Ready for some armchair travel? One of the aims of this blog is to showcase books from all over the world, so this list will give you plenty of choices.
You can go directly to the region or country by using the links below. I have selected books that have a fairly strong sense of place. In some cases, where the literature from a country is not well-known in the anglophone world, books have been included because the author is from the country. (Note: Countries are grouped according to United Nations classification.)
This is a work in progress, and I will be adding to it regularly. If you have any suggestions for books, especially for countries not represented here, please write to me at (suroora[at]hotmail dot com) or leave a comment here. Happy reading!
Regions and countries
AFRICA
Angola
Burkina Faso
Côte d’Ivoire
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Egypt
Ethiopia
Ghana
Libya
Madagascar
Mauritania
Nigeria
Republic of Congo
Rwanda
Senegal
South Africa
Tunisia
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
AMERICAS
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
Colombia
Guyana
Mexico
Nicaragua
Peru
United States
Uruguay
ASIA
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Brunei Darussalem
China
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Israel
Japan
Korea (see also South Korea)
Laos
Lebanon
Malaysia
Mongolia
Nepal
Oman
Pakistan
South Korea (see also Korea)
Sri Lanka
Syria
Thailand
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Viet Nam
Yemen
CARIBBEAN
Bahamas
Barbados
Cuba
Grenada
Jamaica
St. Lucia
Trinindad and Tobago
EUROPE
Albania
Belarus
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Estonia
Finland
France (including French Polynesia)
Germany
Hungary
Ireland
Montenegro
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Spain
Switzerland
Ukraine
United Kingdom
OCEANIA
Australia
Marshall Islands
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Tonga
AFRICA
Angola
The Book of Chameleons: Jose Eduardo Agualusa
A story narrated by a gecko living in the house of an albino who gives people brand-new pasts.
Burkina Faso
Of Water and the Spirit—Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman: Malidoma Patrice Somé
Memoirs of a man who lived in two worlds: he went to a school run by Christian missionaries and then returned to live in his village and became a shaman.
Côte d’Ivoire
Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by Clément Oubrerie
A graphic novel about Aya and her friends and family who live in a neighbourhood of Abidjan.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
No Place to Call Home: JJ Bola
A family from the DRC move to London looking for a better life. This is about the scars people carry within them.
Egypt
The Yacoubian Building: Alaa Al Aswamy
The lives of the people who live in a Cairo apartment block.
Ethiopia
The Shadow King: Maaza Mengiste
A novel about the women who fought in Ethiopia’s resistance against the Italian invasion of 1935.
Cutting for Stone: Abraham Verghese
The story of twins growing up in a hospital in a village in Ethiopia. Their father is an English surgeon who leaves, and their mother an Indian nurse. Through their lives, Verghese traces the changes taking place in the country.
Ghana
Wife of the Gods: Kwei Quartey
Detective Inspector Darko Dawson is sent to Ketanu, a village, to investigate a murder. Ketanu is also where his mother disappeared on a visit to her sister, who still lives there. Will he be able to uncover what happened to her?
Libya
The Dictator’s Last Night: Yasmina Khadra
A novel about the last days of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.
Madagascar
Beyond the Rice Fields: Naivo
Set in Madagascar in the 19th century, the story of a young woman and her slave.
Mauritania
The Desert and the Drum: Mbarek Ould Beyrouk
This is the story of Rayhana, a Bedouin girl, who runs away from her tribe, taking with her the tribe’s sacred drum. The book follows her on her escape and on what brought her to this point.
Nigeria
Lagos Noir: edited by Chris Abani
A collection of noir stories set in Lagos. Not all of them are crime fiction but they all leave you with an unsettled feeling.
Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The book tells the story of two sisters and their lives during the years before and during the Biafra war in Nigeria in the 1960s.
The Fishermen: Chigozie Obioma
The relationship of four brothers is destroyed by a prophecy. A look at what happens when someone is taken over by fear.
