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Where in the World Are You?!?! (Currently Reading)
message 1051:
by
Cathy
(new)
Jul 31, 2012 07:25PM
I will be starting out in Hopewood Virginia with My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares I will keep you updated throughout my travels.
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I'm in Colombia reading Gabriel García Márquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was one I wanted to read for some time.
I'm so far behind on this challenge (due to other challenges and grandmas stealing my books and stuff), that I have decided that august will be my catching-up-month. I have a grand total of 14 books to have read by end of august. Among those are:
- Jasmine and Fire: A Bittersweet Year in Beirut by Salma Abdelnour for Lebanon
- Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer for the Ukraine
- Und sie rührten an den Schlaf der Welt. by C.S. Mahrendorff for beautiful Austria
- Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness for Iceland
- Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai (dt: Das Tor zur roten Gasse) for China
Wish me luck!
I'm in Cuba watching a Chinese/Afro-Cuban woman find out about her Chinese father's magic with The Messengerby Mayra Montero
I'm in Cuba watching a Chinese/Afro-Cuban woman find out about her Chinese father's magic with The Messengerby Mayra Montero
SilverRaindrops wrote: "I'm so far behind on this challenge (due to other challenges and grandmas stealing my books and stuff), that I have decided that august will be my catching-up-month. I have a grand total of 14 book..."Grandma!
I have currently just escaped from a horrible prison, where I was born, in
, and now learning to adjust to the rest of the world.
I'm in Congo-Brazzaville with Verre Cassé, which is a great book and has a wonderful way of telling the story. My travel is nearing the end, but I will come back to it next year I guess.I just started with Museum van onvoorwaardelijke overgaven. I think this is going to be a top read. I love the way the author is telling her memoires.
I'm in Ghana listening to Wife of the Gods. It's a really good mystery, and for once I'm really enjoying the reader of this audiobook.
Barbarac wrote: "I'm in Ghana listening to Wife of the Gods. It's a really good mystery, and for once I'm really enjoying the reader of this audiobook."I'm reading Kwei Quartey's Children of the Street now, and am also really enjoying it. I'm planning on going back and finding Wife of the Gods.
Tanya wrote: I'm reading Kwei Quartey's Children of the ..." Oh good, I'm planning on going to on Children of the Street, I'm glad to hear somebody is enjoying it.
Barbarac wrote: "I'm in Ghana listening to Wife of the Gods. It's a really good mystery, and for once I'm really enjoying the reader of this audiobook."That one's next on my list. Audio, too.
I dropped off the grid a bit again as I had tons of family show up for a three week vacation (they just left Sunday). They arrived just as I'd begun The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, which I was really enjoying, but it really isn't a vacation read, so I put it aside and picked up The Paris Wife instead. Which, as it turns out, I'm also really enjoying. However, I hardly got to read at all while everyone was here, and once they left, it was time to read the next book for my book club. So, I've just finished The Solitude of Prime Numbers: A Novel, which is both a quick read and a real gem of a book. Haunting, beautiful, somewhat disturbing, and oddly uplifting. I loved it. I can't wait to discuss it with the group on Sunday. It's my pick for our club, so I'm anxious to see what everyone else thought of it.
Unforunately, it doesn't count for this challenge since I've already read Tomato Rhapsody: A Novel of Love, Lust, and Forbidden Fruit for Italy. So I'll get back on track by heading back to the middle east after a shortish detour in Paris to see how the Hemingways are adjusting to life in Paris. I am now hopelessly behind, but since I seem to be hitting great reads all the way through, I'm actually quite okay with not meeting my goal! I will do 52 books from 52 countries in 52 weeks, but apparently those weeks won't be consequtive!
Jenny wrote: "I meant to travel to Spain with a different book, but picked up Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia and am breezing through."I LOVED that book! I plan to read more of his. I can't wait to see what you think of it!
I'm reading Cloud Atlas so I've been in the Chatham Islands (Oceania), England, and Belgium so far. I'm not sure what country I'll end up assigning it to, but it will definitely get used somewhere!!!
I've now travelled a little further south to Venice to meet up with The Glassblower of Murano. I have admired Murano glass for a while now and when I saw this book, I had to read it.
In North Korea with Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home
I'm in Myanmar/Burma with The Art of Hearing Heartbeats. I'm not too excited by it so far but I'm hoping it'll get better. Also in Argentina with Cuentos Para Leer Tomando Una Taza De Chocolate. These are short stories, and the premise initially atracted me, but so far the stories are nothing like the description on Amazon.
Judy wrote: "Diane wrote: "I'm in Algeria with The Plague."I hope you get feeling better. :-)"
lol. It was touch and go, but I made it out of the book alive.
Diane wrote: "Judy wrote: "Diane wrote: "I'm in Algeria with The Plague."I hope you get feeling better. :-)"
lol. It was touch and go, but I made it out of the book alive."
I am glad you did! I loved this book when I first read it ages ago. It is on my list for re-reads.
