How to find books set in particular countries?
And more so, preferably books that are written by an author who is coming from the country, or who has lived in it for a while? There are so many book lists and blogs out there, yet many are focusing on sales figures or author names or genre. But there are also some lists that focus on the country:
Wikipedia + Goodreads
Both Goodreads and Wikipedia have feature pages that lead to many subpages:
Both Goodreads and Wikipedia have feature pages that lead to many subpages:
- Wikipedia: literature by country (overview)
- Goodreads: Cultural Books (with many subpages + lists)
- there also is: Goodreads/Places (based on book description)
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Nobel Prize & Man Asia Prize
And of course, there is the Nobel Prize in Literature, with countries noted:
Specifically for noteworthy current Asian literature, the Man Asian Literary Prize offers longlists and shortlists of nominated books, each entry with book descriptions and author bios:
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Magazine Issues
There are also some liteary magazines that have issues with a special focus on one country, which probably is a good way to explore various authors and the current atmosphere:
Blogs, websites, lists, links
Reading around the whole world in books and blogging or writing about it - that's where the following links are from:
Blogs
Searching for a place in an e-reader
If you have an e-reader, it might be interesting to run a search there: e-book readers can neatly look for a word in all e-books they have in their files, and create a neat sorted list with bookmarks.
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More links
If you know an interesting world-book-link, feel free to add it in the comments.
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Global Reading & The Danger of a Single Story
This post belongs to the global reading challenge "7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books". In addition to the links, a video clip: reflections by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie on single points of views and the prejudices they invite, and on world literature:
Specifically for noteworthy current Asian literature, the Man Asian Literary Prize offers longlists and shortlists of nominated books, each entry with book descriptions and author bios:
**
Magazine Issues
There are also some liteary magazines that have issues with a special focus on one country, which probably is a good way to explore various authors and the current atmosphere:
- Words Without Borders: Banned Chinese Writers (2012)
- Granta country / continent anthologies, here's the archive link, and some selected issues: Granta 121: Brazil, Granta 119: Britain, Granta 113: Spain&Latin America, Granta 112: Pakistan
Blogs, websites, lists, links
Reading around the whole world in books and blogging or writing about it - that's where the following links are from:
Blogs
- A year of reading the world - book list (almost complete)
- Europe (and other regions) in translation: recommended reads
- Books from around the world - my own reading list, 46 countries so far
- Reading the world (68 countries so far, focus Europe / Middle East / Northern Asia)
Websites
- Around the world in 80 books (large Goodreads reading group with many lists)
- Three Percent: a resource for international literature
- Africa Reading & Caribbean Reading by Geoff Wisner
- Lonely Planet travel forum - reading list (temporarily down, here's an archive link)
Searching for a place in an e-reader
If you have an e-reader, it might be interesting to run a search there: e-book readers can neatly look for a word in all e-books they have in their files, and create a neat sorted list with bookmarks.
**
More links
If you know an interesting world-book-link, feel free to add it in the comments.
**
Global Reading & The Danger of a Single Story
This post belongs to the global reading challenge "7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books". In addition to the links, a video clip: reflections by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie on single points of views and the prejudices they invite, and on world literature:
2 comments:
That TED talk had my mouth wide open. I grew up in Jamaica - and looking back, my experiences with books were very similar to hers for a lot of my pre-teen years.
And thanks for those links. I have quite a few saved.
Tanya Patrice
Girlxoxo.com
order of books Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon. Big thanks for the useful info.
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