November TravelKIT: Living in a New Country

Living in a new country can present opportunities for learning new skills, making new friends, and seeing new sights. However, with the excitement of a new start also comes the trepidation of navigating locales, learning a different language, finding lodging, and accustoming oneself to a new culture and people.

In-person travel may be out of reach right now for many of us. Instead, we can travel from the comfort of our own homes by reading about how others relocated to new cities, states, and countries. Fiction and non-fiction reads fit this category.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

At Home in France by Ann Barry--France
Culture Shock: London at Your Door by Orin Hargraves--England
Culture Shock: Rome at Your Door by Frances Gendlin--Italy
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say (children's book)--America
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough--France
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson--Australia
On Mexican Time by Tony Cohan--Mexico
On Persephone's Island by Mary Taylor Simeti--Italy
On Rue Tatin by Susan Loomis--France
Our Yanks by Margaret Mayhew (fiction)--England
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (fiction)--France
Satyr Square: A Year, A Life in Rome by Leonard Barkan--Italy
A Trip to the Beach by Melinda Blanchard and Robert Blanchard--Caribbean
When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest (children's book)--America
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle--France

I'm going to read Seriously Mum, Where's That Donkey? by Alan Parks. It's the second of his series of memoirs of moving to Andalucia to breed alpacas; I read the first one several years ago but haven't managed to get round to this next one till now.

I'll have to take a closer look at what's on the tbr, but I don't think it should be too difficult to find something to fit.

I'm surprised by how many books I could read for this category from my shelves:

At Home in India (American ambassador's daughter)
The Prophet's Camel Bell (Canadian novelist living in Somalia)
Mary of Maranoa (Australian pioneer women)
Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (fiction about 19th century British immigrants in Australia)
Distant Land (20th century European immigrants in Australia)
Colonial Voices (diaries, letters, etc. of 19th century British immigrants in Australia)
Roughing It in the Bush (British woman's memoir of life in 19th century Canada)
The Innocent Traveller (semi-autobiographical novel of woman who moves from England to British Columbia)
Station Life in New Zealand (19th century memoir by British woman)

I have a couple of options:
The Boat People / Sharon Bala (refugees)
Where the Past Begins / Amy Tan (memoir)

I know what I want to read but I have no idea of the title! It was a book series that I borrowed from a friend a while ago and never got around to reading. I know the author is male and I think he moved to somewhere in Italy or Spain and one of the books has lemons in the title.
Not much to go on! I will have to do some reearch on Goodreads later tonight.

If not, I have The Corfu Trilogy - I just love the Durrells!

>6 JayneCM: Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart?
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell?
There are many others but those seem likeliest.

>6 JayneCM: >8 spiralsheep: Yes, I think the Chris Stewart books are the most likely (he's written a few, I think Driving Over lemons was the first).

It sounds as if we have a good list of titles so far. I was also surprised at all the titles I already own that would fit for this category. The titles I listed (above) are all from my shelves, and there are more that I did not list.

>7 JayneCM: I've had The Corfu Trilogy on my virtual TBR shelf for a while now. I loved them as a teenager. Maybe now's the time to re-read them.

I think I'll be reading one of Susan Allen Toth's books, England As You Like It.

Here is the voting thread for 2021 CATS if you are interested.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/325918

December thread is posted. https://www.librarything.com/topic/326341

>8 spiralsheep: >9 Jackie_K: Thank you! I had forgotten I asked this question here. But that is the book I was thinking of.

I am currently reading Leo The African by Amin Maalouf. The title character, a real person, was born in Granada just before it fell to Ferdinand and Isabella's army. His family went into exile rather than stay. He was a great traveller, and spent periods living in different countries. The author is Lebanese and now lives in France, so he has experience of living outside one's own country/culture.

COMPLETED Leo the African by Amin Maalouf. The title character lived in Granada till he was three when his family went into exile in Fez. Later he lived in Cairo and Rome. He also visited Timbuktu, Constantinople, Florence and various places in North Africa and the Sahel.

I have finished Das Phantom des Alexander Wolf by Gaito Gasdanow, a Russian émigré living in Paris, which describes pretty much his own life.

ETC spelling

I read two books this month that technically fit this category.

Anna May Casey, the main character in the novel Miss Anna, moves to the US from Canada with her parents at the age of 5. Other than a couple of mentions that Anna's mother is homesick for Canada, the story does not treat the "new country" aspect of the family's experience in the American West.

The nonfiction The Prophet's Camel Bell, however, centers upon how a young woman from Canada, Margaret Laurence, experiences living among a people with an utterly different worldview when she and her husband move to Somaliland for a reservoir-building project in 1950. Beautifully written and highly recommended (with a warning of a couple awful situations involving children and animals).

I'm afraid, having said I'd read a book for this month's challenge, that I've overcommitted myself and was getting stressed about the books still waiting for me. So I've decided to not read the book I was going to for this challenge this month, and I am feeling very relieved! Next year I'm going to participate in fewer challenges, and hopefully will be less stressed!

The Boat People / Sharon Bala
4 stars

In 2009 or 2010 a boat of refugees arrived in British Columbia. There were over 500 people aboard, coming from Sri Lanka. This really happened, and this book is a fictionalized version of this. The refugees were “detained” (basically, jailed) until they had their initial hearings (just as to whether or not they were allowed into Canada at all; later hearings determine whether or not they can stay.)

Mahindan is a mechanic and has arrived with a young son (5 or 6 years old); unfortunately, his son is not allowed to be detained with his father, so he is initially sent with some of the women detainees and their children, and later placed with a Canadian foster family. Priya is studying to become a lawyer; she wants to be a corporate lawyer, but is assigned to help as counsel for the refugees. Grace has been assigned as an adjudicator for the hearings; she has been informed by a government minister of (I think) public security to be wary and watch for the terrorists who are aboard, because he is certain some of them are.

The story is told from all three viewpoints. Priya has a Sri Lankan background, but does not speak the language. Grace’s background is Japanese and her family has been in Canada for a few generations now (her grandparents and parents were interred in the Japanese concentration camps during WWII. The two women learn more about their families’ backgrounds, as well.

This was really good. I was really frustrated with Grace for – what I felt was – relying too much on Fred’s (the minister’s) rhetoric. I guess I wanted to believe all of their stories. I wasn’t as interested in Mahindan’s background in Sri Lanka – well, some was interesting, but I did lose a bit of focus when talking about his courtship to his son’s mother. Without giving too much away, I really had no idea how it would end, and yet I was still surprised.