Let's see, I'm in Ottawa (I think) with The Robber Bride, in various places (most recently in a boat, yes a boat, made out of copies of The Great Gatsby) in The Whole Story and Other Stories by Ali Smith, and in my head mostly with a couple of nonfiction reads.

I'm in the fictional African Free Republic of Aburiria with The Wizard of the Crow and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. It's a pretty crazy place to be.

I really enjoyed my visit to the African Free Republic of Aburiria when I went, but am glad to have been as a bird watching from above ;)

I'm in Nigeria now, trying to understand a complex daughter-father relationship symbolized by Purple Hibiscus.

Ahhhh Botswana with Mma Romatswe. I love Mma Romatswe.......witty, wise and so authentic. (from No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency)

I'm in a village in England known as Cranford. It's the mid-1800s and life here is very prescribed.

I'm in another English village, Hollingford, with several Wives and Daughters !

I'm in Paris and Boston and Washington and several other places in Gone to Soldiers.

I've been trudging around southern England with Gerard Manley Hopkins for many months, waiting for him to decide to convert 'to Rome' in Paul Mariani's delightful biography Gerard Manley Hopkins - A Life.

I am in the Phillipines listening to The Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.

I am somewhere in Surrey, with A Room With A View, and in Palestine.

I am in various parts of Western Canada and will shortly be leaving for South Africa with The Great Karoo by Fred Stenson.

I'm in the midst of intrigue in Bosnia in the Napoleonic era with Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric.

I'm splitting my time between Highbury, England with Emma Woodhouse, and somewhere in the far east putting up with unearthly mists and ghosts in the mirrors in Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan.

I was in England, Belgium and the Congo with The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Now I am in Elizabethan England at Elizabeth's court and at the Fae Onyx Court that is under mortal London with Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan.

I am in London in the dark of night with The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, and I also continue in the Phillipines listening to Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.

I'm in 1930's Budapest in A Journey Round My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy. It's the true story of the discovery that he has a brain tumor and the surgery, while he was awake, to remove it.

I am out west of NSW in Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway... on a bleak and desolate sheep farm

I'm in upstate New York discovering The Monsters of Templeton.

I was in a large spaceship/world called Rama in space passing through our solar system in Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.

I am now in London modern day/WWII with Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler.

My book club has sent me to North Carolina and upstate New York with Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and once I'm done there, I'll be back in Lancashire with Oranges are not the Only Fruit.

I am in Lesotho with Chaka trying to separate myth from fact...

love The Robber Bride :)

i'm in Cho Oyu, in the Himalayas, trying to have a telephone conversation with New York - The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

I am on Cape Breton Island with Island: Complete Short Stories and in Liverpool and Ghana with The Atlantic Sound.

Loved Bosnian Chronicle, BTW.

I'm leaving Canada and the women of Ontario (The Robber Bride) for parts unknown. . .

>22 we'll be discussing it over on the Atwoodians group in July, if you're interested.

Message edited by its author, Jun 10, 2009, 6:30pm.

I've left upstate New York and the Monsters of Templeton and am now visiting Crow Lake in northern Ontario. Not much between here and the North Pole.

#25 am now visiting Crow Lake in northern Ontario. Not much between here and the North Pole.

Terri, you have to take those Ontarians with a big grain of salt. Northern Ontario loosely means "north of Toronto," and is south of much of Canada. It's a big area, but the largest city, Sudbury, is south of Seattle (46 degrees N vs 47 degrees N -- the next largest city, Thunder Bay, is only at 48 degrees N, placing it below the 49th parallel, or much of the US-Canadian border). That also makes it south of London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. So don't take all that whining about northerness too seriously, they're playing for effect. You're right that if you drew a straight line between Northern Ontario and the North Pole you wouldn't see too many people, but you would see over 3,000 miles of wilderness. Yes, I'll admit it, I'm a complete geography geek. Sorry if my geekness has given you more than you wanted to know! :-)

Message edited by its author, Jun 10, 2009, 8:57pm.

She does mention it's 3000 miles to the North Pole -- and I think it is pretty far north in Ontario. The nearest town (20 miles) is Struan, which may be a fictitious town. But she's incensed when another character refers to Barrie as Northern Ontario. "That's not north!" she says. So I think they're pretty far up there! (I wish I were a geography geek!) And when I say "not much" that's really not fair to the incredible wilderness, is it?

Yes, well I'm sure all those moose, bear and beaver are happy for us to just leave them alone. I'm going to have to add Crow Lake to my TBR list--it sounds good. My bookclub read it a few years ago, but it was one I missed. (And now that we have collections, it's so easy to add it to my Wish List collection!).

I'm in Nixonland.

I'm in India enjoying The Mango Season.

#21 shawnd, I see you are reading about Chaka.

There is also a fabulous 10 part miniseries called Shaka Zulu. It is mesmerizing. I would watch it whenever it was on TV, and eventually got the DVDs.

The actor who plays Shaka is amazing. He did the same type of performance as Ben Kingsley did in Gandhi - you felt you were watching the real man.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093950/
http://www.amazon.com/Shaka-Zulu-Complet...

#29 ABW, that book has been on my mental wishlist for ages, so a good review from you on Nixonland could lead me to the bookshop and a breach of my "no new books ban"! such responsibility...

I'm in Moscow in War and Peace, and loving it, but with 1100 pages left. I'll be there for a while. The new translation by Pevear and Volkhonsky is so much better than my Dad's old one from 1972. I'm also in Berlin in Stasiland, and in Wisconsin in American Wife.

I just got home from an exciting and unique trip to Las Vegas in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and now I'm on my way to the Netherlands in Girl With a Pearl Earring.

#31 - Thanks Ficus, Go Pats!

I'm in Toronto with The Robber Bride.

I am splitting my time between Mesadale, southern Utah with my mom (she's The 19th Wife in jail for killing my dad and I say, good on her! A little late, but FINALLY! she grew a spine... maybe) and Lexington, Kentucky and Pittsburgh.. or am I now in Cleveland? in The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

I'm finding BOTH to be really good books and very much the page-turners... which makes in very difficult to decide where to spend my time :-)

I've just arrived at Limmeridge House in the Lake District, Cumberland, England, after a mysterious encounter with The Woman in White.

I'm swooning over chocolate with David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris

# 34, Shawnd, You're welcome, and yes Go Pats !

I'm finishing up in the Caribbean with Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhyss.

Undecided as to where I will go next.

I am in a fictional Pacific Northwest town called Commonwealth, during 1918 dealing with the Flu pandemic, WWI. The town quarantines itself and ends up with a sick soldier seeking admittance. The book is called The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen.

Message edited by its author, Jun 14, 2009, 1:29pm.

In San Francisco dancing giddily through tetramic sonnets with Vikram Seth's the Golden Gate

I've left England (where I spent nearly two weeks reading Wives and Daughters), and am now in east Africa somewhere (Tanzania? Kenya? not certain), with Gurnah's Desertion. The pace is leisurely, but by no means dull. I'm enjoying it a lot.

>43 Lindsacl, you are indeed in Tanzania...

I am mostly in London and Hong Kong with The Honourable Schoolboy.

I am bouncing back and forth between the Dominican Republic and Nueva York in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

I am currently in Leeds, England and am also reading about the DR and NJ in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is also the first book I have ever read on my new Kindle, which I bought so that I no longer have to haul several books with me when I travel (which is often). LOVE the Kindle! Love Oscar Wao, too.

I'm in Graz, Austria with Johann Kepler in The Fated Sky: Astrology in History.

I'm revisiting Iceland with Indridason's fifth mystery, Arctic Chill.

Physically I am still in Leeds, England, and have just begun reading about Cleopatra's Egypt in Colin Falconer's When We Were Gods on my Kindle.

I am in England with The Woman in White and simultaneously in Idaho listening to a lovely story called All Over Creation by Ruth L. Ozeki.

