Frankfurt Bookfair 2016: Snapshots, The Arts, documenta, forbidden books, a poetic shore + a personal reflection

Themes + Snapshots 
"Rain all day" - that's what the weather forecast promised for Thursday, the day I went to the Frankfurt Bookfair. "Hopefully they are wrong," I thought. As yes, the bookfair is mostly an in-door event, but they have this gorgeous central plaza. Which comes with an open stage, a reading-tent, and and a read-and-snack-area which basically is a breather between halls. With more than 7000 national and international exhibitors, the fair is the largest bookfair of the world. At some point, you long for that breather in between all the impressions and authors and highlights.

When I read through the infos for the 2016 bookfair last week, I learned that both the settings of the different areas of the fair and the fair concept itself has shifted: it now also includes an art section. And has more stages for themes. Their focus topics in 2016 are: Asia, Kids, Education, Art & Design, Self-Publishing, Weltempfang"/Global Reading,., here's more: Frankfurt Book Fair Themes

As a starter, here some photos and links, to give a feeling for the atmosphere. For more impressions, try the twitterstream: #fbm16  and #frankfurtbookfair



The author tent in the central plaza. The author who is signing in the photo is Connie Palmen, I read one of her books some years ago.




In one of the international halls.



The indie lit scene: Indiecom and Pioneer Talks



Books, books, and more books, in all kind of languages, about all kind of topics. The bookfair, in some ways, it is the world in miniature.

**

The Arts + documenta book project

When I read through the infos for the 2016 bookfair last week, I learned that both the settings of the different areas of the fair and the fair concept itself has shifted: it now also includes an art section, a fair inside the fair, called: THE ARTS+

It's a vibrant and surprising hall, presenting current and upcoming art themes and events. The big eye-catcher was the XXL-book of artist David Hockney:



The upcoming documenta was part of the THEARTS+ program, they introduced a special art project:



"The Parthenon of Books" is an art project that will be shown in 2017 in Kassel at the documenta, and which now officially gets started: The argentinian artist Marta Minujín is collecting books from forbidden and persecuted authors for it. For more about the documenta and the project, visit: documenta 14 / Athen / Kassel



The Arts-fair encompasses both the future and the past: there's a multi media booth of the first VR-association: Erste deutsche Fachverband für Virtual Reality ....

And just some steps from there, the Gutenberg-Museum leads back to the beginnings of printed books:

From print to the web: the international artists Olafur Eliasson and Ai Weiwei currently invite people to join "Moon", an interactive project that transcends borders set by nationality and language.




Here's the project website: moonmoonmoonmoon.com
And here's an article about the project. "Make your Mark on the Moon"

*

Guest of Honour:  Flanders + the Netherlands 

This year, the guest of honour at the bookfair is Flandern & the Netherlands. With the slogan “Dit is wat we delen” (“This is what we share”), they will present not just novels, nonfiction and poetry, but also new forms that have emerged from the book arts, creative industry and other artistic fields.

The two countries developed an original idea for their presentation in the "Forum":



A poetic ocean moment

As always, the guest country gets a hall to represent, and they turned it into an open, airy space with ocean bay atmosphere. So nice. They put up some loungers, and I was lucky and there was a free one – and the woman next to it on a chair welcomed me by the guest countries, and invited me to listen to poetry. Which she would read. Live. For me. Such a nice and different “exhibition”.

The poem she read was by Anneke Brassinga, here's the start:

BY THE SEA
The wind weighs the words
and finds them too light
the wind weeps, sweeps the words
aside, out of sight...

and here's the poem page: By The Sea

*

A personal flashback/forward reflection 

The bookfair, it is an extraordinary event anyway. For me, it was special in a different way this year: the last time I've been there was 2 years ago, in 2014. It was the last day of my "normal" life. Of course, as it goes with last normal days, you aren't aware of that while they happen. It was a sunny Thursday. One day later, on Friday evening, I discovered a lump in my breast. And hoped it wouldn't be what I thought it was, yet had a bad feeling from start. Which then got confirmed a bit later, and lead to a year of cancer treatments, and a long time of recovery.

So going to Frankfurt again, 2 years later, wasn't just about going to the book fair again. It also included this symbolic element of returning to a place that now carries a different kind of meaning for me.

