A Year of Reading the World

[Philip Overby]

Neil Gaiman tweeted this out and I thought it was an incredible idea. It has a list of tons of writers from all over the world to check out. I'm assuming the idea is to read one book from each of these countries? It would be a tough task, but worth checking out for those of us who are interested in reading stuff from different types of writers and cultures.

The list | A year of reading the world

 

[Feo Takahari]

Hey, Markus Zusak! I haven't read The Book Thief, but Fighting Ruben Wolfe was pretty clever.

Leaving out the Americans, I've also read Borges, Herge, Zlata's Diary, Dogeaters, Wizard of the Crow, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Lem's Solaris, Murakami's After Dark, and about half each of Fatelessness and Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land. Of those, I'd recommend:
* Herge for fun
* Joyce and Wizard of the Crow to learn writing techniques from
* Zlata's Diary for historical value
* and maybe some Borges just to see what the fuss is about.

There are a lot of other books there I've heard are good, but haven't personally read--anyone care to chime in?

P.S. I am amused that there is a book, apparently famous, entitled How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired, from the Haitian author of I am a Japanese writer.