Petroglyph's 2020 TBR Challenge

Books from countries I have not read (enough of)

1. Poland:
   Polen berättar: Navelsträngen i jorden edited by Irena Grönberg. English title: Poland tells stories: The umbilical cord in the Earth
   A selection of sixteen short stories by contemporary Polish authors. I’ll be reading this in a Swedish translation. (Acquired: 2019)


2. Jamaica:
   A brief history of seven killings by Marlon James.
   A 2018 SantaThing gift that I held off on reading for this challenge. (Acquired: 2018)


3. Italy/Sardinia:
   Battement d'ailes by Milena Agus. Translated into English as Daddy’s wings Finished: 7th January 2020
   A novel about growing up female in Sardinia, bought on a recent trip to Italy. I’ll be reading this in a French translation. (Acquired: 2019)


4. China:
   Den röda lyktan by Tong Su. English title: Raise the red lantern Finished: 29th April 2020
   Domestic fiction about life in a traditional Chinese household, including a novella made into the film Raise the red lantern, which I have not yet seen. I’m expecting something similar to Eileen Chang’s short stories. I’ll be reading this in a Swedish translation. (Acquired: 2019)


5. South Korea:
   Vegetarianen by Han Kang. English title: The vegetarian Finished: 10th May 2020
   A Korean wife who at first ceases to eat meat decides to cut ever more things out of her life. I’ll be reading this in a Swedish translation. (Acquired: 2019)


6. India:
   Ghachar ghochar by Vivēka Śānabhāga.
   The ups and downs of a suddenly middle-class family in India. I’ll be reading this in an English translation. (Acquired: 2019)

Reading projects

1. Wo warst du, Adam? by Heinrich Böll. English title: And where were you, Adam?
   Part of an effort to read more in German. A series of linked short stories about how German soldiers experienced the final gasps of WWII. One of the oldest unread books I own. (Acquired: 1999)


2. Aprilhäxan by Majgull Axelsson. English title: April witch
   Part of an effort to read more contemporary Swedish authors (I live in Sweden). About the supernatural inner life of a quadriplegic woman. (Acquired: 2019)


3. Metamorphoses by Publius Ovidius Naso
   Part of an effort to read more by the Ancients. (Acquired: 2000)


4. La peste by Albert Camus. English title: The plague. Finished: 2nd August 2020
   This year’s Big French Classic. Comes warmly recommended by my SO. (Acquired: 2003)


5. Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald.
   Penelope Fitzgerald is my next Completist Author, meaning I’ll be reading all nine of her novels. Five I’ve already read, selected more or less haphazardly; I’ll be working my way through the others chronologically in order of publication. (To be acquired this year)


6. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
   This year’s Big Classic and this year’s Doorstop. I might have read an abridged children’s version as a kid, but I think I’m finally adult enough for endless couleur locale asides on whaling. (To be acquired this year)

General Owned-but-Unread

1. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad.
   All I know about this one is that it is maritime fiction set in South America. (Acquired: 2014)


2. Les belles images by Simone de Beauvoir. English title: Keeping up appearances
   A copy of this book has stood unread on my shelves for over a decade now, and I think its time has finally come. (Acquired: 2007)


3. Riksäpplet: arkeologiska perspektiv på ett bortglömt regalskepp by Niklas Eriksson. English title: Riksäpplet: archeological perspectives on a forgotten royal warship
   I need to read more non-fiction outside my own field (linguistics), and this book is about marine archeology. Riksäpplet was a Swedish warship that foundered in the Stockholm archipelago in 1676, and it hasn’t been part of popular historical memory or archeology to the same extent that more famous shipwrecks have been. (Acquired: 2018)


4. Framåt Mars! by Ella Carlsson. English title: Forward Mars!
   I need to read more non-fiction outside my own field (linguistics), and this book is about space exploration. A popular-science look at how manned missions to Mars would be organised. The author spent a few weeks in a simulated Martian environment in Canada. (Acquired: 2010)


5. Inconvenient people: lunacy, liberty, and the mad-doctors in England by Sarah Wise.
   I need to read more non-fiction outside my own field (linguistics), and this book is about historical psychiatry. An in-depth look at the treatment of the (allegedly) mentally insane in nineteenth-century England, focusing on involuntary commitment. (Acquired: 2018)


6. Currently reading: To room nineteen. Collected Stories v. 1 by Doris Lessing.
   An impulsive purchase I made twelve years ago. (Acquired: 2008)


7. Baudolino by Umberto Eco.
   Post-modern picaresque set in the 13thC. Eco hasn’t disappointed me yet. I’ll be reading this in an English translation. (Acquired: 2007)


8. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Finished: 30th January 2020
   A classic of YA literature, progenitor of so many pony books. One of those books that I want to have read but I need a little nudge for to actually sit down and read. (Acquired: 2008)


9. De stille kracht by Louis Couperus. Finished: 10th September 2020
   A classic of Dutch colonial literature, set in the East Indies. A book I’ve owned for twenty years now without ever reading it. (Acquired: 2000)


10. There but for the by Ali Smith. Finished: 22nd March 2020
    A colleague at work recommended this to me. It’s supposed to be experimental, and I think most of it is set during a single dinner, and that’s all I really know about it. (Acquired: 2014)


11. Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
    Teenage me, eager to delve into the World’s Great Classics, couldn’t get further than a third into this book, and it’s now one of the oldest unread books on my shelves. I’ll be reading this in an English translation. (Acquired: 2001)


12. Currently reading: The New York stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton.
    Bought on a trip to New York City. I’ve read short-form Wharton before, and that whet my appetite for more. (Acquired: 2018)

Reserved

And we're off. I've just started Battement d'ailes by Milena Agus.

I'm still enthused about Marlon James' Black Leopard, Red Wolf and it's tempting to read his best known work. I've read a lot of novels that take place in India, but very little by an actual Indian author outside of Rushdie. Camus I've had enough of, but Fitzgerald intrigues me ... Moby Dick - my favorite classic!! I'm looking forward to more Simone de Beauvoir, Conrad and Eco in future, just couldn't get them into 2020. Not a bad thing that you missed Black Beauty in childhood, it was traumatizing. I think you'll like Dostoyevsky now. I haven't gotten to Wharton yet but she's on the radar. A lot more authors/works I recognize/know this time, this will be fun to follow.

I really enjoyed Crime and Punishment so hope that you find it easier going this time around. I'm also interested in your thoughts on The Vegetarian.