Nerdy Girl Reads Her Way Around the World

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.”

                                    -Louis L'Amour

I’ve always loved the library. I’ve always loved the smell of books. One summer in college, I had to stop reading for pleasure becasue I would stay up so late reading that I was not completely functional the next day at work. I’ve learned a little bit more self-control since then and have devised techniques, like reading the end before I get there, to cope with antisocial reading obsessive behaviors!

Even when I’m traveling, I find myself drawn to libraries and bookstores. Maybe it’s the energy, the knowledge, the quiet, or just the simple idea of creating a space for books to live.

A number of years back I started to do thematic reading when I traveled. Before I head out on each trip, I research writers and books that sound interesting to me by an author from that country or a book about that country or a significant person from that country. Some are fiction, some non-fiction. 

Here’s a running list as far as I can recall:

Egypt
The Yacoubian Building: A Novel by Alaa Al Aswany

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney

Argentina
Eva Peron: A Biography by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz and Shawn Fields

Brazil
Dona Flôr and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado (my whole backpack, including this book were stolen in Bolivia, so I never finished it)

Italy
The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone (this was one of the best pairings and brought a whole different perspective to all of the churches we visited)

Africa (yes, I do realize this is a whole Continent not a country, so I cheated a little in my reading selection)
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

A Bend in the Riverby V.S. Naipaul

Myanmar
The Burma Spring: Aung San Suu Kyi and the New Struggle for the Soul of a Nation by Rena Pederson

Colombia 
Killing Pablo: the Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

Iceland
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (this is about the last person executed in Iceland, a woman accused and convicted of a murder in 1829. It really gives you the sense of daily life and the remoteness of life there.)
Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller by Arnaldur Indridason
Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason

India

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai undercity by Katherine Boo (I started this book years ago and never got far, but when I recently found out it was actually non-fiction, the book took on a whole new meaning.)

The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy