Where in the World Are You Now? November 2009

I'm all over the southwest US traveling with my highly dysfunctional family from town to town to desert, living in shacks and cars and trailers and hoping for The Glass Castle.

I'm an EMT working in some tough neighborhoods of Manhattan (New York, New York, USA) in Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly. Oops! Gotta run. Another call just came in for "One-Three Zebra".

I just left Russia, Belarus and Ukraine with Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, a collection of first-person narratives from survivors of the incident collected by a Belarussian journalist Svetlana Alexievich. It was one of the best, most horrible books I've ever read and I am definitely going somewhere light and fluffy next.

I am traipsing through Madrid wondering who killed my ex-lover, snorting cocaine and smoking cigarettes while restoring an old painting, and wondering whether I should betray a friend of mine in The Flanders Panel.

I travelled to a small village in Algeria, went all over Europe following the trail of my late Nazi SS officer father and ended in my home, Paris in The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal.
I am now in 1929 Czechoslovakia with The Glass Room by Simon Mawer.

I'm in southern Alberta dealing with mythological Japanese creatures in Kappa Child.

Well, I have left Kashmir for Agra in Midnight's Children, and will be writing more in the India! thread, but am also suffering oppressively though nasty parents, a nasty village, nasty people, nasty times, and nasty images in Swabia/Romania in Herta Muller's Nadirs. I am just beginning to familiarize myself with the barren desserts where salvation might be found in Palestine with Clarel (still in the introduction; reading bits of the poem here and there), to be read over at the Salon. And will be catching a plane home but taking it to Brazil with Clarice Lispector later today.

I've had Too Much Tuscan Sun with Dario Castagno and have moved back to somewhere in England with The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield. Both very easy reads - just what I feel like right now!

Am in Egypt but heading into The Sudan where The Last Camel Died at Noon with Amelia Peabody and her trusty parasol.

I just left Russia after finally finding a dozen eggs in City of Thieves. Now I'm trying to write a love story in Iran without being imprisoned or worse in Censoring an Iranian Love Story.

I am in the Delhi of the future (as well as of the past) with The Last Jet-Engine Laugh -- I'm reading this for the India theme read.

I'm in 1920s Paris with Hemingway and his friends in A Moveable Feast .

In Morocco, just got here, but Azel, Kenza and about all the rest are just talking about going away -- this is Lähtö or Partir.

In Norway, present and WWII, with The Redbreast.

Greetings, everyone, I'm just joining.

I'm over in Staraya, Russia, reading The Brothers Karamazov.

I doubt I'll be posting too much, over here. This book's a long one!

My family and I have just arrived in Tokyo, Japan.

I'm reading Namako: Sea Cucumber by Linda Watanabe McFerrin.

I have been in the future - LA and other places in California with Terminal Cafe by Ian McDonald. Now starting Repossession Mambo still in the future, with a man who repossesses artificial organs when the recipient falls behind on their payments. Not sure the location yet.

In the North African Désert walking on with the people of the sand and the wind.

I'm in Wyoming following The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

I just left Malaysia's Harmony Silk Factory. Trying to decide where to go next...

I have one foot in the UK with A.L. Kennedy's Day and the other foot in Romania with Herta Müller's The Passport.

Bouncing through time and am split between Sydney, Melbourne, London and Glasgow in Louis Nowra's Ice.

Stranded in Russia. In the "thick" of War and Peace.

In Heian-kyo (11th century Kyoto) with Lord Sugawara Akitada in The Convict's Sword by IJ Parker. This is the latest in the series which are linked together. They are mystery/detective stories but you get a wonderful feel for court life and everyday life during the Heian period.

In Japan with Translucent Tree by Nobuko Takagi and Ryunosuke Akutagawa's famous Rashomon.

In USA. Just finishedQueen of the Damned by Anne Ride which was very good, and have started A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

I’m on Crete and more precisley in Corfù , with an odd assortment of English travellers come on shore from a cruise ship to examine the island and in particular The Dark Labyrinth by Lawrence Durrell

I am in Vermont trying to keep up with Go With Me by Castle Freeman.

Moving on.......I am in England with Catriona and in Denmark thinking about going To Siberia.

Just crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. with my niece (who has purple hair) and nephew in The Flying Troutmans by Miram Toews.

About to embark on a jaunt up the Thames with Three Men in a Boat.

In hot, humid, aromatic Bombay with Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram.

In the area of Krakau, Poland, during WWII. I'm reading Die Wohlgesinnten by Jonathan Littell.

I have left futuristic India in The Last Jet-Engine Laugh and A Place of Greater Safety in the French Revolution and am now in remote areas of late 19th century Brazil in The War of the End of the World.

I just left Malaysia in The Gift of Rain and am now reflectively exploring Portugal in Night Train to Lisbon.

I'm venturing into the harsh pioneer world depicted in Xavier Herbert's fictional Capricornia in the north-east of our Australian continent. I'm not enjoying the constant hang-overs and put-downs.

I have just finished travelling with Robert Dessaix's Arabesques as he followed in the footsteps of Andre Gide through southern France and north Africa. Now I'm following DI Kathy Kolla as she tries to unravel the sinister mystery of a poisoning in the London Library in Barry Maitland's Dark Mirror.

I've just said goodbye to the People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - loved some parts, but really didn't like her Australian narrator, and was put off by "seige" and "conversation" along the way!

Have just flown to Israel to read A Pigeon and A Boy by Meir Shalev. It was a random library pick, but I can see some great comments on LT so am looking forward to it.

In England with The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Armin.

I'm in Florida with Hiaasen's Nature Girl .

