Where In The World Are You? September/October 2013

I am in1700s England with Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Woman and also in India and France taking A Walk Across The Sun.

How about you?

I am still in Sweden with The Girl Who Played with Fire.

I'm in Iceland with Where the shadows Lie

I'm in Washington, DC, USA, with Reacher who says,Never Go Back

I'm in Germany with The Last of the Just.

I'm in Sierra Leone with The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris. Excellent so far.

I'm on a bus headed from Ankara to Istanbul, keeping a close eye on a secretive civilian contractor and dreading that The Kills are about to begin.

I'm in Krishnapur, India in 1857, reading J G Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur. Ah! He is so sensitively hilarious...

I'm in Portugal with Richard Sharpe and the French have once again invaded. He's put out by some his allies that have been doing under the table business with the enemy in Sharpe's Escape.

I'm at the India-Nepal border in the mid-1980s with The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. Interesting part of Indian history that I knew very little of even though I went to a boarding school in India. Oddly, they skipped the Gorkhaland movement entirely in our curriculum.

I've left The Laughing Man off the coast of England at the beginning of the 18th century.

I'm visiting Uncle Tom's Cabin in Kentucky.

I have been intrigued by The Shanghai Factor but returned to Sweden for a necessary Midwinter Sacrifice.

Still in 1700s Engliand with my dear friend, Clarissa, and now in Zimbabwe realizing that We Need New Names.

I've Broken Glass at the Credit Gone West bar in Congo, and traveled the Rue du Retour in Morocco.

In Chile (I think), visiting the house of the spirits in the company of Isabella Allende.

>16 GlebtheDancer: - House of Spirits is one of my favorite books, even though it does borrow a lot from One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hope you're enjoying it.

#16 & #17
I loved One Hundred Years of Solitude and have House of Spirits on Mount TBR. Will I find the latter too similar to the former to be a rewarding read?

#18
I am about 100 pages in at the moment and the stylistic parallels are striking. However I am very choosy about magical realism and Allende, for me, strikes the right balance between the weird and the earthly, and, if anything, displays a more sympathetic touch than Garcia Marquez. No reason not to give it a read, as far as I can tell so far. Long way to go though...

#19 Thank you, GlebtheDancer. It will be my first Allende.

#20 Hopefully the first of many....I have enjoyed all of her books!

>18 pgmcc: pgmcc - I agree with >19 GlebtheDancer: that the Isabel Allende is still worth reading. I enjoyed it and it's still one of my favorites. Hope you get a chance to read it and enjoy it too.

I get the message that I should read Isabel Allende's work.

Thank you everybody for clarifying my query and pushing my Allende novels closer to the peak of Mount TBR.

:-)

I am in the Belgian Congo, circa 1941, reading Charles Mercer's story of missionary/nurse Rachel Cade.

I am in 1950's Lisbon when the Electrico W tram was still running. This is an Oulipo effort by Herve Le Tellier. Intertwining love stories and mystery.

I'm now in contemporary New York following the winding trail of Charley Bolden's wax cylinder recording of Tiger Rag made in 1904.

Taking time away from Sweden for a quick trip between Israel and Warsaw to examine The Property. (Excellent graphic novel by Rutu Modan.)

I'm in the Caribbean with Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk. The setting is fictional but said to be Grenada.

I'm in England with Winston Churchill as he describes the path to WWII from his perspective in his book The Second World War, The Gathering Storm. It's 1922 and Lloyd George ih being replaced by Stanley Baldwin.

I've escaped the 419 scam in Nigeria.

I have emigrated to the United States and feel even more strongly that We Need New Names.

Thankfully I've left The Kills behind, after >1000 pages of bad writing, and I'm now enjoying a visit to the Congo with 10 year old Michel, who insists that "Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty."

I have left Sweden at the end of The Girl Who Played with Fire and travelled to Germany with Stasiland.

I'm with Maisie Dobbs in London and Paris where we're being told some Pardonable Lies.

I'm just off the coast of Nantucket with Melville.

In the territory of former Khazaria in Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe.

I'm running around with a group of kids in Zimbabwe, who insist that We Need New Names if we are going to escape from this wretched town.

I've left Red Spectres in Soviet Russia and have really enjoyed Breaking the Maya Code in Mexico and elsewhere.

I'm in Poland, first under Swedish rule, then German, and now Russian, and wondering at the significance of the floating threads In Red.

I'm in the Dominican Republic waiting for The Feast of the Goat.

Back in England with Maisie Dobbs and the Messenger of Truth.

I have remained in Sweden having finished The Girl Who Played with Fire and started The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

I've just, very sadly, left Onitsha.

I've tried to find L'Amour on a beach in an unnamed country.

I'm in Romania and Hungary with the Seamstress trying to stay one step ahead of the Fascists.

It's Still Midnight in Glasgow, and I've been disillusioned by the Blue White Red in Congo and Paris.

Norwegian by Night in Oslo.

I've been delving into the Memory of a boy learning the truth about his family in post-WWII France.

I've left midwinter Sweden which was certainly chilling - for The Coroner's Lunch in 1970s Laos.

I'm in Trinidad searching for A House for Mr. Biswas.

I'm having adventures in the Maldives on the Strode Venturer.

I've finished a tour of Inferno and am now in France reading about other things that are Against Nature.

I've been exploring the mystery of Midnight in Peking.

I've finished once around the world and now I'm filling in (a more representative book for Sao Tome & Principe, for example).

I thought I'd cross-post this from my closed account at Goodreads:

I recently took a vacation to Italy and some of the surrounding countries. Why did I choose my particular route? Because I'd read books by authors from these countries, and these choices swayed me toward this itinerary.

Italy: Italo Calvino: Cosmicomics
We had several stops in Italy, and the Calvino is my Italy book not because it evokes the place but because I admire Calvino's contribution to postmodernism. Since we were in cities with a focus on the ancient (Rome, Herculaneum, Mt. Etna, Venice), this was an interesting contrast. I'd like to read an author from Sicily sometime soon. I'm slowly working my way through Uccelli (yeah, not The Thorn Birds, which is where it links, but a bird guide for Italy), which has the disadvantage that I don't read Italian, and the advantage that it identifies local birds more accurately. It doesn't include the feral Psittacula krameri (rose-ringed parakeet) flock we saw at Villa Borghese, where it seems to have firmly established itself.

Vatican City: Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI): Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977
I wasn't a giant fan of Pope Benedict XVI, so it was great to have a fortuitous papal sighting of Francis in St. Peter's.

Malta: Professor Sir Themistocles Zammit: Prehistoric Malta: The Tarxien temples and Salfeni Hypogeum
Everyone in Malta seems to be related to Professor Zammit, including the guy at the desk of the archeology museum, who directed us to his bust on the staircase. Malta was my biggest draw for the trip precisely because of Zammit's book on the hypogeum and Tarxien temples, which was the only book I could find for Malta when I did my world books challenge. Tickets are required for the hypogeum and are best purchased a couple of months in advance through Heritage Malta. I was glad we had booked this as the next opening was 6 weeks out on the day we arrived. Only 8-10 people are admitted at a time, and it was a fantastic archeological site, supplemented by the temples and the archeology museum. St. John's Co-Cathedral was also excellent.

Greece: Olga Broumas: Beginning with O
Corfu, both ancient and modern, provided a great day for browsing, looking at walled city sites, and eating olives. Early Broumas is my favorite period. This was her poetry that won the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and I have a lot of bits of it memorized, which was fun to recite as we walked.

Montenegro: Bajram Angelo Koljenovic & James Nathan Post: Blood of Montenegro
Kotor's harbor and walled old city are set in a sweep of protective mountains. I was able to provide some historical and cultural background for the people I was with based on Koljenovic's book.

Croatia: Dubravka Ugrešić: The Ministry of Pain
Again, a mix of old and new, with the added interest of being a post-communist state. Ugrešić speaks to place, identity, and longing in a way that brought Split's emotional backstory alive.

Slovenia: Slavoj Zizek: Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle
Zizek's book isn't about Slovenia, but I could picture him drinking coffee and brandy and arguing with someone at one of the many cafes in Koper.

San Marino: Unknown: Guida fotografica di San Marino
I've read two photographic guidebooks to San Marino, so I had a strange sense of deja vu as we raced up to one of the towers to enjoy the view. I think every city we visited had at least a partial walled old city, but San Marino's is largely unscathed and intact. We enjoyed meandering around, though we didn't locate a bookstore where I could buy a non-guidebook by a Sammarinese author.

In addition to being a trip I might well have skipped over if I hadn't become curious about some of these countries, I found that my reading had greatly enhanced my knowledge and interest in the lands and their people. It also gave me a starting point for desultory conversation with local people. And if I hadn't read these books (some due more to exigency than choice), I never would have known how cool Malta and San Marino were and probably never would have visited them.

#54 Wonderful reading, OshoOsho! I'm so impressed that you have read around the world and are starting again. I hope you cross post your reviews on some of the other Reading Globally threads (for specific regions, for instance).

As for me, I'm trying to survive an emotional Constellation of Vital Phenomena in war-torn Chechnya.

It's true that some parts of the world seem to yield up primarily stories of war and torment, at least in Anglophone distribution. Hang tough!

I agree with Lisa, OshoOsho, both about your reading and cross-posting your reviews on the regional threads. Some people in this group also have an "Around the World" thread where they log their reading (maybe you do, and I missed it??).

