varielle puts on her traveling shoes

I have been in and out and watching you guys for sometime debating whether or not I wanted to take on another challenge since I can't keep up with all the other ones I have, but what the heck. Here are my rules--I am too old to start over so I will count books I've read in the past. I'll give first preference to authors who are actually from those countries, but I'll count books about those countries too, fiction and non-fiction. I tend to read older books and may refer to a country's former name. This list will surely grow after I go home and stare at my bookshelves and plunder my scanty memory.

create your own visited country map

This will require some tweaking.

The journey so far:

The "A" list:
Afghanistan - Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil Deborah Rodriguez
Algeria – The Stranger albert Albert Camus
Argentina – Long ago and Far Away H. W. Hudson
Australia – The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough

I finally decided to split up alphabetically by country. My definition of country extends to some that no longer exist.

Working through Derek Walcott's Omeros. So there goes St. Lucia. For some reason I thought it would be a slog based on disparaging remarks made by a student forced to read it for a lit class, but it's been rather pleasant so far. I can smell the Caribbean, the salty wind, cedar trees and a storm rolling in. Boy, I need a vacation.

Bumping off Aghanistan with the Kabul Beauty School. Though in reviews I've heard recently Rodriguez' account is more fiction than fact and has greatly disturbed some of the ladies she knew there. In fact I suspect they may fear for their lives.

The covetiousness of colonialism/imperialism mixed with war makes this too confusing. I just finished the African Queen which took place during WWI in German Central Africa. Even though a lot of this territory was in dispute, it seems to have covered most of Angola, parts of Mozambique, Belgian Congo and French Equatorial Africa. It looks like modern Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya were thrown in this disputed mix. Germany's efforts were aimed at security a central African colonial empire, which other European countries didn't seem to like very much. Most of this book's action takes place on the Ulanga River which experiences a name change before it flows into Lake Victoria which is located in modern day Tanzania. If anyone can clarify this muddle feel free. I'm kind of thinking I won't count this toward any country because it's frazzled my mind.

varielle & samthepaintman are running off to Costa Rica in January. Any reading suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Updated to add The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for Sweden. Who knew those Swedes were up to such naughtiness? They always seemed so nice. ;-)

Updated to add Daktar: Diplomat in Bangladesh by Viggo Olsen.

Going to try and split these up so I can get some touchstones. Here's the "B" list.

Bangladesh - Daktar: Diplomat in Bangladesh by Viggo Olsen
Belize - The Very Rich Hours: Travels in Orkney, Belize, the Everglades, and Greece by Emily Hiestand
Brazil – The Village of Bom Jesus Lloyd E. Hill

The " C" List
Canada – The Whirlpool Jane Urquhart
Chile – House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
China - Tao te Ching Lao Tsu
Columbia – Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Czech Republic – Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories
Cuba – The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway

D, E & F list

Denmark – On Modern Marriage and Other Observations Isak Dinesen
Dominica – Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Egypt - In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale Amitov Ghosh
El Salvador - The Islands and the Sea: Five Centuries of Nature Writing from the Caribbean John A. Murray
England - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
France – Candide Voltaire

G, H & I

Germany – The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
Greece – Oedipus Rex Sophocles
Greenland – Smilla’s Sense of Snow Peter Hoeg
Haiti – The Serpent and the Rainbow Wade Davis
Hungary - George Lang's Cuisine of Hungary
India – A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
Iran (Persia)- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Ireland – Ulysses James Joyce
Italy – The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli

J, K, L, M, N

Japan – The Wind up Bird Chronicles Haruki Murakami
Kenya – Out of Africa Isak Dinesen
Korea - The Red Queen Margaret Drabble
Laos - The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman
Mexico – Some Clouds Paco Ignacio Taibo II
Morocco – Beneath the Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
Netherlands – Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank
New Zealand – The Garden Party Katherine Mansfield
Norway - Sophie's World Josteen Gaarder

P,R,S

Peru - The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder
Poland - Nostromo Joseph Conrad
Portugal - Cork Boat
Russia - War and Peace Leo Tolstoy (Yes, really read it one summer in graduate school when I was supposed to be studying other things)
Saudi Arabia - Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale
Scotland – The Complete Works of Robert Burns
Serbia - The Dictionary of the Khazars Milorad Pavic
South Africa – Cry, The Beloved Country Alan Paton
Spain - Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
St. Lucia - Omeros Derek Walcott
Sweden - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson
Switzerland – Frankenstein Mary Shelley

T, U, V, Z

Tibet - The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Trinidad & Tobago - An Area of Darkness V. S. Naipaul
Tunisia - The Perfumed Garden Umar Ibn Muhammed Al-Nefzawi
Turkey - The Essential Rumi
United States – Tropic of Capricorn Henry Miller
Uzbekistan - Alberuni's India Al-Biruni
Venezuela - Bush Pilot in Diamond Country Donald Haack
Wales - Under Milkwood Dylan Thomas
Zaire - Hillaby's World

I finally read something from a new area, the memoir Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale by the French adventurer/entrepreneur Henry de Monfreid. He ran on the ragged edge of everything legal to smuggle Greek hassish up from the south into Egypt counting on the fact that nobody every tried it coming from that direction before. This was in the 1920s and the Italian and English colonial powers would have taken a dim view of his activities, particularly if they hadn't taken a cut or otherwise been bribed. He bounced around all over the unpredictable Red Sea from Djibouti to Suez, but because he frequently took refuge along the Arabian coast I'm counting this one for Saudi Arabia.

Travels in 2018

England - The Sword at Sunset, The Ghost Map, A Daughter's Love and The Gallows Thief
France - And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight, A year in the Merde, Justine and The Paris Wife
Greece - Courtesans and Fishcakes and Roumeli
Ireland - How the Irish Saved Civilization
Netherlands - Maigret in Holland
Italy (Rome) - The Age of the Gladiators
Turkey - The Snake Stone
Uzbekistan - So Many Enemies, So Little Time

I’m back in Laos with A Fortune Teller Told Me by journalist for Der Spiegel Tiziano Terzani. A fortune teller told him not to take a plane one year on peril of his life so he’s drifting through Laos by foot, vehicle and boat and is now going up the Mekong.

I keep going back to the same places.

Greece - Glory and the Lightning
France - Naked Came I

Added Portugal this year with Cork Boat about an annoying American building a boat of corks to sale down the Douro River in Portugal.