Here's the memory of that bookfair day in 2014:
Frankfurt International Bookfair: Printed, Digital, We are Here - Snaphots & Links,

And here's the story of what happened afterwards: c is for cancer

east + west, words + freedom, walls + borders, tax + refugees, and 2 murals

This started as a currently-reading blog post - yet the books that I recently read are both connected to my visit to the Leipzig book fair. Driving there brought up the whole theme of East and West Germany, of borders, of change, of the recent German history. It's so present there - like when you walk into the inner city of Leipzig from the train station, you walk past a giant colorful mural. It took a moment for me to see its central line: the wall, closed still on the upper corner, opening in the lower corner.

The walk through Leipzig city happened on the day before the fair opened. That morning, I strolled through the fairhalls that were both empty and buzzing with get-things-prepared-activities. One of the moments that touched me was this one: walking through the entry area, past black signs that said "Für das Wort und die Freiheit" - "For the word and for freedom":



Freedom of speech, we so often take it for granted. But it isn't. And even in Europe, just some decades ago, it was another world in many places: writing the wrong word could mean trouble and prison.

Sometimes, granting the right of freedom of speech is painful. There was one booth in the fair that felt like a slap in the face: Compact was there, a rather borderline right-wing magazine.



The police was present, to make sure there would be no trouble. The thing is, freedom of course always is also the freedom of the one with another opinion. It's just stinging to see that if they were in charge, they probably wouldn't care much for other opinions, or dialogue, or compassion, or human rights.... And their slogans! Like from a different time and place, stirring fear and anger. And as always, it is so much easier to throw around fear and to blame refugees, than to contemplate the complex problems of our days.

The complexity of problems, that was, in a good way, the slogan of one of the radio stations that was present, "DRadio". One of the stations that has a focus on interviews and information, people and themes. Their motto:

"Es ist kompliziert. Dazu guter Pop."
"It is complicated. Accompanied by good pop."

And it is complicated, Europe these days. There are so many difficult themes. Questions without easy answers. Long and hard debates. A feeling that all is connected, more than ever.

Another moment that still touches me: walking through the European hall, and seeing a "Taiwan" sign - turns out, there is a writer-in-residency exchange program between Germany and Taiwan. They had some small collections from authors who joined, the series is titled: "Life is an island". One is from author Badai. He writes in his introduction that he doesn't know Germany - but that he is deeply impressed by the fact that Germany was the first country to open borders for Syrian refugees. Interesting to get to read this outside view. It also made me think that the regions in former East Germany have the most recent own experience with living in an oppressive state. And many fled the region - becoming German-German refugees. It's strange that the right-wing is especially strong in these regions.



The book from Taiwan, I brought it home, and after reading brought it as souvenir to the local librarian - we had talked about the Leipzig bookfair before I went, I actually borrowed a travel guide there. She never was in Leipzig herself, she told me. "I bring you something from there", I said. I guess that's one of the things I like about books, that they sometimes do their own travels, connecting places and people.

In a sweet twist, I got offered a book called "Europe", on that first day - but I was on the way to the city. "I'd love to, but I would have to carry it around Leipzig atll day", I explained. Of course, I later regretted it. Fast forward two days: I walked through the halls for a final round. Actually thought of the Europe book. And walking up the next stairway, see a copy there - abandoned by someone else, and left there. So the book now has its own arrival-story for me. And it's a moving book. "My name is Europe - a political travelbook" by Alexander Cern. With a bit of a mystic touch, reflections, walks, word associations, and conversations along the way, about life and the world. With lines like this (i tried a translation):

"You talk about our capitals and economical centres?"
"I talk about all the cities and countries of this world where the lust of one group is paid by the dumbness and the death of the others."
"And how do you want to stop this mechanism?"
"The troubling thing is that the mechanisms are well known."
"But then, one could..."
"Yes, one could, if one wanted..."

And interesting, this peculiar German grammar construct of the impersonal "one", that doesn't even expect someone to act: "man könnte"....

The quoted lines, reading them now, they almost feel like a commentary on the Panama Papers and the whole system of offshore companies and tax avoidance, and the unbelievable dimension of this hidden system. One of the repeated quotes on twitter tried to link both themes, the papers and the refugees, and give a larger perspective:

“Nicht die Flüchtlinge sind unser Problem - sondern die Steuerflüchtlinge."
"Not the refugees are our problem - but the tax-refugees”."

(In German, it’s indeed the same word that is used in both cases: a refugee is a "Flüchtling", and someone who tries to avoid taxes by moving money abroad is a "tax-refugee": "Steuerflüchtling".)