Republic of Congo
The Lights of Pointe-Noire: Alain Mabanckou
Alain Mabanckou leaves the Congo and doesn’t go back for 23 years. He writes about his memories as a child and his return.
Rwanda
Our Lady of the Nile: Scholastique Mukasonga
A girls’ boarding school in Rwanda reflects the country in the 1980s.
Senegal
Kaveena: Boubacar Boris Diop
Set in an unnamed African country against a backdrop of civil unrest, the book follows the head of the secret service as he looks for the deposed president.
South Africa
The Promise: Damon Galgut
A maid is promised a house by her dying mistress, a promise that most of the family have no intention of keeping. The books spans decades in South Africa, from the last days of apartheid to the present.
Fiela’s Child: Dalene Matthee
A novel that raises the question of identity. A white child is brought up by a coloured woman and then is taken away by a family of white woodcutters.
Tunisia
This Tilting World: Colette Fellous
A woman looks back at her life after the sudden death of her friend, and the mass shootings at a museum and holiday resort in Tunisia.
Uganda
We Are All Birds of Uganda: Hafsa Zayyan
The story of a Ugandan family of Indian origin, narrated by Hasan in 1960s Kampala, and his grandson Sameer, a young ambitious man in London in the mid-2000s.
Zambia
Kumukanda: Kayo Chingonyi
A book of poetry from a British-Zambian poet. He writes mostly about the experience of growing up Black in the UK.
Zimbabwe
This Mournable Body: Tsitsi Dangeremgba
The last in the trilogy about Tambu, a young woman growing up in Zimbabwe, through the country’s war of independence to the 1990s. Tambu is middle-aged and unemployed, and trying to come to terms with the person she has become.
AMERICAS
Argentina
Elena Knows: Claudia Piñeiro
A woman with advanced Parkinson’s looks back at her relationship with her dead daughter and tries to understand how she died. A book about women’s loss of control over their bodies and the hypocrisy of society.
Brazil
Vultures in the Living Room and Other Stories: Lula Falcão
Surreal and minimalist stories from a Brazilian journalist.
The Silence of the Rain: Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
The body of an executive is found in a car in a parking lot in Rio de Janeiro. Inspector Espinosa thinks it might be a suicide but there is no murder weapon.
Canada
The Almost Wife: Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Kira finally seems to have got what she wants most: a perfect family. She is engaged to the handsome and rich Aaron with whom she has a child, Evie. But Aaron’s ex-wife is desperate to tell Kira something that she does not want to hear.
The Long Way Home: Louise Penny
Armand Gamache is pulled out of retirement when a friend asks him to help her find her husband. Set in Quebec, it has a real sense of place, and Quebec is almost a character in its own right.
Atwood, again and again
An article about selected works of Margaret Atwood, one of Canada’s best-known and best-loved writers.
Colombia
100 Years of Solitude: Gabriel García Márquez
Márquez’s classic about the village of Macondo.
The Shape of the Ruins: Juan Gabriel Vásquez
A political thriller that pulls together two political assassinations from Colombia’s history, mixing history, detection and speculation.
Guyana
My Bones and My Flute—A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner: Edgar Mittelholzer
The ghost of a long-dead Dutchman haunt a family, who travel into Guyana’s jungle to try to put the ghost to rest. A ghost story that is also a social commentary on Guyana of the 1930s.
Mexico
The Man Who Liked Dogs: Leonardo Padura
A novel about Leon Trotsky, his assassin, Ramón Mercader and a young Cuban writer 20 years later.
The Taiga Syndrome: Cristina Rivera Garza
I am including this because there are no Mexican writers in this list apart from this. An Ex-Detective goes in search of a woman who ran away from her husband and ends up in the taiga.
Nicaragua
Adiós muchachos—A Memoir of the Sandanista Revolution: Sergio Ramírez
An account of the Sandinista revolution by one of its leaders.
