Where in the World Are You Now? July 2008

A new month, new books!

Physically, I have just returned from Chicago. Bookwise, I've had an extended stay in England, first Yorkshire in Flames by June Oldham and now London and elsewhere in The Gates of Ivory. I also still trudging through snow and hunger with Dostoevesky and every novel he's ever written. Occasionally, spring comes, but even then it feels like winter.

I'm traveling by train from Berkeley to the deserts of Utah, a mandatory relocation in 1942 When the Emperor Was Divine.

I just left Oxford, Calcutta, and Bombay (simultaneously) in Afternoon raag. Now I'm on my way to Nigeria with Things fall apart, and then probably back to the states for a bit as I re-read Emerson.

Currently in Bosnia with People of the Book and England with Small Island.

In New York City learning The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)

I'm in New Jersey, trying to endure the journey of a Loose Girl; but I'll soon be off to Siberia with The People's Act of Love!

I'm stuck in Venice with a self-indulgent, shallow narrator in her fantasy-memoir, A Thousand Days in Venice. I hope to hop the fast boat outa here by tonight.

While I spent my actual vacation in Florida, I spent my literary vacation in England, mostly London. I read An Equal Music and am still reading Possession. A couple of very nice reads ...

I'm hanging out in The Following Story with the tragicomic Herman Mussert (aka Dr. Strabo) former teacher of classics, now fallen upon harder times and reduced to writing travel guides for the witless. We're in a bit of a predicament as we're not entirely sure whether we're in Portugal or the Netherlands. Mussert is an amusing companion, but I wouldn't rate the book as highly as most reviewers have. It won the 1993 European Literary Prize and was shortlisted for The Independent Foreign Fiction Award. The book is good but not that good. I feel as if I've been hard to please lately. I need to read something that really sweeps me off my feet, is Literature with a capital "L," psychologically intrepid, and has more layers than an onion.

>10 lauralkeet: - lindsacl, you have just read/are reading two of my very favourite books - An Equal Music and Possession !

>10 lauralkeet: - lindsacl, you have just read/are reading two of my very favourite books - An Equal Music and Possession !

I'm in Switzerland with Albert Einstein as he develops his theory of relativity--Einstein by Walter Isaacson. I may skip out for a while as it is slow and very deliberate reading. Hmmm--where to?

I am sitting under Half of a Yellow Sun in Nigeria in the 1960s.

I am in the trenches in France, so to speak, with a side by side of Suite Francaise and The Moon is Down. So far, I prefer the latter, though they do make an interesting and pertinent juxtaposition.

I'm in New York with William Seward awaiting news of the 1860 Republican party presidential nomination in Team of Rivals.

I left Australia/Serbia with People of the Book and am now in Chile with Voyage of the Beagle. This is a book that should take me to lots of places I wouldn't otherwise be able to visit, like the Galapagos.

I've been in very early 19th century Philadelphia (USA) high society with Kelroy (and it was a bit of a tightrope act) and now I seem to be stuck in the airport and have lost my ticket.

I'm growing up on the means streets of Montreal, living with my drug addicted father inLullabies for Little Criminals.

I've just entered Nigeria with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. I'm only 50 pages in but am totally enthralled!

I just entered Burma with The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly and am also going travelling with Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski. ( so far Poland, India and China)

>23 torontoc: torontoc - I keep seeing some of my favourite books here - now it is The Lizard Cage. I'm finding many many books I want to read in this community too!

Finished my fiction read in England, so moved to Nigeria with Things Fall Apart.

Like somebody else in this group I just left the academic world of England and the literary world of Victorian England in Possession and the Italian world of Aurelio Zen in And Then You Die and Back to Bologna. Now I am slipping the surly bonds of Earth in Epic Rivalry and traveling into the Four Corners of Civilization with Name of the Wind. I have been to contemperory Nigeria with Beverly Naidoo in the Other Side of Truth. That was an intense journey. Maybe it is time to go back with Things Fall Apart?

I'm in 18th century England about to be seduced (I suspect); although the introduction suggests I'll be off to America soon as Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, one of the most well-read novels in America of the 19th century.

I am also in New Zealand (I think) with a short fiction collection by Tim Jones and several other places with a few other collections.

I'm currently stuck in an Iranian Prison in Septembers of Shiraz. It's not so bad yet but I'm only in the beginning of my sentence.

Well, as I cross stitch, I am listening to Pillars of the Earth in the land of 12th century England and France, learning about love and cathedrals. While reading, I just journeyed to the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent in the 1500s to learn about The Enchantress of Florence.