I just finished Rashomon et autres contes by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, a short anthology including only 4 short stories, that I was reading when I had free time at work.

My "review"/thoughts can be found here.

I am still in Japan however with other books.

In Tangier, Morocco, where the taste of Almonds is bittersweet.

I'm in the Dominican Republic, celebrating The Feast of the Goat.

Trying to get to a lost city to find the source of Type IIb boron-coated blue diamonds, which have semiconducting properties important to micro-electronics applications; in Congo by Michael Crichton

Just left Morocco and The Almond behind and moved to Algeria to meet some Women of Algiers in their Apartment.

I'm in Spain with a bunch of drunk people and Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises.

After a journey across the south-western United States with The Shipwrecked Men I am now safely back in England at Vanity Fair.

Going around the British Isles from Scotland I've now found my way to Wales with Aberystwyth Mon Amour.

I am in modern day New Hampshire (just down the road from me) in the fictional town of Stoneham, NH in the cozy mystery Bookplate Special by Lorna Barrett.

I am in Luxor. Egypt with the lady's maid of Lucie Duff Gordon in 1860's in The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger.

I am in the court of Louis XVI, just before the French Revolution, with Madame de Stael by Francine du Plessix Gray.

Shuttling between my neighbourhood inToronto and Romania with The Letter Opener

I am no longer in modern day NH.

I have now moved to ancient Egypt after the fall of Ankhnaten, and the abandoned and possibly cursed city of Amarna, with The City of Refuge by D (Diana) .M. Wilder. The new Pharaoh has reopened the stone quarries there an nothing good can come of it.

I am in 18th century Scotland with Catriona and in Niagara Falls, NY in the early 1900s learning about The Day the Falls Stood Still.

Jumping back and forth between the 20th c and 17th c in Venice with The Glassblower of Murano.

Bouncing all over Europe looking for The Mask of Dimitrios. (Aka A Coffin for Dimitrios.)

Thanks to the kind souls who raved about Eric Ambler in a previous "Where in the World Are You Now?" thread! It's a great read, I'm really enjoying it.

Starting from Ethipia , where coffee was discovered I’m covering three-quarters of the way around the world following "The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee" by Stewart Lee Allen

# 57: wookiebender I think it’s me , the one who raved about Eric Ambler books, and if I’m not the one , I second you and the X guy, because Eric Ambler is one of my favourite author

I am in 1500 England with the Tudors in Wolf Hall.

I am in Bern, Switzerland trying to fathom Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman.

I've gone to Sweden with The True Deceiver and Tove Jansson, but I must also visit hell in The Inferno this weekend for my class on Monday.

#58> Well, thank you grelobe and the mysterious Mr/Ms X. :) I'm looking forward to reading more of his books, The Mask of Dimitrios was great - plot, characters, atmosphere, writing, dry humour, everything. A wonderful read.

And now I'm rubbing elbows with brenzi (#59 above) and the Tudors in Wolf Hall.

In India and 300 pages into A Suitable Boy which I'm enjoying, but find myself reading other things both because it's so huge to hold and because it seems neverending. Also, in Hawaii on my way to Iwo Jima with Flag of Our Fathers.

#58 & #62 I own up, wookibender and grelobe to being the mysterious X! At least I'm one of them, there may be others who have been delighted with grelobe's recommendation of Eric Ambler. The books are great!

#61: The True Deceiver may be (or may be not) set in Sweden, but if you're with Tove Jansson you are in Finland. (She wrote in Swedish, but that happens here too.)

I am having slow times with The Women of Algiers in their Apartments

I'm out of Moscow and in the US for the first time in months? years? In NYC waiting for a Funeral Party.

In Pittsburgh with August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle of plays, beginning with Joe Turner's Come and Gone

I'm in San Francisco in a small house overlooking San Francisco bay in The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer.

England - Vanity Fair
Russia - War and Peace
Italy - The Enchanted April

I'm in one of my favourite cities, Bath, and on my way to Northanger Abbey with Jane Austen.

I've left rural Michigan (USA)with American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell, and drifted back in time to 1930s Czechoslovakia with David Herter's The Luminous Depths.

alas, no touchstones today...

I have just arrived in Gilead, Iowa in Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. I'm reflecting on my life.

I was in modern day NC with the Judge Deborah Knotts mystery series: Winter's Child, Hard Row and Death's Half Acre.

Now I am in modern day St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota in Undead and Unworthy by Mary Janice Davidson, in book 7 of the Queen Betsy series.

Now I'm actually up in the Holy Valley (Wadi Qadisha) of Northern Lebanon with Piers Moore Ede, author of Honey and Dust. Here's a peek at what it looks like where I am.

It's just turned spring in Rio de Janeiro, I'm reading Silence of the Rain.

I left Lebanon and am now visiting Palmyra, Syria, still with Peirs Moore Ede in Honey and Dust. I'm sitting in a very hot Bedouin tent, by the way.

I am in England reading From Doon with Death and in Somalia learning about Secrets.

I left Tudor England and Wolf Hall and I'm now in the American southwest in Half-Broke Horses

In Leningrad during the seige, with City of Thieves, going hunting for some eggs.

In Dublin about to go undercover as a murder victim that looks exactly like me in The Likeness.

I'm currently hanging out with Elizabeth and her German Garden, which is somewhere in Germany, obviously. Charming stuff.

In Oran, Algeria, people are afraid, many of them already know that things aren't right, but no one thinks of the plague, not yet...

In China with Miss Chopsticks.

I'm in India for a few days, more precisely, for Six Days in Marapore - Paul Scott

I'm about to leave Ireland and board a ship for Brooklyn, New york, in Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Want to come along?

It's December! Head to the December thread. :)