Around the world in eighty novels

Dracula- Romania

So why does everyone post contemporary books for various countries

Jack London for Canada is not contemporary, and it only applies to the North.

Likewise, I didn't recommend much in the way of contemporary US fiction, and I explained why.

--M.

Botchan was written in 1906, so it isn't contemporary either, although my other two suggestions were.

For South Africa, you could read something by Nadine Gordimer, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. I've read Burger's Daughter, which was pretty good, but she has written several novels and short stories that you could choose from. July's People sounds interesting. Has anyone read that?

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, by Mario Vargas Llosa - Peru

Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz are well-regarded Mexican writers, although I have to admit I haven't read their work. I once tried to read one of Fuentes' novels in Spanish, and pretty quickly realized I was in over my head. I should go back and try his work in translation.

OK, will throw in my 3 cents worth about New Zealand.....

"The Bone People" by Keri Hulme - gives a feel for the West Coast of the South Island (albeit a vey feminist view), but portrays the bleak but unique nature of the region, my favourite part of NZ. Booker Prize winner too. And the region has many facets - also micro-breweries, world heritage sites(Punakaiki Rocks, glaciers), friendly locals,1800's mining sites.

Are you only restricting yourself to books? Because "Goodbye Pork Pie" is the ultimate Kiwi roadtrip movie (but pretty old, about 1980ish). Top of the north to tip of the south in a yellow mini, police chases, train journeys, its got the lot.

Thanks all for the suggestions so far. Will certainly post the final list once complete - although I expect that, like all good journeys, the route that I have planned will evolve and change as I make my way along. Yes, I think it may well take a good while for me to read the lotl! Fortunately, I'm in no particular hurry.

mrpenny's thoughts on classic American fiction are quite apt. It was while sitting at my desk gazing absent-mindedly at a small stack of library books that I should have been returning that I first thought of the idea of making a journey by reading books related to particular places. The top two books on the stack were by Edgar Allen Poe (The Narrative of Gordon Arthur Pym) and Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) who, in my mind at least, are two writers closely associated with a particular geographic region (that being New England and Southern USA respectively).

Am certainly quite happy to take in the odd film while on my journey. But it'll probably be as well as, rather than instead of, a book.

Keep em coming, folks.

The top two books on the stack were by Edgar Allen Poe (The Narrative of Gordon Arthur Pym) and Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) who, in my mind at least, are two writers closely associated with a particular geographic region (that being New England and Southern USA respectively).

Interesting, because Poe was not a New Englander (although born in Boston he moved south at a very young age, and he was from Baltimore if he was from anywhere) and Twain wasn't really a Southerner (he hailed from Missouri). I'm not saying you're wrong to think that way, I'm just saying that your perspective is interesting--I think a lot of people would agree with your perceptions.

Twain in particular is interesting. Missouri was at that time what we call a "border state"--essentially, a slaveholding state in pre-civil war days, but not really culturally or geographically all that southern in other respects. (The other border states were Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware; some would also include West Virginia, which has a different history.)

I think Twain's writing really depends on this border-state mentality: in between the two worlds, so able to poke fun at both with equal agility.

Plus, his career as a journalist took him all over the country. Read Roughing It, which is Twain's take on the old American West--it may be his funniest writing.

--M.

Edited by: mrpenney

For Norway, Per Peterson, especially the novel "Out Stealing horses", and of course anything by Knut Hamsun.

Well, this is already proving an education!

Have done some haphazard research of a few randomly chosen suggestions and definitely liking the look of: Dance me outside, Shantaram, Friday Nights Long,+ and +Out Stealing Horses (which I reckon to be a brilliant title and reason enough to read the rest of the book).

Need another suggestion for Colombia, as have read One hundred Years of Solitude and, indeed, much of Garcia Marquez's back catalogue. It's about time I discovered some other Colombian writers.

Same goes for Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

You're in luck. I shared your project with several friends, including one who currently lives in Peru, and I got a lot of great suggestions back. They are listed below. Also, I forgot to mention Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy for Russia, and The House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende for Chile.

Mario Vargas Llosa is an incredible writer and I´d suggest also including The Green House and Conversations in the Cathedral. Also, for Peru-- would recommend José Maria Arguedas-- Los Rios Profundos.

Guatemala, Men of Corn, Miguel Angel Asturias.

Mexico, books by Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo.

ASIA:

Japan: Kenzaburo Oe

Pakistan: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid

India: The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
River Sutra, by Gita Mehta
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee
A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (also set in the U.S.)

Sri Lanka: Anil's Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje

EUROPE:

Sweden (and Mozambique): The White Lionness, by Henning Mankell
Anything by Astrid Lindgren
The Millenium Trilogy, by Steig Larsson

England: Anything by Dickens or Austen
Will in the World, by Stephen Grossblatt
Old Filth, by Jane Gardam
The Man in the Wooden Hat, by Jane Gardam (part of the setting of these two novels takes place in Asia as well)
Travels with my Aunt, by Graham Greene
Anything by Zadie Smith, Roald Dahl
Jeeves novels by P.G. Wodehouse

Germany: Maus, by Art Spiegelman
Night, by Elie Wiesel
The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak

Turkey: anything by Orhan Pamuk

Czech Republic: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera

France: Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky

UNITED STATES:

The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

AFRICA:

Kenya: Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen

Zimbabwe: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller