Where in the world are you? (2024 part 1)

A long-standing tradition, Where in the World Are You? is a place for you to share the setting of your current book in a witty one-liner. Try to incorporate the title and the locale.

For example:

With cherry blossoms and cedar trees, the Old Capital of Kyoto is a nature lovers paradise.

The Seventh Cross is reserved for the last escapee from a WWII German concentration camp.

Let me begin by paying Homage to Catalonia where I tried to fight well for the right cause, and received a bullet wound through the throat; you might say that my year started off with a bang.

Right now I'm hanging with The Writer's Sister in Abracadabra on Mount Karma, an invented place in The Invented Part.

Chekhov is busy writing writing for humor magazines trying to finish his medical degree while supporting his parents and five siblings in Moscow.

Wondering where Der Mann mit den Facettenaugen is going next in Taiwan.

Following Odysses and his travels to get back home.

>7 mnleona: And I just left Troy myself, after enjoying The Song of Achilles.

In Paris, recovering from the crush of a Simple Passion.

In the Negev Desert of Palestine, it's no Minor Detail to get bitten by a spider, but sometimes focusing on minor details helps us see larger truths.

I'm spending my Days at the Morisaki Bookshop in Japan wishing I knew more modern Japanese authors.

I’m in a car driving across Syria. Death is Hard Work

When travelling across the desert in Kazakhstan, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years.

My Vietnam, Your Vietnam, what's the difference?

I’m The Man Who Spoke Snakish in the forests of Estonia looking for the Frog of the North.

I'm in Suriname getting entangled while getting the lowdown on a woman's madness.

>16 ludmillalotaria: That looks really interesting. Noting.

I’m back in Japan reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Horrified by a terrible storm in Newfoundland that wrecked ships, wiped out several crews and oh wonder! a single ship was unexpectedly saved in The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

I’m in Ghana in the late 18th C. Homegoing. Not v convincing but good story-telling here.

I am waiting with Berta Isla for her husband to come home in Madrid.

In New York, looking Bartleby the scrivener over the shoulder. Of course, he said immediately to me: "I would prefer you not to do it".

A question to the psychologists under the readers: Did Herman Melville writte about an autistic character?

I'm not sure where the freak I am because I'm in the dreamed part.

>22 AnnieMod: I keep meaning to read that novel. I’ve read almost all Javier Marias’s novels but can never get into Berta. I do hope you’ll review it.

In a Chinese reeducation camp, Grass Soup is on the menu every day.

In Piemont, in the middle of a jiddish settlement, that came from Spain through France some generations ago. Described with many short anecdotes in Das periodische System by Primo Levi.

Walking the streets of Honolulu on a series of detours to learn about its colonial past.

Traveling to different places with Unsolved Mysteries of History by Paul Aron; So far I have been to Egypt (Pyramids), England (Stonehenge), and now off to Crete.

I'm in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution with the Red Scarf Girl.

Ups! Something went wrong out here :(

>31 BuecherDrache: I liked Red Scarf Girl, but note that it is a YA book. It doesn't take long to read. My review is here. I have started another memoir of the same time period called Feather in the Storm that seems like it's going to be interesting as well.

>32 labfs39: Thanks a lot for the link to your review. After reading it, I'll definitely try to get this book! :)

>33 BuecherDrache: I hope you like it if you read it!

I'm in rural China depending on A Dictionary of Maqiao to understand the local culture and language.

I'm wandering with the writer between Cergy-Pontoise and Paris as she examines the exteriors of everything in the aftermath of moving to a place with no memories.

Biking to Baku, Aserbaidschan with the cat Nala and her driver and best friend Dean, a Scottish Globetrotter, in Nalas Welt by Dean Nicholson

>34 labfs39: Thank you! I'm still trying to get it. I'll let you know! :)

Are you still (reading) in China?

>38 BuecherDrache: I am still reading A Dictionary of Maqiao. Without a plot driving the action forward, it's a bit slow, but interesting. An interlibrary loan book came in today, so I'm also reading that. I have ordered three Chinese history books, but they haven't arrived yet.

>39 labfs39: three chinese history books! That sounds like going deep in history, fascinating! Which epoch(s) is/are on the way?

>40 BuecherDrache: Roughly 1958-1976, i.e. The Great Famine, the Anti-Rightist Movement, and the Cultural Revolution. I should clarify that the three books I've read so far are memoirs from the time period. I am waiting for the true history book to arrive. But I think memoirs are part of history, which is why I answered the way I did. I have a whole list of recommended books about this time period on my Club Read thread, if you are interested.

>35 labfs39: I liked Han Shaogong’s book when I read it years ago and have been meaning to return to it for a re-read. It’s challenging but worth it.

As for me, it is 1802 and I’ve just escaped the Haitian Revolution with my wife Lydia Bailey.

For Ramadan and in solidarity, I'm in the near East with the Masnavi.

>41 labfs39: That's an impressive list! Thank you!
I think I'll take a first glimpse into 20th century China through the Red Scarf Girl and then turn to older times.

>43 jveezer: Sounds also very interesting! I noted already in my wish books.

Oh, the world is too big, cultures so fascinating and live too short to read so many great books! 📚

Now in a parisian hospital, recovering from a fall into the Seine. A car bumped Jean-Pierre out of the street, straight into the water. Now he has a lot of time to think about life and to open to all strangers who live close to him. All this happens in Das Leben ist ein listiger Kater by Marie-Sabine Roger .

Middle in the daily life of a spanisch family in the 70ties, looking over the shoulder of the penultimate child and getting astonished about his ingeniosity, in El principe destronado by Miguel Delibes

Travelling from Nordeast to Northwest Portugal through the eyes and pen from José Saramago in Die portugiesische Reise. Just marvellous!

In Wahlheim, where Werther suffers, enjoys nature and philosophizes about people, human behavior, God, love, etc in Die Leiden des jungen Werther by Goethe

I don't know who Juja is yet but I've got enough problems tracking down Jeanne Saré in the bohemian Paris of the '50s and wondering why she caused so many copycat suicides.

Somewhere in Switzerland, getting astonished about a strange tradition: The coffins of all living family members are stacked in front of the house until they are used by their respective owners. And young men (12 years) are washed in front of the whole community in the church. In Das Buch des Vaters by Urs Widmer. No doubt: "Andere Länder, andere Sitten".

Getting lost in the labyrinthine palace in Tenochtitlan while You Dreamed of Empires.

After reading two history books on the 1958-1962 famine in China, I have started the novel Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang, author of Grass Soup, which I read earlier this year.

Since Lisa reminded me that this thread exists, I’d better post something here. I’m on an unexpected diversion to 14th century Kyoto, after a copy of Donald Keene’s translation of Kenkō’s Essays in idleness happened to catch my eye.

I'm in the Negev learning all the dehumanizing minor details that Palestinians have had to live with since 1949, along with the major details of, well, you know...

>56 jveezer: I read that recently and thought it excellent.

I've been stuck in the highlands of Scotland drinking free coffee with Hamish Macbeth.

Instead of Half of Man is Woman, shouldn't it be Half of Woman is Man? Nonetheless enjoying my sojourn in China.

Looking for red Petals of blood in Ilmorog, Kenya

I'm off to A Faraway Island in Sweden.

Somewhere in Havana, founding a magazine with four young, fearless poets, in Las palabras perdidas by Jesús Díaz

I'm in Oxford, England, listening to the Swan Song of a Wagnerian singer.

Trysts at The Lily Pond make my time in Göteborg, Sweden more bearable.

The Lost Musicians are giving me a whole new way of looking at the Faroe Islands.

Bitter Herbs remind of difficult days in Amsterdam.

Reliving the Shame of that childhood day in Y when mon Père almost killed mon Mère.

Somewhere in the Provence, planting trees with a sheperd in Der Mann, der Bäume pflanzte by Jean Giono

Meeting a conscript on the Eastbound train of the Trans-Siberian Railway kept me glued to my seat for several hours.

The Book Censor's Library is located "in a place that would be pointless to name, since it resembles every other place."

Touring the PRC with Twenty Snobs and Mao.

In the Channel Island of Guernsey during and shortly after World War II. Out of necessity, a special reading circle arose there, which a young writer joined. In The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. A wonderful epistle novel.

In Rom following a deadly tennis match between Quevedo and Caravaggio in Muerte súbita by Alvaro Enrigue

>73 BuecherDrache: Loved that book!

The Door is about to be opened in Hungary that should never have been broached.

I am in England during the Cousin's War reading The White Queen.

>74 SassyLassy: Finished reading it some days ago. The historical side was great, the pornographic one, innecesarily.

If you haven't visited the Wild Swans in China, I highly recommend the trip. I also visited Annie John in Antigua and am now an eyewitness to The Assault in the Netherlands.

In Asunción, Paraguay following Marios steps in a big, tropical garden in "Yo anduve por aquí " by Mario Halley Mora .