Ahh, time travel.

I have left the mean streets of Montreal, and am back in a little village in England, trying to solve a mystery with Jude and Carole in Blood at the bookies.

I just arrived in Norway, in some sort of fairly remote location. We just had a bit of an adventure Out Stealing Horses, and got quite wet in a thunderstorm as well.

I'm in New York and really Need to Talk About Kevin, my mass murderer son, so I'm writing his disturbing history.

While being enchanted in the Mughal Empire in India (The Enchantress of Florence) during the 1500s I am simultaneously being held up at customs in Krakow, Poland(The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller) in the present day.

Just back from Australia and heading to Mongolia... for the solar eclipse.
Read 2 great books recently.
The Great Man by Kate Christensen especially rewarding for all those "women of a certain age". And, Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo for lessons to still be learned at any age.
Happy trails...

I'm in the woods of Wisconsin early in the 20th century with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

I'm in the United Kingdom together with Tuppence and Tommy (Partners in crime) and in the same time I'm in the USA with Rachel (Something borrowed). How incredible ;)

>33 Samantha_kathy: I'm in Nigeria also with Measuring Time by Helon Habila (for our Nigerian July theme). Already I'm captivated by the storytelling and there's kind of a rhythm to it ... (although I wouldn't call the prose lyrical).

I'm skipping between Beirut and London with Nada Awar Jarrar's Dreams of Water.

I'm skipping between Beirut and London with Nada Awar Jarrar's Dreams of Water.

I moved already through Paris (with Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran and Oscar and the Lady in Pink by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt) to Brussels, together with Joseph (L`Enfant De Noe by the same author).

I'm in Argentina with Charles Darwin discussing Patagonia and its environs Voyage of the Beagle; also in Illinois with Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright Loving Frank.

I'm in The Village of Bom Jesus in Brazil. Bom Jesus is a cat by the way.

What a fun group!
This month, so far, I've been to Ljubljana in Slovenia dealing with Veronika decides to die and to Bradfield, England to solve a grisly murder in The Mermaids Singing.
Maalouf's Le Premier Siècle après Béatrice had me travel world-wide from Cairo, Paris, Gujarat (India), Naïputo (Russia) to Aravis in the French Alps.
Like agatatera, I went to Brussels and Chemlay in Belgium with L'Enfant de Noé.
Currently, I'm in Scotland reading Toni Gallo's adventures in Whiteout by Ken Follett.

Wow, Cecilturtle, you get around!

I'm in Peterborough England reading about A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (in English). Marina Lewycka is the author. Delightful read.

Well, after the magically real experience of skipping between subcontinental India and Florence in the 15th century shadowing The Enchantress of Florence, I am now off to an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota to deal with The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich.

I was born and grew up in Newfoundland, but have just arrived in New York City - and I'm not sure yet if The Navigator of New York was just my father, or will also be me.

At the moment I am in my second home of Maine in Lisey's Story (being a big Stephen King fan I feel like I have 2 zip codes) and will hopefully departure to soon take up residence in the remote, and strangely possssive Island in the tv show LOST in the book Lost and Philosophy: The Island Has Its Reasons.

I believe I am in what's left of Canada (or North America or the world). I am quite terrified as I accompany Snowman inland to look for supplies in Oryx and Crake.

Oryx & Crake was so intense. I really liked it a lot.

It's the Septembers of Shiraz and I have just been taken away to a 1981 Iranian jail cell for unknown reasons. My family is struggling to cope, as you might imagine.

I think that I am stranded in a teak cage in Burma with The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly. I have been there for two weeks and don't think that I am ever getting out- great book but I am not reading fast.

My audiobook, The Chopin Manuscript by 15 authors has me skipping back and forth between Warsaw and Washington, D.C.

I have just left the Russian army in chaotic retreat in East Prussia (August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn), and am currently on a train bound for a ruined bridge (The Yellow Arrow by Viktor Pelevin). Once I am off the train I will be in Zurich with Lenin in..er..Lenin in Zurich. This last is also my final read of my current Solzhenitsyn binge, providing I avoid buying any more in the next week or so.

I am in England this month, stuck in London, actually, and unable to leave like The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch. I'm only about a third into it, but it's wickedly funny and dark.

I'm meant to be on the Yorkshire moors with Catherine and Heathcliff but am finding it a bit intense so have instead been following Jennifer Cox around the world in an embarrassingly girlie book. My only excuse is that my thesis is rotting my brain...