I am in Austria with The Mastersinger from Minsk: An Inspector Hermann Preiss Mystery I heard about it on the radio and was intrigued...
I went to Pakistan briefly today with Our Lady of Alice Bhattibut decided that it definitely wasn't my idea of a worthwhile trip.Tomorrow I'm going to Okinawa. I've decided to count Okinawa as a country because of my former roommate who was born there. She told me that Okinawa was once an independent kingdom, that Okinawans aren't Japanese and that they have their own culture. So I'm learning more with Identity and Resistance in Okinawa.
I am in Kyrgyzstan with Jamilia, and periodically sneaking over the border to Kazakhstan with Almaty-Transit.
Just heading out to Peru, to follow Mark Adams' adventures in Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time. I've heard great things about this book. Looking forward to the trip!
I'm still in Okinawa. It's 1895 and I'm with a bunch of students who've been expelled from school for wanting to learn English. The Japanese government decided that Okinawans were too unintelligent to handle learning both English and Japanese, so they dropped English from the curriculum of schools in Okinawa. Of course learning Japanese had priority. Some students went on strike in protest and were expelled.
I haven't read anything for the Mother Country yet, so I'm going to use Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel for England. Really, I'm reading it because it is longlisted for the Booker!
Mod
Rusalka wrote: "As soon as I finish Around the World, my first book is going to be Wolf Hall. So I will be very interested on your opinion of Bring up the Bodies Jenny."I hadn't read Wolf Hall, but I know the story of the Tudors so well I don't feel like I missed anything. Apparently the biggest controversy over that one is the use of the "his" pronoun that the author never explains is Cromwell. He is just this unnamed, powerful force throughout the book. I kind of like that idea but wonder if I would have liked trying to figure that out. I've noticed that she specifically says "Cromwell" in much of the first 100 pages of Bring Up the Bodies, so it must be compensation for that.
Jenny wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "As soon as I finish Around the World, my first book is going to be Wolf Hall. So I will be very interested on your opinion of Bring up the Bodies Jenny."I hadn't read Wolf Hall, bu..."
the book club I am in read Wolf Hall, and out of the 10 of us, only 3 liked it. The others complained that it was far too long (it is a rather big book) and too confusing. I can understand both complaints. I, personally, loved the way she didn't explain who was who and who was "him". I found the writing style lent an immediacy to the book I've never experienced in any other recounting of the story. I also found hers to be the most sympathetic portrait of Cromwell. He comes across very well in Wolf Hall. I'm eager to see how she handles the sequel...
I'm continuing my stay in Okinawa and I'm finding myself in serious disagreement with the guide (the author)as he interviews a shaman.
I'm also a little bit stuck in Myanmar. Almost there and hopefully then on to finish my stay in Argentina. I've been balancing too many books and not finishing any.
I'm in Zimbabwe with African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe. My pile on African books keeps getting larger and larger. I can't wait to read them all.
I'm in Thailand with The Orchid House: A Novel. I really should be in Mexico with Like Water for Chocolate. Maybe I'll time shift over there tonight.
I just left Japan in The Samurai's Garden, heading to the Dominican Republic, In the Time of the Butterflies
I'm back in Greece withKassandra and the Wolf, another book I borrowed from the friend who loaned me Taste of a Man. I'm okay with heading back to Greece, although of course it wasn't partof the PLAN.
I've been in Wales with The Old Devils (almost done) and today i decided to go to Tonga with American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps.
Barbarac wrote: "I'm in Zimbabwe with African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe. My pile on African books keeps getting larger and larger. I can't wait to read them all."oooo i want to see your Africa pile. :)
After making another visit to Ireland and learning about the Pavee (Irish gypsies)which doesn't count for this challenge, I am now in Russia which does count. I am in a secret underground world under the streets of Moscow with a cop, a street artist and a young girl looking for her sister who has disappeared. The book is The Secret History of Moscow, a fantasy novel by Ekaterina Sedia.
Simultaneously in Uraguay with Ship of Fools and Senegal with The Abandoned Baobab: The Autobiography of a Senegalese Woman.
I forgot that I'm also in Ireland with Skippy Dies and I'll soon be in Sierra Leone. I hope. I can't keep up with my books, it seems.
Mod
I am spread a bit thinly all over the world at the moment. Can't do that with regular travel, can you?I am in...
Canada with:
Anne of Green Gables
Congo (Republic) with:
Broken Glass
Iceland with:
Independent People
Russia with:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Tonga:
The Friendly Islanders
Just flew into Liberia to read This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. She actually came to speak on my campus two years ago, and has a fascinating story.
Jenny wrote: "Just flew into Liberia to read This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. She actually came to speak on my campus two years ago, and has a fascinating..."i will be joining you in Liberia shortly...but i think i might take someone's advice and read Sugar Beach before that one...besides the advice, i actually own Sugar Beach and i feel like i have too many million books from the libraries right now. :/
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