Where in the World Are You Now? APRIL 2011

Starting this thread, since I can't find one . . .

I've been Rewilding the World in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

I'm in Algeria in the middle of the War for Independence, in A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne. Later today I'll return to Labrador in the late 1970s/early 1980s and revisit Annabel by Kathleen Winter.

I am wandering the world because Nobody's Home by Dubravka Ugresic, and I am also in Vietnam listeming to the Tree of Smoke.

Thank you for starting the thread, Rebecca!

I've been in Bhutan, The Happiest Kingdom on Earth, working for Radio Shangri-La, also known as Kuzoo FM.

(Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli, since the touchstone didn't work.)

I'm in 1950s England with Flavia as she tackles her second case The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag .

I just finished reading The Box Man by Japan's Kobo Abe. Review posted in the appropriate region thread.

Putting out fires in the 80s/90s with the Oxford, Mississippi Fire Department and Larry Brown On Fire.

I'm now in Alfredston, England, somewhere near the end of the Nineteenth Century, I believe. Alfredston is somewhere near Christminster, (Oxford). I am hanging out with the newly married Jude the Obscure.

I am in a Soviet submarine and have been in the Black Sea, transported to the Baltic (via in-land waterways to avoid NATO detection) by a floating dry dock, then joined a convoy to follow ice-breakers through the seas north of Siberia to the Bering Strait, and hence into the Pacific, courtesy of Rising Tide.

I'm in Evin prison, where I am a Prisoner of Tehran.

I'm in Kabul, Afghanistan with The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

I'm in Brazil with The War at the End of the World.

I am crossing the border into France with a nervous young Austrian princess, soon to be Marie Antoinette, the Queen Of Fashion.

While not putting out fires in Larry Brown's Oxford Mississippi Fire Department, I'm going to now travel back to the Crusades and take part in The Assault On Jerusalem.

I'm in a Parisian suburb in the late 19th century in On Elegance While Sleeping by Lascano Tegui, and fighting alongside George Orwell during the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia.

I've been discovering the Alacaluf people in Tierra del Fuego with Jean Raspail's The People and about to see a supernatural side of New Zealand in Karen Healey's YA Guardian of the Dead.

I thought once I would be quite lost in Somalia, but reading the Maps carefully, I know where I am.

I have just received my exit visa from Lebanon where I've been visiting with Elias Khoury in Gate of the Sun and White Masks.

I am in the Balkans getting to know The Tiger's Wife and in Vietnam by the Tree of Smoke.

I'm in Nigeria unravelling The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin.

I'm in Scotland with RLS, reading Kidnapped.

Under the Atlantic in a Soviet submarine on my way to Cuba in Rising Tide.

I'm in Madras with The Pleasure Seekers.

I'm currently sitting in a park, in a tent, across from the White House, in DC, in The Camel Club

I'm in Morocco with The Last Patriarch by Najat El Hachmi. Grim contents but oh, what a storyteller she is!

I am in Vietnam by the Tree of Smoke and also in Chile learning about The Private Lives of Trees. Interesting.....to books with tree/trees in the titles.

Just finished a visit to Java in Earth of Mankind, a somewhat heavy handed book.

I am at 165 Eaton Place, London... Upstairs Downstairs with the family and the servants during the Edwardian era.

Still in Vietnam, trying to work through Tree of Smoke, and now in England with The Uncommon Reader.

I'm wandering around Europe with Jean Genet in Journal de voleur, in Spain with one of my favorites, La Celestina, and in one man's imagination with Marcel Schwob's Vies imaginaires. Once I finish these, I'm all set to begin 2666.

Jumping in here to post a link to an interesting blog that tells some sad things about global books: http://charlotteashley.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/the-sadness-of-books-we-cant-sel...

#36 Oh dear, Nickelini, that is both fascinating and very sad. They can't sell The Enchanted April? If only I had the money I'd go there right now and buy up every copy - it's one of those amazing books I wear out and have to replace on a regular basis.

I've been in England and Germany in the late 50s/early 60s with three early George Smiley novels by John le Carré: Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, and The Looking Glass War. While not up to le Carré's best, all are interesting, each in its own way and all contain elements of the themes le Carré explores with more complexity in his later works.

I am still in Vietnam by Tree of Smoke, and I am now also in Poland reading about Lodgings and in the USA meeting Herzog.

Going on lots of walks and rambles with Robert Walser as he contemplates and reflects poetically on life in early 20th century Germany & Switzerland - Selected Stories by Robert Walser.

Currently in revolutionary Moscow in 1905 with the young Lara in Doctor Zhivago.

I've left 1936 Galicia during the Spanish Civil War in The Carpenter's Pencil by Manuel Rivas, and I'll soon return to a 19th century Parisian suburb in On Elegance While Sleeping by Emilio Lascano Tegui.

I am about to finish my stay in Brooklyn with Hilda and Pearl by Alice Mattison.

I've just emerged from a makeshift prison Room seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of a five year old...Amazing story

I've just been enjoying the French Revolution in The Glass-blowersand walking through pre-Civil War Spain with Laurie Lee's As I walked out one midsummer morning and am now in 1860 Sicily with The Leopard.

I'm in the Ottoman Empire with The Oracle of Stamboul.

I'm having the loveliest time in Snowy River, Australia with The Trout Opera.

I'm thoroughly enjoying my stay in Freetown, Sierra Leone in The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna.

Thanks to the Author Theme Reads group, I've just left 20th century and 12the century Lisbon with The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago.

I've left early Soviet Russia, culminating in the Ice Road across Lake Ladoga that relieved the siege of Leningrad (by Gillian Slovo -- a disappointing read.

I'm currently in Riga, Latvia, investigating the murder of a Latvian policeman (who had been working with me in Ystad, Sweden, trying to solve the murder of 2 Latvian citizens) - The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell

I'm in Bloomsbury with Mrs. Woolf and the Servants.

I'm in Japan reading the Memoirs of a Geisha.

I'm in the Bronx reading the self-published memoir, The Pope and Me at Yankee Stadium, written by longtime Yankee Stadium vendor and stand-up comedian Steve Lazarus.

I've been in Argentina with Jorge Luis Borges reading Dr Brodie's Report, and am now on Africa's Congo River with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.