Cushla--I'm about halfway through Nixonland, but I can already tell I will be giving it a good review. My only caveat is that I think you are a lot younger than I am, (and also not in the USA), and there is so much information in the book that it helps to have been somewhat politically aware during the period (60's and 70's). If I was not previously aware of who a lot of the people were it might have been hard to keep track of so many characters and events.

In between Nixonland I am in Tokyo with Naoko by Keigo Higashino, a Japanese mystery writer.

I am in modern day South Florida with Quiet Teacher by Arthur Rosenfeld. A martial arts mystery/thriller. It is the second book in the Dr. Xenon (Zee) Pearl series.

I'm on the Isle of Skye in To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf.

I'll give you 2 guesses where I am: I'm reading A Year in Provence.

I am in France observing The Elegance of the Hedgehog and simultaneously in Iowa in the first short story in the collection entitled, The Boat by Nam Le.

I am in St Lucia with a cast of characters including fishermen, a retired British military couple, and a poet ... reading the epic poem Omeros.

I am in modern day Paris with The Empire of the Wolves by Jean-Christophe Grange. I think I will also end up in Istanbul.

The upper reaches of Norway with The House With the Blind Glass Windows by Herbjorg Wassmo.

I am in New York with Everyman by Philip Roth and in Colombia listening to a short story by Nam Le entitled, "Cartegena''.

I'm in 17th Century France with a grief stricken widowed viol maker and his two daughters in Pascal Quignard's All the World's Mornings.

HOoning around Rome with rival police and caribinieri trying to discover whether a murder has actually been committed in Dante's Numbers.

Just arrived at Wolfsegg, in Austria, via Thomas Bernhard in Extinction.

I'm All Over Creation, but specifically in Liberty Falls Idaho, near Pocatello on a potato farm.

-->64
One of my favourite books about 'family issues' ever. Slow, but worth it. Hope you enjoy it.

I've been in Japan with The Flower Master, then went to Africa with Murder at Government House by Elspeth Huxley, author of The Flame Trees of Thika.

I'm woofing with Henning Mankell's Dogs of Riga in Latvia (actually I'm still in Sweden but I'm only 30 pages in....)

This morning I spent too much time in Los Angeles shooting meth and cocaine and smoking crack with Nic Sheff in Tweak. I need a break from his pathetic life, so I'm back in London with Virginia Woolf in The London Scene. It's much more pleasant.

Message edited by its author, Jun 24, 2009, 10:59am.

I'm in Stewart, Illinois, a small town 40 miles outside Chicago. I just moved here from Boston spontaneously after my husband's death. Hoping for A Year of Pleasures.

I'm in Togo with An African in Greenland. We're trying to get to Greenland, but not there yet. Also visiting Orley Farm in 19th century Britain.

I am trying to put my feet into frozen boots and pulling sledges on The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Soloman (getting a head start on the July Polar Regions theme read).

I'm in a bombed out villa near Florence, Italy. The war has just ended and I'm caring for The English Patient.

I've just left a hospital in East Berlin in the waning days of the communist regime with Christa Wolf's In the Flesh: A Novel. I think I'm about to embark on a European journey with Beethoven and the violinist, George Polgreen Bridgtower, in Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove.

I'm in Angola laughing my bunda off with Jaime Bunda.

Hi...new to the group, but right now I'm holed up in a convent in northern Italy (fictional town of Ferrara sounds a lot like Florence) in an ARC Sacred Hearts. Really enjoyable since we're heading to Florence (and other European points) the end of August.

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 5:45pm.

-->75
Let us know what you make of Jaime Bunda. I have read another Pepetela and enjoyed it. I have actually been toying with the idea of an extended Angola read, because I keep coming across new authors or books that sound interesting.

>> 77 Thanks. Jaime Bunda is hilarious. I mean 4 stars no doubt. I'll have a review up shortly. I have not read Pepetela before. You'll have to let me know if the others are funny. As an aside, it's set in Angola and Pepetela is born and lived/lives there, but he's white. Do you consider this a 'pure' Angolan read if the author's not black (for the Reading Globally Challenge)?