Peru
At Night We Walk in Circles: Daniel Alarcón
A young man joins a theatre group to tour Peru’s rural heartlands, a journey that has far-reaching consequences.
United States
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou
The first volume of Angelou’s autobiography, about growing up as a Black girl in the US of the 1930s.
The Emperor of Ocean Park: Stephen L. Carter
A taut, beautifully written thriller and a glimpse into the lives of the privileged black community in the United States.
My Hollywood and Other Poems: Boris Dralyuk
A collection of poems that evoke the old Hollywood with its faded glamour and immigrants.
Manhattan Beach: Jennifer Egan
Anna’s father disappeared when she was a child, and she tries to find out what happened to him. A portrait of New York during the Second World War, a time of change, especially for women.
Nickle and Dimed—Undercover in Low-Wage USA: Barbara Ehrenreich
A journalist goes undercover as a minimum-wage worker in the US. This is her account of the three jobs she held down. Although it was published in 2001, it still feels relevant.
Nightwoods: Charles Frazier
A woman lives by herself in an abandoned lodge in the woods. Her life is upended when she takes in the feral twins of her murdered sister.
Thirteen Moons: Charles Frazier
A white man becomes part of the Cherokee tribe and takes on their cause. Frazier tells the story of how Native Americans were deprived of their lands and livelihoods and the horse-trading that went on.
The Known World: Edward P. Jones
A little-known fact about slavery in the US is that a few black people owned slaves. In some cases, freed blacks bought their parents, spouses or children, but there were others who owned slaves for economic reasons. This is their story.
Feminine Ingenuity—How Women Inventors Changed America: Anne L. Macdonald
A look at American women inventors from the 1700s to the 1990s.
Becoming: Michelle Obama
The former First Lady’s autobiography. She writes about growing up in Chicago’s South Side, making it to Harvard and her job at a law firm, where she meets a summer associate called Barack Obama. The rest is history.
There There: Tommy Orange
This book follows a group of Native Americans as they prepare for a powwow. Angry and powerful.
Where the Crawdads Sing: Delia Owens
A woman grows up in the coastal marshlands of North Carolina. This is a whodunit, but also a paean to the marshes.
The Story of Beautiful Girl: Rachel Simon
A book that offers a remarkable tale of resistance to what we now recognize as the brutality of homes for the “mentally deficient”, it also outlines the history of the disability rights movement in the United States.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail: Cheryl Strayed
A young woman hikes the Pacific Crest Trail to heal herself. In spite of losing toe nails and a boot, she hikes the entire trail. This is quite a story.
Uruguay
Older Brother: Daniel Mella
A man deals with the sudden death of his younger brother. A book about grief and loss.
ASIA
Afghanistan
The Favored Daughter—One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future: Fawzia Koofi with Nadene Ghouri
The memoirs of Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan MP, who has fought for women’s rights and girls’ education. Her story starts at the overthrow of the monarchy and ends in 2012, when there was a democratic government in Afghanistan.
The Places in Between: Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart walks through Afghanistan, crossing the mountains in the dead of winter. He meets warlords and villagers, and acquires a dog on the way.
Bangladesh
Brick Lane: Monica Ali
A portrait of the Bangladeshi community in the London, the book follows Nazneen, a young girl from a village in Bangladesh who is married off to Chanu, an older Bangladeshi man, and moves with him to the UK.
Bhutan
The Circle of Karma: Kunzang Choden
This is about a woman who is born in a village in Bhutan but travels to India. It’s a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Bhutanese people.
Brunei Darussalem
Written in Black: K.H. Lim
A 10-year-old boy travels through Brunei, looking for his brother who has run off to join a band.
China
Country Driving—A Chinese Road Trip: Peter Hessler
A travel book by an American journalist who drives around China.
The Eye of the Jade: Diane Wei Liang
A female private detective is approached by her uncle to look for a Han dynasty jade seal. The book provides a glimpse into modern China with all its complexities.