*

From Taiwan and Europe to... a game of chess and life
In contrast to the heavier political themes, I came across a book set on the Greek island Naxos, a story about finding ones way and following ones passion even when it's difficult, and when you are "only" working as a hotel maid. Reading it also brought back the memories of my own stay in Greece. Here's a photo that I had no memory of... a painted wall:

The book itself is not from Leipzig, but from the telephone book box. The title is: "the chess player" - or rather, the female form of it (in German, you don't have defined neutral forms for professions, you have to define the gender, or go for non-defined, "some chess-player".) so the book title is "Die Schachspielerin" -"she chess-player-woman". For that it's the turn her life takes when she comes across a chess game in process in the room of a couple from Paris. Seeing it makes her dream of Paris, and of playing chess with her own husband. It wakes a curiousity she didn't know she had. And from there, things roll on. And she starts to learn chess, and has to learn that people think her ridiculous for it, and her husband especially doesn't share her dream, and instead feels embarassed by her. "A delicate book about chance and the courage for change," is the short description. It also connects with a quote I copied before I came across the book:

"Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not."
– Deepak Chopra

*

More links
- bookshelf
- Leipzig moments

global reading Europe: a random scandal book + a bestselling runaway novella (or: the joys of a telephone book box)

7 continents, 7 books, the next step: from the South Pole to ... Sweden and Germany

I started the 7 continents reading challenge well-planned in Antarctica, browsing books-from-Antarctica-lists and reading reviews. The book I picked was "Ice Bound" by Jerri Nielsen, I blogged about it here: global reading: Ice Bound (or: penguins, Antarctica, Endurance + how to count life)

For the next step, I tried a rather different, random approach: I went to our local telephone book box, and let myself be suprised by the books that were currently lined up there. I also brought some own reads in indirect exchange - and came home with thtree books.

The first is "Runaway Horse" by Martin Walser, who is a well-known author in Germany. But the real surprise was Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. I didn't know this author, and basically went with the cover, the note that it is a book about a journey, and the country of origin: Sweden. I haven't read a book from there so far, and with the Walser novella, this also neatly decided the next continent for the reading challenge: Europe.

So: the Almqvist book. Turns out, the book was originally published in 1839 in Sweden, and caused a scandal. The German edition I came across is a new edition, published in 2004. I guess Almqvist would have been thrilled to learn about the difference he made, and the still existing interest in his work - unfortunately, writing the book caused a downward spiral for himself, he lost his job,, even had to leave the country, and struggled ín exile. Here's more about him, and the book, from Wikipedia:

Carl Jonas Love Ludvig Almqvist (28 November 1793, Stockholm, Sweden – 26 September 1866, Bremen, Germany), was a romantic poet, early feminist, realist, composer, social critic, and traveller. "Sara Videbeck and the Chapel" is the English translation of Almqvist's most famous work, whose Swedish title is "Det går an" (lit. "It will do"). The novel is primarily an attack on lifelong marriage as an institution and the inability of women to become financially independent. The book's social tendency aroused lively debate and "det-går-an literature" became a concept. The controversy over the work, however, forced Almqvist out of his post as rector at the New Elementary School, Stockholm.

The book itself is a novella, and surprisingly vivid to read. It also is a reminder how much society and cultural norms changed in Europe in the last 150 years - and how books had an important role in that process. Almqvist himself was inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe.

But back to the back: as I browsed the links for it, I saw that it is actually available online in a place that is the very counterpart of the telephone book box: the internet library archive. Which host hundred thousands of files. Here is the link to it in the archive: Sara Videbeck and The chapel.

Now I just broswed the archive a bit, and was both amazed by its size, and overwhelmed by it. That's what's so nice about the phone box: it is simple, with maybe 200 books on its shelves. It's a good place to find books you never heard about, and read outside one's usual comfort zone, without being overwhelmed by choice. Here's a photo:


 

I discovered the book phone box 2 years ago, and wrote a longer note on it which also includes a book encounter of the sweet kind: "but there are no princess books"

Reading Almqvist also reminded me of the "Readwomen"-initiative, and my own resolution to read more books written by female authors. So that's another good global-reading match: the Antarctica book is written by a woman, and is a memoir. The European books so are written by male authors - the second book is Martin Walser's "Runaway Horse". Here's more about Walser and the book, from Wiki:

Martin Walser (born 24 March 1927) is a German writer. He became famous for describing the conflicts his anti-heroes have in his novels and stories. In 1998 he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in Frankfurt. His most important work is "Ein fliehendes Pferd" (English: A Runaway Horse), published 1978, which was both a commercial and critical success.

The book has an own story to it: Malser wrote it during a summer-holiday stay in Sylt, as a playful small work as he paused with the longer book he worked on. And it probably is both this playful touch and the parallel to his own character and stay there that added to its success: reading it, you wonder how much is fiction and how much is observing himself and the people he meets. Altogether, the book is about pretending - both between the partners in a marriage, and between "old friends" who happen to meet again. How much of the stories we share are truth, and how much is make-believe? It's a thought-provoking read, but for me, at some point the ongoing and growing pretention started to feel tiring, as it's only in the end that the truth is revealed - I guess personally I would have been interested to read more about how the characters deal with the end-of-pretend, both on their own and in the relation to the others. But then, it's a novella from start and concept, and leaving you with the open end and question is a skilfull turn, too.

*

The third book I picked brought a nice surprise, too: it's written by a German female author. And is set in Spain - which is where I am right now. I already started to read it, and will do a second half of the "Europe" reads in a seperate post..... which is now online here: island reads: The Humans, Life Lessons, Zerotime, The Hive 

*

Reading Links 
Here are some additional links:

• The reading challenge - it's open to join: 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books
• The readwomen-initiative, which started in 2014: #readwomen2014 - can a hashtah change reading habits?
• World books I read so far, listed by country: Book list by country
• The previous global reading book blog post: New places and where to start + global reading: Ice Bound (or: penguins, Antarctica, Endurance + how to count life)

7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books - Reading Challenge 2015

    

The idea of this reading challenge is to explore the world by books from different continents and countries, and by visiting various world lists while planning the reads, to encounter the one or other unknown angle and fact about our world.

7 Continents Reading Challenge 2015
To join the challenge, select and read seven books, each belonging to one of the following categories - or, if this works better for you, simply pick one book from each continent:

A book from....
- the 7 countries with the most population

- the 7 highest countries in the world

- the 7 oldest countries of the world

- one of the 7 megacities of the world

- the 7 countries with the most immigrants

- a continent not visited yet

- and a book with a journey from one continent to another

There's more information about the categories included below, with links to country lists.

Why 7 Books? 
To keep it simple and playful, and leave space for extra reads that might be inspired by the lists. Also, with 7 continents, and the world population reaching 7 billions, the 7 seems to be the best number for this kind of challenge.

Challenge Guidelines: 

• This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2015 – Dec 31, 2015
• Books can be any format (novel, non-fiction, poetry or story collection, anthology, as well as any phyisal format: print, ebook, audio)
• The idea of the challenge is to read books from different cultures and continents - so if ithis works better for you, you can alternatively simply pick one book from each continent
• You are welcome to count these books towards any other challenges as well
• You can start wherever you want. 
• When picking a country, the idea is to also pick an author from that country. If that turns out to be difficult, try to find an expat author who lived in the country for a while.

Resources, lists, links: 
Here is more about the 7 country categories, with links to the global lists, and with the top 7 countries listed already. The lists mostly are wiki-lists, as those often offer addditional search options.

1) The starting point: 
A book from one of the 7 countries with the most population

• Link: List of countries by population
• Top 7: China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria 

2) From most populated to the mountains:
A book from one of the 7 highest countries in the world

• Link: List of countries by highest point
• Top 7: Nepal, China, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan

3) From high to old:
A book from one of the 7 oldest countries of the world

• It's an own challenge to create a definite ranking of the oldest countries of the world, some references: About/Geography and here: Wiki-answers.
• Some of the oldest countries: Japan, China, San Marino, Egypt + Iraq, Iran, Greece

4) From old to new:
 A book from one of the megacities of the world 

• Link: About Megacities + List of megacities 
• Top 7: Tokyo (Japan), Delhi (India), Seoul (South Korea), Shanghai (China), Mumbai (India), Mexico City, Sao Paulo (Brazil)

5) From megacity to migration:
 A book from one of the 7 countries with the most immigrants 

• Link: List of countries by foreign-born population
• Top 7: USA, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UK, France

6) From migration to continents
 A book from a continent you havn't visited yet in this challenge  

• The 7 continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia/Ozeania, North Pole 
• The listing is sorted by population, more about the 7 continents: Wiki/Continent

7) From continents to journey

• A book that includes a journey from one continent to another.  

**

How to find books by country

How to find books set in particular countries? And preferably books that are written by an author who is coming from the country, or who has lived in it for a while? Here are also some lists that focus on the country: 

• Wikipedia: literature by country (overview)
• Goodreads: Cultural Books (with many subpages + lists)
• Guardian "best books from".. series
• Goodreads/Places (based on book description)
• Nobel Prize in Literature
• Three Percent: a resource for international literature 
• Around the world in 80 books (Goodreads group with lists) 
• And a blog post with more links and information:
  Finding books by country: helpful links + resources 

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 look for a word in all e-books they have in their files, and create a neat sorted list with bookmarks.

**

To join the reading challenge 

To join the challenge, just leave a comment with the link to your blog.

There also is a 7 continents / 7 books facebook group, to post review links, or just the cover or title of a book you enjoyed, or other related news and links - it's open to everyone who is interested in global reads. 

Looking forward to this different kind of journey around the world! And don't worry that some already started – it's never to late to start!

7 continents reading challenge: Megacity books, maps, walks, lists..

Megacities
The fourth task of the 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books Reading challenge is to read a book from one of the megacities of our world.

When does a city turn into a megacity? 
One of the most common definitions for a megacity is: a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people. Following this definition, the first megacity of the world was New York City, which reached the 10 million mark in 1950. Today, there are about 30 megacities, with the largest of them situated in Asia.

**

Megacity list + map

The 7 largest megacities

• Tokyo, Japan (35,6 mio) 
• Jakarta, Indonesia (28,1 mio) 
• Seoul, South Korea (25,6 mio) 
• Shanghai, China (25,3 mio) 
• Karachi, Pakistan (23,5 mio) 
• Mexico City, Mexico (23,2 mio) 
• Dehli, India (23 mio)

European + American megacities
Here's a look at megacities by continents:

• North American megacities:
  New York (#11)
  Los Angeles (#22)
• European megacities:
  Moscow (#15)
  London (#28)
  Paris (#30)

All listings above are based on the megacity statistic in wikipedia. The eductional website wfs put a map together that both inludes large cities with a population of more than a million citizens, and megacities with more than 10 millions - and arrives at the following map:

From countryside to city
Some interesting key facts connected to megacities: Our world is a world in change:  for the first time, there are more people living in cities than in rural areas - a dramatic shift in human history. In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities. Now it's every second person. And many of those who move to big cities start live there in slums: almost one-seventh of the world's population  - one billion people - now live in shanty towns.

*

Books set in megacities
It's not easy to find books set in megacities - when searching books by city name, or by the keyword "megacity", often travel guides come up, or non-fiction books, but there also are some book lists that refer to fiction set in cities:

• There are some reading lists with selected books that focus on the western megacities New York, London and Paris: 
  Tales of New York City
  London Calling
  Novels set in Paris

• And there are some general city lists, based on location keywords:
  books set in Tokyo
  books set in Seoul
  books set in Shanghai

*

Megacity book list

"It would be handy to have a booklist that focuses on megacities" - that was a thought that repeatedly came up while looking for megacity books. And as Goodreads makes it easy to start lists, I now pulled together the information from the various sources and started a megacity booklist.  The list focuses on novels and short story collections set in megacities, here are some recommendations with short summaries:

• Tokyo: “After Dark” by Haruki Murakami is a novel set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night. 
• Seoul: "Please Look After Mom" by Kyung-Sook Shin is a bestseller in Korea: a stunning family story set in Seoul and rural Korea 
• "Shanghai Baby"  by Weihui Zhou - Set in the city of Shanghai, the novel follows the days, and nights, of Coco, who waits tables in a café, and provides an alternative travelogue into the back streets of a city and the escapades of today's liberated youth. 
• "Paris Was Ours": 32 different perspectives on living in this European megacity Paris– some from the city centre, some from the outskirts
• "Brick Lane": a novel that leads from the mud and heat of a Bangladeshi village to a flat in a high-rise block in London's East End
• "Open City": a novel that both tells about migration, life, and guilt, and that reflects on city life – it leads from New York to Europe and Africa, processing both personal and historic past and present.
• The full list is online at Goodreads / Megacities, feel free to add own reads and recommendations for megacity books.

**

Walking the world's megacities

The Guardian is featuring a  megacity travel guides series  this year, with photo galleries, megacity walks, audio slideshows & more. Starting in January 2013, this series so far includes Tokyo, New York, Mexico City, Shanghai and Seoul

*

More Megacity links

CNN Urban Planet
Half of the world's population already lives in urban areas -- and that figure is poised to swell. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, more than two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities. With the rapid pace of urbanization, the race is on to improve the quality of life and health of city dwellers. Urban Planet explores what's being done to create better cities and better lives for the people who live in them.
Megacity wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacity

Megacities Film
Film director Michael Glawogger created a trilogy of globalization films - one of it focuses on "Megacities". more about it here: Glawoggers's GlobalizationTrilogy. The subtitle means: "12 stories of survival".

Megacity Research Project
An international, interdisciplinary research program that consists of 10 projects, including research in the Pearl River Delta (China) and Dhaka (Bangladesh).

World future society
An educational website with focus on future trends. The map above is part of their article: In 2025 630 Million of Us Will Live in 37 Megacities

**

Global Reading Challenge

This blog post belongs to the 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books Reading challenge - more direct links:

A book from one of the 7 countries with the most population

From most populated to the mountains:
A book from one of the 7 highest countries in the world

From high to old:
A book from one of the 7 oldest countries of the world

Finding books by country: helpful links + resources

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:

• Wikipedia: literature by country (overview)
• Goodreads: Cultural Books (with many subpages + lists)
• there also is: Goodreads/Places (based on book description)

**

Nobel Prize & Man Asia Prize 

And of course, there is the Nobel Prize in Literature, with countries noted: 

• Nobel Prize in 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:

• Man Asian Liteary Prize 

**

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:

 

7 countries with the most population – global reading challenge

The 7 countries with the most population

The first task of the 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books Reading challenge is to read a book from one of the 7 countries with the most population. According to the wiki list countries by population, the top 7 countries with the most population are:

• China (1300 Million)
• India (1200 Million)
• USA (314 Million)
• Indonesia (237 Million)
• Brazil (193 Million)
• Pakistan (181 Million)
• Nigeria (166 Million)

Here are the relating country reading links, from Goodreads:

Goodreads / China  --  Goodreads / India  -- Goodreads / US best of  -- Goodreads / Indonesia  -- Goodreads / Brazil  - Goodreads / Pakistan --  Goodreads / Nigeria

For more book links, visit: Finding books by country: helpful links + resources

**

Around the globe

For some virtual globe spinning, try this short world video that shows the 25 most populated countries and their location on the globe:

**

A world in change - 2 global docus 

If you are interested, there is a fascinating documentation online, a report of a journey across 3 continents by a journalist who tries to chart the phenomenon of Chinese migration. The docu starts in Africa, moves to America, and to Asia. It inlcudes a lot of encounters with citizens and immigrants, and also shows city and road scenes from the countries. It's also up on youtube:

• TV Docu: The Chinese are Coming

And here's another docu on the theme of population:

• BBC Horizon: How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth

bookphonebox

in the last months, i must have walked past this different kind of telephone box a couple of times without noticing it. not sure what made the difference yesterday - maybe the yellowness of it: all the yellow boxes have been switched to new, pink, modern versions some years ago. so i looked twice, and then understood: once of telephonebox, this is now a "Bücherzelle" - "bookbox": a free book exchange.

the first time i saw something like that was in Vienna, "open book cupboard" it was called there, and white (here's the blog entry, it's the third photo).

great to come across another one in the town nearby, and lovely to find a book from abroad there: "Leaving Tangier" by Tahar Ben Jelloun

this week: You-Are-There Reading in Barcelona, London, Paris & with Kerouac, Joyce, Lindbergh..

You-Are-There Reading
There are books i don't want to end, and so i read them slowly. "Ex Libris" by Anne Fadiman is such a book - a collection of essays about reading that "recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story." (i blogged about it at the start of this month, here: Ex Libris)

The chapter i reached last week is titled: "You Are There". It is about the special joy and passion to read a book in a place that appears in the book, or, how Fadiman puts it: "the practice of reading books in the places they describe." - Like reading Homer's Odyssey in Greece, Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" in Walden, James Joyce's "Dubliners" or "Ulysses" in Dublin.

Reading those lines made me smile bright, as this is what i try for when i go on journeys: to pick books that have a connection to the place. Now i know the term for it. And it happens to click with the another book i am reading right now, a book from a friend (hallo Inge :) who recently visited Barcelona.

Barcelona: "A Day in Barcelona" (Ein Tag in Barcelona) - Daniel Brühl
Daniel Brühl is a German author and actor whose mother is from Barcelona. In this book, he takes the reader along a personal trip through the city, in a mix of memoir and city impressions. The book starts on the city hill "Tibidabo", and from there he walks down to the city along the Avenida del Tibidabo, and passes a book memory: "House number 32 is the home of the mysterious love drama of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's wonderful Barcelona novel "The Shadow of the Wind". I pause a moment, remembering the story of the cemetery of books...."

now, from Barcelona to Paris, with another book-with-book-story-inside: 

Paris: "Shakespeare & Company - A bookshop in Paris" - Sylvia Beach
Last year, before going to Paris, i looked for a book to take - and picked Sylvia Beach's memoir of her bookshop in Paris. I read her book on the train to Paris, and visited the bookshop the same evening. Such a place of history and literary encounters. Ernest Hemingway was here. Ezra Pound. Gertrude Stein. And so many others, including James Joyce. Who was broke back then, in searched for a publisher for his Ulysses, and received one rejection after the other. It was Sylvia Beach who published him, as indie publisher.
The reason Beach moved to Paris in first place? She was interested in contemporary French literature, and wanted to continue her studies in the very place this literature was written. Her sister lived in Paris, too, she was related to the theatre scene, and together they moved into the Palais Royal - in a room that had a story itself: John Howard Payne had written his "Home Sweet Home" there.

Here's a photo of the bookshop, it's located right at the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame. On the first floor, there's a room that is still offered to writers as stay while in Paris.



For more moments from Paris in this blog, click here: life as a journey / Paris

*
and to continue this you-are-there-trip: here's the next stop: the London Underground:

London: "Tunnel Vision" - Christopher Ross
Ross wrote this book while working part-time for the London Subway after a longer time of journeys. Actually the book is a reflection on life, inspired by his encounters and observations in the "tunnels". The subtitle is: "Journeys of an Underground Philosopher". Best place to read: while taking the subway. Here's a quote:

"My adventures Underground ... were a different kind of study. A real life class. ... Do we run on rails or are we free? This, for me, was an obsession. Am I a train? Who decided where the tracks lead? Can I get about under my own locomotion, my own steam?"

*
and 2 more general "You-Are-There" reads, one for the road & one for the beach:


"On the Road" - Jack Kerouac
The classic beat book. First read at home, then read again on a road trip through South France, which is the way to read this book - out there:

"And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell."

*

"Gifts from the Sea" - Anne Morrow Lindbergh 
A book that Lindbergh wrote during a solo stay in a cottage at a beach. Best place to read it: at a beach. This is a book i keep returning to. It accompanied me to Mallorca island this year. Written in 1955, it's timeless and vibrant, like the ocean.

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea."

 *****

It's Monday! What are you reading? This blog post is inspired by the blog series "It's Monday! What are you reading?" which is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. participating blogs are listed in this Linky Book List

Previous reading blog entries are collected here: bookshelf + monday reads. there also is a visual bookshelf, just click it to get there:



Some lines about me: I'm into roads, stories, places, crossings, and all the things they lead and connect to. I edit BluePrintReview and the blueprint book + lit blog. Apart from being an editor and blogger, I am also an author myself. My new book Worlds Apart launched some weeks ago:

Worlds Apart: the true story of 2 friends, 2 journeys, and 10 life lessons  
In the global world, a traveler from Europe and a teacher from Asia meet in the web, share their journeys, and the joys, longings, and life lessons that wait along the road. Captured in letters and photos that reach from China and India to Germany and the Mediterranean Sea, a dialogue across continents and cultures unfolds: Worl(d)s Apart

Graphic Novels of the Dickens, Steampunk and Alpine kind + NY poets (or: what are you reading?)

this blog post is inspired by the blog series "It's Monday! What are you reading?" which is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. more about that, at the bottom of this post

From Noble Literature to ... Comics.
Last week: Noble Literature, induced by the Frankfurt Book Fair - as in: "Words, Wars, Books, Peace Prizes, Time, Beats, etc.
This week: Comics! Induced by the Comic Fair in Essen city. The nice thing is that i received a couple of comics there, and had the chance to thumb into some graphic novels i didn't know yet. Following that theme, my reads this week are comics and graphic novels - and also, NY poets:

Noel, or: Charles Dickens goes Batman
Just in tune with the upcoming Christmas Season, "Noel" was released here in Germany - i read it on Sunday, and was amazed by it. Great graphics, but even more so: great story, which is inspired by Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol", but with a modern set of characters. The main character is Batman, only that he isn't your helpful superhero in this story but rather the Dark Knight he has turned into in his recent movies and comic stories, scarred by his past and his fight against villains. So: Batman = Scrooge. The equation feels twisted at first, but  works painfully well and leads to uncomfortable reflections: if you deal with villains, how much darkness and cynicism rubs onto your own self in time? The strong contrasts of light and dark in the images, in this case it's a counterpart to the merge of good and bad in the characters. This book  was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. For a peek into it, try this link: Batman Noel

