Reading the World

A personal challenge with no time limit. Got the ideas from several places. Personally I would count books with majority of the setting in that country or origin of the author, whichever is more prominent. I don’t include books that are set in fantasy world, only the ones with strong presence of the countries they represent.

Asia
Africa
America
Australia/Oceania
Europe

ASIA

Afghanistan

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Kabul, 1970s)
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (1960s-2000s)

Bangladesh

• Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus (1976-2003)

China

• Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
• The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
• The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
• The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
• Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah (Hong Kong and China)
• A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (setting mostly in UK)
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (19th century)
• Waiting by Ha Jin (mid to late 1900s)
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (China 1930s)
• Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (Hong Kong and China 1940s)

India

• The Interpreters of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (India mid 1970s)

Indonesia

• my birth country, so LOTS, but not in English :). Will find one in English soon. Would like to read The Year of Living Dangerously and Jakarta Undercover.

Iran

• Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
• Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi

Japan

• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
• Out by Natsuo Kirino
• Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
• The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki
• Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto
• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• Squeamish about Sushi by Betty Reynolds
• Snakes and Earrings by Hitomi Kanehara
• Strangers by Taichi Yamada
• Clueless in Tokyo by Betty Reynolds
• I Am a Cat (Volume One) by Sōseki Natsume
• Oishinbo: Ramen & Gyōza by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki
• The Push Man and Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
• Megumi: Documentary Manga on Abductions by North Korea by Shigeru and Sakie Yokota

Middle East (multiple countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt)

• Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks

North Korea

• Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Pakistan

• Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (setting also in Japan, India, and USA)

Palestine (an area in Middle East still in feud)

• Burned Alive by Souad

Saudi Arabia

• Princess by Jane Sasson
• Princess Sultana’s Daughters by Jane Sasson

Tibet

• Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood

AFRICA

Botswana

• The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
• Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

Nigeria

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Sierra Leone

• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Somalia

• Desert Flower by Waris Dirie
• Desert Dawn by Waris Dirie

South Africa

• Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

AMERICA

Canada

• Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

Colombia

• Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

United States (lots I’m sure)

• Kindred by Olivia E. Butler (18th century)
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama
• Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
• Forever by Judy Blume
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Escape by Carolyn Jessop
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Detroit)
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (New York 1940s)
• Firmin by Sam Savage (Boston, 1950s)
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Alabama, 1930s)
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck (early 1900s)

AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA

Australia

• Sugarbabe by Holly Hill
• Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
• The Arrival by Shaun Tan
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
• The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan
• Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
• The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

EUROPE

Belgium

• I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne

Czechoslovakia

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

France

• French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Germany

• The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Italy

• Silk by Alessandro Baricco
• If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino

Poland

• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman (setting also in German)

Slovenia

• Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho (setting in Ljubljana, by Brazilian author)

United Kingdom (lots I’m sure)

• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1700s)
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1930s – )