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

[Rachel N.]

Booknblues wrote: "Hayjay and I are planning on reading [book:The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, so would love it if you joined with us. The goal is to start the first weekend of December"

Sounds great. I'll plan on starting it the first weekend in December.

[Booknblues]

Rachel N. wrote: "Booknblues wrote: "Hayjay and I are planning on reading [book:The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, so would love it if you joined with us. The goal is to start the first..."

Good, this will be fun!

[NancyJ]

Michael wrote: "Hard to play ball with a tag like this. Useless to me as a category to organize or highlight a set of books. The only exception would be books on the topic of multinationalism vs. nationalism. E.g...."

That's the nice thing about this group. You can interpret the tag however you wish. Personally I tend to gravitate toward multi-country stories, and novels about immigrant experiences. e.g. Pachinko revealed fascinating things about the characteristics of Japanese and Korean cultures.

Multinationalism and the recent trends toward nationalism could be really interesting. The books about Cambridge Analytica touch on some of these issues.

I'd be interested in a book that revealed something interesting or unusual about international cooperation/collaboration/coordination, in the context of something like climate change, the pandemic, human trafficking, etc. Something beyond normal politics.

15 years ago I would have selected a book about cross-cultural issues in international mergers and acquisition.

[Karin]

Michael wrote: "Hard to play ball with a tag like this. Useless to me as a category to organize or highlight a set of books. The only exception would be books on the topic of multinationalism vs. nationalism. E.g...."

Well, there are multinational organizations that the US is not part of that include a wide variety of countries, not all English speaking. No doubt there are quite a number of them, (there is also the European Union but it is all on one continent) but since this one came up for me recently, one example that includes 54 nations from every continent except Antarctica is the Commonwealth of Nations. I would think there are books on this that are not written by Americans that could fit both multinationalism and this.

Of course, this isn't the same as multinational banks or businesses per se, and yet some of its history definitely includes this. I

[DianeMP]

Hope it's not too late to add my post. I am relieved the vote came out the way it did-not into westerns and no time for epics. International is just the right fit. Here is a list of books I recommend for anyone looking for ideas:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Bali Kaur Jaswal
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre`
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

I'm thinking about these:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks

[Sabrina]

Books I would recommend:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)
The Book Thief
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Night (The Night Trilogy, #1)
The White Tiger
The Joy Luck Club
The Master and Margarita
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #1)
Eat, Pray, Love
In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1) by Tana French
Sarah's Key
The Bat (Harry Hole, #1) by Jo Nesbø
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad



Books on my TBR that are possibilities (there are oh so many, so I will only list a handful):

Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø
The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2) by Tana French
Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson (to re-read)
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1) by Marjane Satrapi
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Boy in the Suitcase (Nina Borg, #1) by Lene Kaaberbøl
Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #2) by Alexander McCall Smith **I might need to reread the first in this series.**
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Clap When You Landby Elizabeth Acevedo
Binti (Binti, #1) by Nnedi Okorafor
Neverwhere (London Below, #1)by Neil Gaiman
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Still Life by Lois Penny