The Amur River—Between Russia and China: Colin Thubron
Colin Thubron follows the Amur River from its source in Mongolia to the Pacific Ocean, criss-crossing between China and Russia.
India
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line: Deepa Anappara
Three children in a basti (slum) try to find out why their friends are going disappears. Written by a journalist, who captures the world these children live in.
The Anarchy—The Relentless Rise of the East India Company: William Dalrymple
This book details the origins of one of the earliest multinational corporations in the world and its unfettered pillage and destruction in the Indian subcontinent.
The Good Girls: Sonia Faleiro
The book investigates the death of two young girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, looking beyond the lurid headlines and to shatter easy assumptions around poverty, crime, and gender.
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: Tarquin Hall
When the father of a visiting Pakistani cricketer is killed, Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, takes on the case. But his formidable Mummi-ji suspects that the motive has its roots in the past.
The Widows of Malabar Hill: Sujata Massey
Crime fiction that includes history and social commentary, this book is set in Bombay and Calcutta of the early 1900s. The protagonist is the only woman solicitor in Bombay (based on the first Indian female lawyer).
Everything the Light Touches: Janice Pariat
Four people on life-changing journeys: a young woman from north-east India, an Edwardian student of botany, Goethe and Linnaeus. A book about the interconnectedness of things.
Moogavani pillanagrovi (Ballad of Ontillu): Kesava Reddy
The story of a farmer who loses his land and how his story turns into a myth.
Harilal & Sons: Sujit Saraf
A sprawling family saga that starts in India under the British and ends in 1972 with the creation of Bangladesh.
Tomb of Sand: Geetanjali Shree
An 80-year-old woman, after the death of her husband, sheds the roles that society has dictated to her and comes into her own.
The Selector of Souls: Shauna Singh Baldwin
This book is about two Indian women, one a middle-class housewife fleeing from her abusive husband and the other, a maidservant going home to her daughter. Their stories expose the struggle of Indian women, the rise of the right-wing and the politics of abortion.
The Assassin’s Song: M.J. Vassanji
Karsan Dargawallah is the son of the keeper of a Sufi shrine and is expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. But he rebels and moves to North America, until events force him to come home.
The Far Field: Madhuri Vijay
A young woman decides to travel to Kashmir to uncover her dead mother’s secrets. She is completely unaware of the tense political situation in the region, and slowly begins to realize her actions can have deadly consequences.
Indonesia
Beauty is a Wound: Eka Kurniawan
Through the story of Dewi Ayu, a prostitute and her daughters, Eka Kurniawan traces the history of the country, from the Dutch colonial period to post-independence, weaving together history, legends, magic realism and humour.
Iraq
Frankenstein in Baghdad: Ahmed Sadaawi
The Frankenstein story set in Baghdad in the early 2000s. A man is appalled by the body parts lying on the streets and puts them together to make a whole man. But the creature is possessed by a soul looking for a body.
Israel
Judas: Amos Oz
Oz’s novel is about what makes a traitor, how Israel was created and the animosity between Jews and Christians.
Japan
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A Korean woman goes to Japan just before the war in Korea and the Second World War. The book follows her as she grows old.
Men without Women: Haruki Murakami
Short stories about men facing the loss of their loved or loneliness.
The Memory Police: Yoko Ogawa
A story told like a fable, about an unnamed island in Japan where things are disappearing: birds, photographs, perfume, leaving behind not even any memory of their having existed.
Korea (see also South Korea)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A Korean woman goes to Japan just before the war in Korea and the Second World War. The book follows her as she grows old.
Laos
Mother’s Beloved—Stories from Laos: Outhine Bounyavong
Short stories that chart the lives of ordinary Laotians from the late 1960s to 1990.
Lebanon
Des ailes au loin: Jadd Hilal
This is a story of four generations of Palestinian-Lebanese women for whom migration becomes a way of life.
Malaysia
The Forgotten Promise: Paula Greenlees
The story about two women who grow up together in British Malaya. When the Second World War comes to Malaya, they have to make decisions that will change their lives.