I'm in a man's world learning what I already knew but most men and societies don't; that I should ejaculate responsibly.

Somewhere in Rio Negro, fighting against Malaria while dutch and French scientists try to get seeds from the China tree and bring them illegally from Perú to Java.

Platero and I are in Andalusia.

>82 jveezer: I love that book! Greet Platero from me 😍

I'm in Japan, confused to the point of not knowing what year it is, so let me call it 1Q84 and hope for the best.

If you are Ai Weiwei in China, your life might feel like a 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows compressed into 63.

I’m on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island in the late 1940’s with a Jewish womanizer and a Gentile Polish peasant.

I am in England with Lady Jane Grey as a child.

Hi I'm new to this group! I love to travel IRL and in books - I really like the way things are organized here :)

I just finished pub hopping all over Ireland listening to Histoires jamais entendues dans un pub en Irlande.
I'm collecting E is for Evidence in Santa Teresa, California, and I'm fighting for miners' rights during Germinal in Northern France.

I've been wandering around the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in Czechoslovakia) with The Good Soldier Svejk for what seems like forever. He wants me to read another 450+ pages and I know I will, but he is certainly holding me up with his interminable stories!

Paracuellos is a town in Spain, it's the colloquial name for a group home for boys, it's a graphic series by one of those boys.

At the Great Wall of China with Von Kaisern und Barbaren.
Der Bau der großen chinesischen Mauer by Cornelia Hermanns/Gregor Körting

Broken April cuts
Albanian life in two
thanks to the Kanun.

I'm learning the history and experiences of people leading up to the current genocide behind the gate of the sun.

On a motorbike with a very ingenious electrician in Pakistan. In other rooms, other wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin.

Does anyone know if the name Daniyal is the equivalent of Daniel?

Im in Beijing, during the cultrual revolution. Red Scarf Girl

>94 BuecherDrache: it is i think

>94 BuecherDrache: Yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danyal and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_in_Islam (not that Wikipedia is always reliable but it confirms other things I am finding as well).

Trying to figure out A Crime in Holland with a Parisian detective created by a Belgian gentleman (not to be confused with a Belgian detective created by an English lady).

Trying to escape The Beast of the Haitian Hills after winding up in Haiti by accident.

>99 SassyLassy: Whew! That one's not easy to find but sounds right down my alley.

On the way out of the low lands, I ended up in the Swiss Alps, chasing the Great Fear on the Mountain.

>97 AnnieMod: cool! Thank you for your research!

From Haiti to the Swiss Alps, there a beast, here a great fear. What kind of fellows are they?

I'm facilitating The Exchange with John Grisham in Libya, listening to Histoires jamais entendues dans une auberge en Espagne and hobnobbing with Le Murder Club du jeudi in Kent, England.

I'm aboard a warship flying through the Asteroid Belt as I watch the Leviathan Wakes.

I'm on the bus through the heartland of the Midwest, on a quest to fine Miss Macintosh, my Darling.

18th. Century in England. On the way to Northanger Abbey with Miss Morland and Mr. Tilney in Northhanger Abbey by Jane Austen.

Things are scary in Peru in The Time of the Hero.

I'm avoiding La mort, entre autres (The One from the Other in English) in Germany and Austria, post WWII.

>107 SassyLassy: Oh! We read this book at school in Mexico and found it terrible!

After spending a long time in Kerala, India pondering the Covenant of Water, I've journeyed to Croatia with Mama Leone.

In Palestine through the Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear :Poems from Gaza and also his latest Forest of Noise: Poems
Both by Mosab Abu Toha

Excellent....

Somewhere in the land of oriental tales with Das Schaf im Wolfspelz by Rafik Schami .

In Morocco, where The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty while the diver herself takes off on a frantic adventure of self-invention.

I'm listening to the joyful song of the partridge in Mozambique while being simultaneously saddened by the obvious and insidious effects of settler colonialism through the generations.

Digging my way out of Beneath of Sands of Egypt where I excavated some tombs with Donald Ryan, PhD.

Just got back from North East England where I had been Cloistered for twelve years in a Carmelite convent, and had an opportunity to see for myself that "hell is other people".

In Turkmenistan close to the "Krater von Derweze" in Sowejtistan by Erika Fatland.

Travelling in train to Aral, Kasachstan in Sowjetistan by Erika Fatland .

I just finished lamenting the lost homeland of Palestine in a Journal of an Ordinary Grief.