Thanks for the invitation. Maybe after the academic year gets going.

I am still in Chechnya, but now reading a fantastic memoir by a Chechen surgeon who took the Hippocratic Oath and treated Russians and Chechens alike. Remarkable story.

I've left the Case Closed in the contemporary Czech Republic.

I'm with some French Jews following a Wandering Star to Jerusalem after WWII.

I am in Chile hearing The Obscene Bird Of Night and also in the US trying to understand the We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In various wildernesses around the world (moors, deserts, forests), reading A Book Of Silence.

I'm in Swaziland with When Hoopoes go to Heaven by Gaile Parkin.

Survived Ravensbruck with Rose Under Fire.

On the Amazon seeking The Lost City of Z and in Santiago, Chile hearing The Obscene Bird of Night.

I am in Oxford with Edmund Crispin's Case of the Gilded Fly.

After some grim reading about medical experiments in Ravensbruck, I needed something completely different and am now wandering the ramparts of the Tower of London in my pajamas hoping to collect a sample of a rare, unusual-smelling rain and pondering The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, Mrs. Cook.

I'm in Poland, Chasing the King of Hearts in the book by Hanna Krall, published by Peirene Press this autumn.

--->69 anisoara:
I just finished Chasing the King of Hearts. it is a perfect Peirene book.

I've left La Reine Margot in trouble in 16th century France, and Exile in contemporary Glasgow.

@ 70 -- It's excellent. And I think that Peirene consider it one of their best.

I am in LA trying to avoid Deception, in Chile listening to The Obscene Bird of Night, and in Rocky Mountain National Park listening to Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music.

I've been dealing with the consequences of Oil on Water in Nigeria and have traveled The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos.

When The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, sometimes you have to blame the dab, even if the hospital tells you it's epilepsy.

Great book, labfs39!

I'm in Australia with Coda and an island in the Stockholm archipelago with Harbour.

#76 It's fabulous so far. I can't put it down!

#77 It's a great teaching book because so many approaches are used.

#78 I hadn't thought of that, but you are absolutely right. So many doctors, nurses, welfare workers, specialists, Hmong healers, etc. were involved over the years, and everyone approached the issues from a different perspective. Some doctors seemed interested in the Hmong and tried to find common ground, others provided the best care they could in the way they had been taught, others did what they could but didn't push it, still others couldn't be bothered. Are you involved in the medical profession, Osho?

I train social service interventionists and counselors/therapists. I'm a psychologist myself.

I''m in Stormhaven on the south coast of England solving the murder of A Vicar, Crucified with amateur sleuth Abbot Peter. I'm intrigued that Abbot Peter uses the Enneagram for criminal profiling.

I just left Hawksmoor in London to travel to The Gathering in Ireland.

I've just followed A Dead Man's Memoir of theatrical life in 1920s/30s Russia.

I am on the run in Prague with Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš after attempting to assassinate Heydrich, otherwise known as HHhH: Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich (Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich).

#84> My wife and I visited the basement of the church in Prague where the two assassins hid out after the mission. Very sobering place to spend time, to put it mildly.

I have just started The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam, which is partly set in Hong Kong. It follows Old Filth with his wife Betty's story.

I'm in 18th century Vienna with Fanny von Arnstein: Daughter of the Enlightenment, by Hilde Spiel and published by the new New Vessel Press. It is absolutely fascinating.

#85 I agree. And Binet's use of dates in the telling of that part of the story was very effective in making those eight hours seem to last weeks.

Currently haunting the Bloodlands, appalled at the death toll wracked by Hitler and Stalin. Also travelling much of the same terrain with Vasiliy Grossman while on The Road.

In Rome and beyond with St. Paul in Armstrong's The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity.

I am afraid to drive over any bridges or in any tunnels in Quebec. And I am really enjoying being in Three Pines, in the eastern townships. It is where and how the light gets in.

I'm running between DC, Minnesota and Broken Hill, Australia with poets (dead and alive) but with a deadly Lexicon of persuasion responsible for a mass killing at Broken Hill and the breaking in of love in an emotionless organisation. Dystopic to say the least - but intriguing.

I am in Chile still watching The Obscene Bird of Night and in 1650s Schongau, Germany getting to know The Hangman's Daughter.

Have finished off "The Coroner's Lunch" which was as delicious as ever. Have left Laos in order to Picture a Favela in Brazil.

I'm in Haran, in ancient Turkey, reading The Red Tent.

I've been in Lima following the adventures and travails of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

I've been in Nigeria and Cameroon in the late 1920s to 1940s with I've just finished and reviewed The African by J.-M. G. Le Clézio.

I am at Thornfield House in ...shire with Jane Eyre.