The Garden of Evening Mists: Tan Twan Eng
Yun Lin, a survivor of a Japanese POW camp, returns to the highlands of Malaysia to fulfil her dead sister’s dream of creating a Japanese garden. This means that she becomes a disciple of Aritomo, a Japanese gardener.
Mongolia
The Blue Sky—A Novel: Galsan Tschinag
A coming-of-age story about a boy growing up in a nomadic family in the Altai Mountains.
Nepal
Without Ever Reaching the Summit: Paolo Cognetti
A man follows in Peter Matthiessen’s footsteps to the Dolpo Region of the Himalayas.
The Snow Leopard: Peter Matthiessen
The classic, a blend of travel, philosophy and nature writing. Matthiessen hikes to the Dolpo Region of the Himalayas, hoping to catch sight of the elusive snow leopard.
Oman
Celestial Objects: Jokha Alharthi
A story about a family that focuses on three sisters. Through three generations, it shows how the social mores of the country are changing.
Pakistan
I am Malala: Malala Yousafzai
The autobiography of Malala, as told to a journalist
South Korea (see also Korea)
The Vegetarian: Han Kang
A surreal portrait of a woman’s rapid withdrawal into herself.
Please Look After Mom: Kyong-Sook Shin
The book follows several generations of a family, illustrating the journey the country itself was taking over 70 years.
Sri Lanka
A Passage North: Anuk Arudpragasam
A young man takes a train journey to go to the funeral of his grandmother’s carer. A story about loss and obsession, about ghosts from the past and the violence of war.
The Ayah and Other Stories: Chanis Fernando-Boisard
The short stories in this collection capture the small but seismic shifts in a person’s life.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: Shehan Karunatilaka
A photographer wakes up to find himself dead and in a place called the In Between. He has seven moons (seven days) to try to contact the two people he is close to so they can publicize his photographs documenting Sri Lanka’s civil war.
Syria
Cinnamon: Samar Yazbek
A story of a woman, Hanan, married to an older man, and her maid Aliyah. The book is about the power play both between the social classes and men and women.
Thailand
The Sad Part Was: Prabda Yoon
A collection of short stories set in Bangkok that are all a little off-centre, a little strange (in a good way).
Turkey
The Red-Haired Woman: Orhan Pamuk
A young man becomes obsessed with a red-haired woman. A book about obsession, guilt and the relations between fathers and sons.
The Three Daughters of Eve: Eli Shafak
A story that unfolds during a bourgeois dinner party in a swanky riverside bungalow in Istanbul.
United Arab Emirates
From Rags to Riches—A Story of Abu Dhabi: Mohammed Al-Fahim
Through his autobiography, Al-Fahim charts the story of Abu Dhabi: how it grew from a village to a city.
Uzbekistan
Of Strangers and Bees: Hamid Ismailov
A novel about exile that weaves together three strands: the journey of an Uzbek writer in the West, the travels of Avicenna, and the life of a bee. A mix of fable, travel and natural history.
Viet Nam
The Paradise of the Blind: Duong Thu Huang
It’s refreshing to read a book about the lives of ordinary Vietnamese, instead of seeing the country from the perspective of American soldiers.
Yemen
A Land without Jasmine: Wajdi Al-Haldal
A young woman disappears, and no one knows what happened to her. Each chapter is narrated by a different person. Has she run away to escape the male gaze that follows her everywhere?
CARIBBEAN
Bahamas
The Measure of a Man: Sidney Poitier
The memoirs of the actor describing the things that shaped him. He was a Black actor playing leading roles at a time when that was not the norm. He writes with a lot of affection about growing up on an island in the Bahamas.
Barbados
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: Cherie Jones
Gut-wrenching novel about the people who live in a seemingly idyllic Caribbean island, whose lives are anything but perfect. Set in Barbados, the book focuses on the women—their vulnerability and their incredible strength.