Recently travelled to Uganda: Tropical Fish:Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana. Now I'm in Algeria, 1962: Children of the New World by Assia Djebar.

Bookwise, I've spent the last couple of weeks east of my home country Sweden. My first stop was in Latvia through the eyes of the girl Bille in the trilogy by Vizma Belsevica. During the span of the three books, the protagonist Bille grows up from being maybe five to sixteen years of age living in the city of Riga during the nineteen thirties and forties. In spite of Latvia being a neighbour country of ours I must confess to being relatively oblivious of Latvian literature and culture. This read filled in a small part of that void and as such I appreciated it. I did, however, put the first volume aside for some weeks as it originally failed to keep my interest at the same time as I found the situation and treatment of the children in the book quite disturbing. When I finally picked it up again I read through all three books in a few days and not without reward.

Now I have moved on to late 19th centuary Russia, being about 2/3 through Anna Karenina.

I have just left the navigator of new york and points north, through cold,wind and snow in our search for the north pole, and am now heading for warmer climates (I hope!) with The inheritance of loss in India.

I am currently in a South African Prison with Jonny Steinberg and Magadien Wentzel, discussing the Cape Flats and prison gangs while reading The Number: One man's search for identity in the Cape Underworld and Prison Gangs

I am currently in England visually and auditorally. I am listening to Henry James Short Stories and Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

I'm also in England with Jamaican immigrants in Small Island by Andrea Levy.

I'm in the Out Islands of the Bahama's in the late 1700's in Wind From the Carolinas by Robert Wilder. So much has happened already, it's hard to believe I'm only half through, but things are not looking good. Judging from the material on the dust jacket and end papers, I believe things will get worse before they get better (if they ever do). There is definitely trouble in paradise.

I'm sitting back and taking in Lemona's Tale set in Nigeria by Ken Saro-Wiwa. Enjoying it thoroughly though I've just started.

In the mid 19th century in India Sea of Poppies, and England Bleak House.

I'm based in New York city but traveling quite a bit to Calcutta, Paris and Boston with Jhumpa Lahiri in The Namesake.

I'm still in England (now in Ireland, actually) with the Pink Carnation, but I'm also in Berlin at the turn of the century in The Glimmer Palace.

Right now I'm in the United Kingdom, together with Mr Calgary (Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie). But at the same time I'm in India together with Aasha Rani (Bollywood Nights by Shobhaa De).

Because she writes, I was able to criss-cross Canada from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. After that, it was All or Nothing down the coast of California with quick stops in Florida and Texas.

I am apparently now embarking on a trip to an unnamed European village in a country reminiscent of Bosnia or Kosovo. I'll have to use Schopenhauer's Telescope to find out more.

I'm still in India (Bollywood Nights), but also just right now moving slowly with Ruskolnikov to Russia (Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

I'm in Meiji Japan, around 1910 with Nagai Kafu, (which will not touchsote) with Kafu the Scribbler. Again!

-- Gerry

I'm in India with The Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981)

I'm in the little town of Karakarook, New South Wales, Australia, considering The Idea of Perfection. By Kate Grenville.

Oooh, now I'm in Japan in 1959 when the Crown Price chooses The Commoner to be his wife. Soooo interesting...I'm loving it!

Hangin' out in Rome with Madame Gervaisais.

Left Burma with The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly, spent some time with A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo in London, England and am now in St. Petersburg, 1913 with Stephen Miller's Field of Mars. I am also going into the future with Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

I'm in Caulfield, Northern Territory, Canada ca 1870 investigating a murder and exploring The Tenderness of Wolves. By Stef Penney.

I have left Lenin behind in Zurich (or perhaps he left me, as he was on a train for Russia last time we met) and, for the time being, left Solzhenitsyn behind as well. I have read lots of his stuff this summer (7 books, mostly with 500+ pages). I usually skip around so thought it would be nice to settle on one author for a bit. It turned out to be a bit less rewarding than I had hoped for, but it was still interesting. I am having a last Russian fling (again, for the time being) with Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and Rudin, which are both very small.

So many places to go... I'm tentatively entering Benares (in India) with Pankaj Mishra in The Romantics.

Nothing terribly exotic at the moment...

I've got Anna Karenina going on the ipod and am reading The Fish Can Sing by Laxness and The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht.

I'm not sure exactly where I am, but I'm definitely in the US with Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead.