In Search of Peter Pan
I hadn't heard of this book before, and it was both the alpine cover and the title that made me curious. "In Search of Peter Pan" tells a story from the Swiss Alps - the region that is home to the author, Cosey, who favours "realistic comics". Set in the 1930ies, the book weaves together stunning landscapes, the history of the region, and the story of an author looking for inspiration in a narrative that leads from a small mountain village in the Wallis to a glacier that is about to crack to the Aosta valley in Italy. This story was originally serialized in the French magazine "Tintin" in 1983/184. The english edition has the title "Lost in the Alps" and comes in 2 parts. Here's a bit more about the author + artist Cosey and his bio + books (with screenshots) 

Comic artists live
The great thing at the Comic Fair is that there are several artists from different countries, drawing live at the fair. You can stand and watch a white page turn into a comic sketch. It's a kind of magic.

Danach + Steam Noir
The next 2 graphic novels are from German artists, and both also connect to the book fair last week: "Danach" is a non-fictional work, it actually is the thesis of a student, and explores the different ways people take to deal with the end of a relationship. It's not really common to pick the form of a comic for ones thesis, but there have been a couple of comics that developed that way.

And finally: "Steam Noir" - it received the Comic Award for "Best National Comic Book"  It's a steampunk story, here's the definition (which i wanted to look up since ages): "Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery, especially in a setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th century." (more)

The steampunk approach blended right in with the region there, here's a photo from one of the old mines that the region around Essen is famous for - the nice thing is that i got to see a bit of the region, a photo travelogue is online here: Comic Coal Metropolis, or: short trip photos from the Ruhr Region

A bit more about the Comic nominations and award winners that were announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair, here: Comics Beat / Frankfurt 2012 Awards (i already ordered another of them, Habibi by Craig Thompson, set in Morocco - which i also saw in Essen, yet it was definitely to thick to carry  along with its 672 pages)

...and as non-graphic counterpart: the New York School of Poets 
Despite the fair trips, i still continue the "ModPo" Modern Poetry online class, which is moving to the “New York School Poets” this week. Yesterday i listened to Al Filreis’ audio introduction, and his excitement is contagious. The audio introduction is 30 minutes, and includes 2 poems by John Ashbery already – which is continued in the chapter with Ashbery’s “Instruction Manual” – a mind journey from an office that makes him daydream of Guadalajara, Mexico – and made me think of my own fragmented trip to the Ruhr region, where i tiptoed from the fair to catch some of the tunes of the region, which now seemingly reflects in those lines:

“Let us take this opportunity 
to tiptoe into one of the side streets.
..
How limited, but how complete withal, 
has been our experience of Guadalajara.”

*****

It's Monday! What are you reading? This blog post is inspired by the blog series "It's Monday! What are you reading?" which is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. participating blogs are listed in this Linky Book List

Previous reading blog entries are collected here: bookshelf + monday reads. there also is a visual bookshelf, just click it to get there:



Some lines about me: I'm into roads, stories, places, crossings, and all the things they lead and connect to. I edit BluePrintReview and the blueprint book + lit blog. Apart from being an editor and blogger, I am also an author myself. My new book Worlds Apart launched some weeks ago:

Worlds Apart: the true story of 2 friends, 2 journeys, and 10 life lessons  
In the global world, a traveler from Europe and a teacher from Asia meet in the web, share their journeys, and the joys, longings, and life lessons that wait along the road. Captured in letters and photos that reach from China and India to Germany and Spain, a dialogue across continents and cultures unfolds: Worl(d)s Apart

International Book Fair Frankfurt - impressions, themes, snapshots

Frankfurt fall skyline

authors 

books + books

and the Nobel Prize for Literature goes to... Mo Yan

more here in an extra blog post: 

Words, Wars, Books, Peace Prizes, Times, etc.

Comics 

Forum Discussions: E-Books (the neverending theme)

Guest Country New Zealand - extra hall (more)

"Long before books, there were stories"

Open Air Reading Zone

Lonely Planet :)

Science Books

CERN at the Book Fair with the Higgs-Field + the 1. www-server, more here:
the beginning of the web: "vague but exciting"

E-Book Installation

Reading Tent

word cubes: to learn, to know, to explore

and: Gutenberg Museum at the Book Fair

Handmade Prints

... gone reading

Frankfurt blog + twitter links:

• twitter stream: fbf12 
• the bookfair has 2 own blogs, one in English: book fair blog and the other in German: blog.buchmesse