Cuba
The Man Who Liked Dogs: Leonardo Padura
A novel about Leon Trotsky, his assassin, Ramón Mercader and a young Cuban writer 20 years later.
Grenada
The Bone Readers: Jacob Ross
Digger is a man who has an uncanny ability to tell how a person died by “reading” the bones of a corpse and also a gift for identifying voices. These gifts lead to him being is hired to be a part of an unusual homicide squad. But Digger is haunted by the death of his mother, whose murderer was never found.
Jamaica
The Book of Night Women: Marlon James
A haunting, brutal story about slavery in Jamaica in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
St. Lucia
Night Vision: Kendall Hippolyte
A collection of poetry that gives a sense of St. Lucia: the neighbourhoods and the changes taking place in the country. Hippolyte writes beautifully.
Trinidad and Tobago
Love After Love: Ingrid Persaud
A story about an unconventional family: Betty, the widow of an abusive husband, her son Solo and their lodger, Mr. Chetan, a gay man.
EUROPE
Albania
The File on H: Ismail Kadare
Two naïve Irish-American scholars travel to Albania in the early 1930s in search of the origins of epic poetry and set off alarm bells in government offices. Black humour that exposes how ridiculous bureaucratic paranoia can be.
Belarus
Voices from Chernobyl—The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster: Svetlana Alexievich
Eye witness accounts about what really happened during and after the Chernobyl disaster. Alexievich just lets people talk, so the picture that emerges feels very real.
Outlandish—Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes: Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt goes looking for unusual landscapes in Europe and finds Arctic tundra in Scotland, a primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, a desert in Spain, and part of the Eurasian steppe in Hungary.
Belgium
The Capital: Robert Menasse
A satire set in Brussels and in the European Commission. Menasse humanizes the EC by focusing on the people working there. Brussels is very much a character in its own right.
Bulgaria
The Black Box: Alek Popov
Two brothers, widely (and wildly) different, are spun in different directions after a series of unfortunate events.
Croatia
We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day: Ivana Bodrožić
A political thriller that uncovers the corruption in a city’s administration and the scars of the 1990s civil war that broke up Yugoslavia.
Estonia
The Death of the Perfect Sentence: Rein Raud
The novel, set during the days leading up to Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union, revolves around an attempt to smuggle out a videotape of Soviet soldiers attacking Estonian demonstrators. It is told from various perspectives, including dissidents, Russian operatives, Russian dissidents and Estonian interrogators.
Finland
The Summer Book: Tove Jansson
Sophia and her grandmother walk around the little island they live on in Finland. A gentle, ruminative book about the pleasures of small things.
France
The Black Sheep: Honoré de Balzac
Part of Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, this novel about a family and an attempt to claim an inheritance. Written in 1842.
Black Water Lilies: Michel Bussi
A twisty whodunit set in the picturesque town of Giverny, famous for Claude Monet’s paintings.
Les Misérables: Victor Hugo
The crux of the story is the chase by Inspector Javert of Jean Valjean, who had been imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread but escaped. Set after the French Revolution and Napoleon, this sprawling canvas paints a picture of a society: the desperately poor, thugs, politics and the judicial system.
L’Inconnu de la Seine: Guillaume Mussi
A well-known pianist supposed to have died in a plane crash a year ago is fished out of the Seine. But is she really the pianist or someone else?
French Polynesia
Frangipani—A Novel: Célestine Vaite
An book about the relationship between a mother and daughter in Tahiti: two strong, independent women. An affectionate portrait of a community.
Germany
Go, Went, Gone: Jenny Erpenbeck
An East German man living in unified Germany gets to know the African migrants in his city. They chip away at his prejudices and open up his world.
Tyll: Daniel Kehlmann
Using the figure of the jester as the centre of this book, Kehlmann provides an account of Europe’s Thirty Years War in the 1600s.
Hungary
Outlandish—Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes: Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt goes looking for unusual landscapes in Europe and finds Arctic tundra in Scotland, a primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, a desert in Spain, and part of the Eurasian steppe in Hungary.
Ireland
Actress: Anne Enright
A woman looks back at her relationship with her mother, a famous actress.
Italy
Frantumaglia—A Writer’s Journey: Elena Ferrante
A collection of Ferrante’s interviews over the years and her correspondence with film directors.
The Napolitan Novels: Elena Ferrante
A series of novels about two women, best friends as children, whose lives take different paths. The books encapsulate not only the journey of the women, but also those of Naples and Italy. Also on this blog: the first of the book, My Brilliant Friend.
The Marriage Portrait: Maggie O’Farrell
The story of Lucrezia de’ Medici, a very young duchess married to the much older Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Her only job is to produce an heir: she herself does not matter beyond that. A glimpse into the upper-class Renaissance Italy.
Everything the Light Touches: Janice Pariat
Four people on life-changing journeys: a young woman from north-east India, an Edwardian student of botany, Goethe and Linnaeus. A book about the interconnectedness of things.
Montenegro
La bouche pleine de terre: Branimir Šćepanović
Available in English as The Mouth Full of Earth, but it is out of print. A terminally ill man comes home to Montenegro to die. He walks into the woods but is followed by two men, which turns into a chase. A reflection on how we see “the other”.
Poland
Outlandish—Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes: Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt goes looking for unusual landscapes in Europe and finds Arctic tundra in Scotland, a primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, a desert in Spain, and part of the Eurasian steppe in Hungary.
Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead: Olga Tokarczuk
An old woman living alone in the forest is convinced that a recent spate of murders was carried out by forest animals. This is not just a whodunit but a meditation on astrology, vegetarianism and the mistreatment of animals.
Portugal
Small Memories—A Memoir: José Saramago
Saramago’s memories of growing up in his grandparents’ village and Lisbon.
Romania
Nostalgia: Mircea Cărtărescu
A collection of three short stories and two novellas, all of which deal with obsession in some form. Dreamlike and strange.
Russia
The Bickford Fuse: Andrey Kurkov
A strange, dreamlike book about four men as they go walk, drive and fly through the Soviet Union. It’s got a dose of magic realism: a truck goes on and on without any gas, a Bickford fuse stretches across the country, and an airship flies with a single occupant for years.
The Amur River—Between Russia and China: Colin Thubron
Colin Thubron follows the Amur River from its source in Mongolia to the Pacific Ocean, criss-crossing between Russia and China.
A Gentleman in Moscow: Amor Towles
Towles’s charming book about a Russian gentleman who is confined to a hotel for 30 years while the country changes around him. Gentle and maybe appropriate for our times?
Serbia
Checkpoint: David Albahari
This absurdist novel reads almost like a fable about the pointlessness of war. Soldiers are sent to guard a checkpoint but they have no idea where or why.
Spain
Cathedral of the Sea: Ildefonso Falcones
A sprawling novel set in Catalonia in the medieval ages, about the feudal system, politics, wars, finance, Jews, the Inquisition, the situation of women.
Outlandish—Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes: Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt goes looking for unusual landscapes in Europe and finds Arctic tundra in Scotland, a primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, a desert in Spain, and part of the Eurasian steppe in Hungary.
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree: Chris Stewart
Chris Stewart and his wife Ana moved to Alpujarras in Andalucia, Spain, and bought a farm called El Valero without running water, electricity, telephone or an access road. This is second in Stewart’s account of living there, and my favourite of the three. It made me laugh out loud, but it also brings the place to life.
The Shadow of the Wind: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
A novel set during the time of the Franco dictatorship. When he turns 11, Daniel’s father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and asks him to pick a book. The book he picks changes his life.
Switzerland
Swiss Watching—Inside the Land of Milk and Money: Diccon Bewes
Everything you have always wanted to know about Switzerland. Bewes writes about Switzerland with insight and humour.
The Pledge: Friedrich Dürrenmatt
A policeman’s obsession with the murder of a child destroys him. Grim with no easy resolutions.
To the Back of Beyond: Peter Stamm
What happens when a man walks out of his seemingly perfect life? A complex book that is written in a deceptively simple style.
Small World: Martin Suter
A man with Alzheimer’s finds that he is beginning to remember events from his childhood very clearly. However, these memories could bring down a large business empire.
Ukraine
Voices from Chernobyl—The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster: Svetlana Alexievich
Eye witness accounts about what really happened during and after the Chernobyl disaster. Alexievich just lets people talk, so the picture that emerges feels very real.
Grey Bees: Andrey Kurkov
A beekeeper sets out from a deserted village in eastern Ukraine, in a grey zone between Ukrainian forces and the Russian army, to find his bees somewhere safe for the summer.
Death and the Penguin: Andrey Kurkov
Viktor writes obituaries and lives with his penguin in post-Soviet Kyiv. But when the subjects of his obituaries start to die one after another, he wonders if there is something sinister going on.
United Kingdom
Girl, Woman, Other: Bernadine Evaristo
Twelve women of colour living in the UK tell their stories.
Hidden Lives—A Family Memoir: Margaret Forster
A social history and memoir about the lives of working-class British women over a century.
The Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles: Susanna Gregory
A series of whodunits set in medieval Cambridge, when science was emerging. The protagonist is a Benedictine doctor (not a monk), and through him, Gregory shows the battle between medicine and the old beliefs.
The Black Locomotive: Rian Hughes
This is sci-fi, but I’m including it here because London is a character in the book. A team digging an underground tunnel in London make a startling discovery.
Outlandish—Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes: Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt goes looking for unusual landscapes in Europe and finds Arctic tundra in Scotland, a primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, a desert in Spain, and part of the Eurasian steppe in Hungary.
The Devil’s Company: David Liss
A thriller set in 18th century London. A Jewish thief-taker is hired to break into the offices of the East India Company. But that is just the beginning. A tale of espionage, greed and betrayal.
The Blackhouse: Peter May
A whodunit set on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. A police officer moves back to the island and gets pulled back into his past.
Dark Fire: C.J. Sansom
A whodunit set in the time of Henry VIII. Sansom captures the period beautifully—the King and his entourage feel like real people. The protagonist is a hunchback lawyer in the service of Thomas Cromwell. Also on this blog: Tombland.
Autumn/Winter/Spring/Summer: Ali Smith
Smith’s quartet that deal with the state of the UK at the end of the 2010s. Also on this blog: Winter.
OCEANIA
Australia
Oscar and Lucinda: Peter Carey
Set in Australia in the mid-1800s, this is an unusual love story that is driven by chance.
The Dry: Jane Harper
A crime story set in a town in the Outback. A man killed his wife and child and then took his own life, but is that really what happened?
Cloudstreet: Tim Winton
A novel about a family in Australia where the house is a character in its own right. Humming with life.
Marshall Islands
Iep Jāltok—Poems from a Marshallese Daughter: Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner
Poems from a Marshallese poet about the nuclear testing on the islands, dealing with racism in the US and climate change.
New Zealand
A Madness of Sunshine: Nalini Singh
A whodunit set in a small town on the South Island of New Zealand. A young woman disappears. Is one of the small community a murderer?
Papua New Guinea
Mr. Pip: Lloyd Jones
Set on the island of Bougainville, this is about Matilda, her English teacher and Great Expectations. The story takes places mostly in the 1990s, during the civil war. Brutal and moving.
Samoa
Leaves of the Banyan Tree: Albert Wendt
A family saga that spans pre- and post-independence Samoa.
Tonga
Tales of the Tikongs: Epeli Hau’ofa
This goes under Tonga, because the writer is from Tonga, but it is set on a fictional Pacific island. The best way to sum up this collection of short stories would be “development comes to a Pacific island”. Hapless foreign experts fight losing battles with the delightfully laid-back islanders.
Talking About Books 