I just left colonial America, where I visited all 13 colonies with S. S. Rafferty's Cork of the Colonies. Now I'm in WWII Detroit with Lipstick and Lies by Margit Liesche.

I'm in China, on a train on my way to Beijing in Sounds of the River.

I am a fly on the wall in Nyanyadu, South Africa, awaiting the visit of The Rich Man of Pietermaritzburg whose sojourn here is chronicled by Sibusiso Nyembezi.

I am in France (Combray) with Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time, and in India with Saldam Rushdie and his Midnight's Children.

I imagine I'll spend about one year in France and a month or two in India.
And I'm hoping to go elsewhere as well.

I'm in Casablanca, being entertained in The Caliph's House by Tahir Shah, his family, and the guardians of his house. I believe I'll be here for a year, too!

I am also in India with Midnight's Children.

I am just getting ready to come to the US with Einstein but can't wait to get into garden among the tomato plants with The $64 Tomato.

Honoring this month's group theme, I'm in Nigeria. I just spent some time getting to know people from the village of Isara with Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka as my local guide. Now I have leaped 60 km or so south from there to Lagos, where I found myself as a journalist imprisoned for political reasons, Waiting for an Angel.

I'm in Constantinople and Athens with a British Ambassador's wife and a concubine in Stealing Athena.

#88 I really liked being in The Caliph's' House by Tahir Shah. His second installment on his Casablanca house was interesting but not as funny.

#89 My year in Casablanca's almost over and it has been quite funny - a culture shock, if you will! Thanks for the heads-up on the next book.

I finished following reporters Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott Clark around, back and forth between China and Burma with a couple stops in India, New York, California and London. They were researching the (non-fiction) secret history of The Stone of Heaven. We were lucky not to be arrested by the Burmese/Myamar junta.

I just left WWII Detroit where I observed the FBI and an undercover WASP (Women Air Service Pilot) solve a murder and capture a spy ring. The WASP used Lipstick and Lies to gain info. Unfortunately the leader escaped, so will have to found again sometime in the future.

I finally made it to Nigeria with Okonkwo, trying my best to handle it when Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

I've finished my adventure with Saint Petersburg. Now, I'm in three places in the same time ;) First of all in China with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, then in Bombay with Bollywood Nights and finally in Mexico with Compro, Luego Existo (I shop, so I exsist?). An interesting mixture of places :D

I'm back from Fellhead in the Lake District, England after having discovered The Grave Tattoo.

I'll be heading to Afghanistan to meet The Bookseller of Kabul in August.

Currently, I'm jumping from McLean, VA with Alice B. Sheldon aka James Tiptree Jr in James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, to England with Jane Gardam's The Flight of Maidens, and then to India with the Mahabharata. I seem to be stuck in a permanent state of jetlag, which has rendered me grumpy.

I started in Montevideo, Uruguay, with Any Human Heart, and now we're in England, Oxford to be exact. I believe we go to Paris soon!

I'm taking a break from the English Midlands with Middlemarch to become embroiled in pre-revolutionary Russia in The State Counsellor: Further Adventures of Fandorin by Boris Akunin.

to #96
One of the best trips I took last year was to China in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. My book club read it and found it a great book for discussion.

Last week I came back from space in the rather dull history Epic Rivalry and as of yesterday I left behind the wonderful neighbors of Brittany in I'll Never be French. Now I am in the wide open spaces of the Wyoming Terriroty in the venerable classic The Virginian. At the age of 106 I am finding the journey into that world refreshing but not simple due to the change in language style and speech patterns. It is a whole other country. "When you call me that, Smile." (it's in the second chapter)

to # 101

Yes, I believe so! I'm more less in the middle of the book right now and I already love it! But there is sometimes (or rather very often) such a cultural differences in relation to my environment and they are described in such a way that I just need to continue reading :)

I'm in Portugal during the Inquisition, following in the footsteps of Baltasar and Blimunda, a young couple. Blimunda can see inside people, foreseeing their death and so on. I am sure this will become important as the story moves along.

I'm in Sarajevo with Lie in the Dark by Dan Fesperman.

To # 101

I loved Snow Flower and the secret fan very much! You may find my whole opinion about it here - http://zyciowapasja.blogspot.com/2008/08/snow-flower-and-secret-fan-by-lisa-see....

I've just entered Argentina with Manuel Puig in Heartbreak Tango. It's my first trip to Latin America, I think. Hope it's good!

I'm in Bombay with Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.