#61 hemlokgang: I recently read Exit Ghost and have to say I love Philip Roth... dirty old man that he is :-) And I absolutely love (near-crush levels) Nam Le he's so smart and a great writer too. "Cartegena" blew my socks off. I didn't love every story, but not liking it had nothing to do with Le's skills.

I'm in Japan with the Sohma family... trying not to hug them, though accidents happen, and trying to stay out of the way when Yuki and Kyo are in the same room! (Fruits Basket, volume 1 by Natsuki Takaya)

I just left the northernmost reaches of Norway with The House with the Blind Glass Windows by Herbjorg Wassmo and am now in Caracas, Venezuela at the turn of the 20th century with Iphigenia: a Diary by Teresa de la Parra.

I'm currently hanging out in Camden, Maine (until the end of the evening) with Lee Charles Kelleys' Dogged Pursuit, but this won't last long. Maybe onto Boulder, Colorado and reread one of the Stephen White books.

I am back in the Pacific Northwest in the fictional town of Commonwealth, during WWI and the Flu pandemic with The Last Town on Earth. I had to put it down to read 2 other books to meet a deadline.

I'm spending time in Defiance, Ohio with The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan as well as in India with V. S. Naipaul's An Area of Darkness.

I continue in the London area with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and am also hiding out in the woods of Wisconsin avoiding The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffrey Deaver.

I'm with the striking workers of the Dakar-Niger railway in God's Bits of Wood.

I'm mostly in London, starting in the 12th century and will eventually end up in 1927 on The Frozen Thames. In its long history, the river Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river.

-->78
Yes, of course. There has been much discussion about this in various threads, but I differentiate ethnicity from nationality. This is, in part, a reflection of my own personal beliefs. If a writer is strongly associated with a country then that is where he/she is from. My reads for Angola, South Africa, Mozambique and Algeria are all by 'white' authors.

I have left the Pacific Northwest. I am now going to New Jersey, a section of Trenton called 'the Burg' with Stephanie Plum and Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich.

Just left behind The Master and Margarita in Moscow; am now deliberating whether to rejoin the Shogun in Japan or go continent-hopping with The Warrior Queens.

Finished Fearless Fourteen and have moved to Roman Britain and Gaul with Persona Non Grata by Ruth Downie.

Message edited by its author, Jun 29, 2009, 11:44pm.

I'm living in the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan ca. 1940. My name is Nikola Tesla and my story is The Invention of Everything Else.

I've been living suitcase to suitcase in June! --

-- laughing at the Border Songs of US/Canadian eclectics in the Pacific Northwest
-- then trying to clear the Mexican border and make my way Into the Beautiful North of the US
-- then jetting from Detroit to Taiwan, getting to know an adopted Lucky Girl and her birth family
-- then enduring The Blue Notebooks of a child sex slave in Mumbai
-- and after a stop in Greece, I'm now back in Detroit, about to discover I'm not the girl I thought I was but rather something more toward Middlesex

I am in Panama, as described by Cristina Henriquez in The World in Half. Makes me want to read a history of the canal's construction.

Great post, detailmuse! You are quite the globe trotter!

I'm in New Orleans, with City of Refuge by Tom Piazza and Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum.

I spent my time waiting in the Dr.'s office roaming through a reconstruction of Rome that I bought at a library book sale. Judging from this group, we should be able to advise anybody on anywhere. I have been in Australia and England with The Forgotten Garden but I think I will go back to Rome with Courtesans and Fishcakes because I am getting seasick.

>teelgee
!!
Now if only to make some trip happen in real life...

I'm in the Build Up, that intolerable time of heat and humidity before the Wet Season in Darwin, Australia, trying to solve murders with tom-boy Detective 'Dusty' Buchanon.

I'm near Washington, D.C. in 1972, where A Crime in the Neighborhood has taken place. This is proving to be a quick read so I will probably be leaving D.C. in the next day or so.

I'm in Paris with Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer.