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.  

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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.

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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!

World Reads, continued: short stories from the Caribbean + from Exile

The stories I read this week... were from many different place. Here's a photo that gives an idea, reaching from the Carribean to the Middle East and further, and including places that were "firsts" on my reading map. Like: Tobago. Or: Jamaica.

Pepperpot:  short stories from the Caribbean
So: Jamaica. And: Bahamas. First thing that comes to mind with those names is: long white beaches, ocean breeze, Sun. Reggae music. No real idea about the places themselves, though. It's great that the 2 publishers Akashic books and Peepal Tree Press teamed up and made this collection possible. It includes stories from:

• Trinidad & Tobago
• Jamaica 
• Belize 
• Barbados
• Antigua & Barbuda 
• Bahamas 

No easy island reads, but some rather tough topics included. I guess to every place, there is an outside / touristic view, and the view of the people who actually live and work there. This collection takes you there, to this other side.

Here's more about the collection: Publisher's page: Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean

Story  links
The opening story is also online at Granta, and gives an idea of the different view the collection offers:

The Whale House by Sharon Millar, Trinidad and Tobago
"These offshore islands rise out of the water, rugged and black with deep crevices and craggy promontories. Her father used to tell the story of building the house. Dynamite under the water to blow a hole in the hill, a false plateau appearing like a shelf, the hill buckled up behind it."

And a second story link, from an online magazine that focuses on the Carribean, too,with a focus on poetry, but they also published some stories: Tongues of the ocean – stories

Here is one of them, one that stayed with me:

"Saving Rupa" by Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming, Trinidad
"Yesterday I decide I not running no more. I can’t manage with coming last again. Ever since that time when the boy hold down Rupa, it look like I use up all the speed Maha Devi give me for this life..."

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Writing Exile
Last week, the new issue of Words Without Borders went live. And it was such a good suprise. The theme of it is: "Writing Exile".Which connects almost perfectly with my recent reads and the blog post about them: "Reading from Chile to Paris to Romania with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera & Herta Müller, or: home, exile, and fiction (blog post link)"

Here are some lines from the introduction to the Exile issue:

This month we present writing about and from exile. Although not all exiles flee political persecution or war, they have in common an involuntary departure forced by adverse circumstances. In fiction, poetry, and autobiography, writers explore the notions of departure and absence, memory and loss.

Reading it, it made me think that violence is a theme that runs through these days, too - and that exile often is a form of violence: being forced to leave your homeland.

Story links
The issue includes authors from Syria, Cuba, Uzbekistan and other places, here are some direct links:

• Fragile States: Artwork from freeDimensional: the issue also includes a virtual exhibition with artists from Iran, Burma, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Syria, and Malaysia: "Fragile States explores the physical and psychological experiences of persecution and forced displacement."
• Exiled in Europe: an interview with 3 women writers from the Middle East who currently live in Europe, with some surprise views of exile: "The Iraq that we see on TV today is not the one I was raised in and lived in. It’s like Noah’s Ark. The millions who left, not only for political reasons but in order to have freedom, took a little bit of Iraq with them and preserved it.”
• Bag of the Nation: magic realism short fiction by Osama Alomar, Syria: "I took the big bag that I had inherited from my grandfather down from the attic. It was brightly colored like a storm of rainbows. I hoisted it onto my back and went out into the street. I closed my eyes and began to choose samples at random from everything that was inside: humans and stones and dust and flowers and wind and the past and the present and the future..."

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Links + More

Reading the world:  the collected list of stories is online here: global reading, and a note on the reading journey can be found here:  reading the (missing parts of) the world 

• Previous short story post: Reading Lolita in Tehran & In Her Place
• The world in 7 books (or: mapping our world by continents)
• More reading notes in this blog: life as a journey with books
• Other book blogs: It's Monday! What are you reading? 

reading from Chile to Paris to Romania with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera & Herta Müller, or: home, exile, and fiction

The books I read this week... were chance reads, brought by the phone book box again. After the luck I had there with books the previous times (finding "The Lake" by Banana Yoshimoto, and an old diary, here's more), I stopped there again - and again was lucky. This time, Gabriela Garcia Marquez and Milan Kundera waited there:

 

Gabriel García Márquez -  Colombia / Chile
In the past, I tried to read Gabriel García Márquez's novel "100 Years of Solitude" several times, but unfortunately never got into it. The book that I brought from the box, about Chile, is a modern reportage: Littin is a film-maker, and exiled from Chile, but returned there illegally to create a film. In a different kind of "making of" story, Marquez spent several days, talking with Littín to "hear the story of his escapade, with all its scary, comic, and not-a-little surreal ups and downs. Then, applying the same unequaled gifts that had already gained him a Nobel Prize, García Márquez wrote it down. "Clandestine in Chile" is a true-life adventure story and a classic of modern reportage."

It's both a sad and powerful read, and the fact that there are too many totaliarian countries in this world, with citizens who live in fear of their own government makes it a painfully global read. There's more about the book here at goodreads.

Marquez himself is from Colombia, and while reading the book, looking for a more typical writing from him, I arrived at this magical reality short story: “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” 

Parallel to those reads, I also read an interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the Paris Review, which was a perfect combination to read. So glad I picked up the Chile book, and finally arrived at Marquez and his work. He is a wonderful, thoughtful and surprising writer. Here's a bit from the interview, on the theme of fiction and journalism:

Interviewer: "Since we’ve started talking about journalism, how does it feel being a journalist again, after having written novels for so long? .... Do you think the novel can do certain things that journalism can’t?"
Marquez: "Nothing. I don’t think there is any difference. The sources are the same, the material is the same, the resources and the language are the same." ... "What I would really like to do is a piece of journalism which is completely true and real, but which sounds as fantastic as One Hundred Years of Solitude. The more I live and remember things from the past, the more I think that literature and journalism are closely related."

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Milan Kundera: Czechoslovakia / Paris 
From exile story to exile story: after reading the Chile book, I tried Kundera and the "Abschiedswalzer", hoping that it would be a bit like the book he is most known for, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", and after some pages, realized I looked for that Lightness... and so went and browsed my bookshelf. Couldn't find it, so I looked for an interview: A Talk with Milan Kundera. Like Littin, the film-maker from Chile, Kundera choose to go to France when he had to leave his home country. And in one of those good twists, the interview starts with an intro that mentions, of all authors, Garcia Marquez:

In the 1980's, Milan Kundera has done for his native Czechoslovakia what Gabriel Garcia Marquez did for Latin America in the 1960's and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did for Russia in the 1970's. He has brought Eastern Europe to the attention of the Western reading public, and he has done so with insights that are universal in their appeal. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Kundera lost his position as a professor at the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Prague, and his books were banned. Little by little, life was made unbearable for him, and he was hounded out of his native country. His call for truth and the inner freedom without which truth cannot be recognized, his realization that in seeking truth we must be prepared to come to terms with death - these are the themes that have earned him critical acclaim. 

So I guess, it would be a good follow-up to this story chain to now go and look for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at some point. Or maybe he will pop up in the phone box?

And following the theme of exile, while looking for online reads from Kundera, I arrived at this story excerpt from another of his novels, "Ignorance", which focuses on leaving and the longing for places left:

Ignorance By Milan Kundera / From Chapter 2:The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. To express that fundamental notion most Europeans can utilize a word derived from the Greek (nostalgia, nostalgie) as well as other words with roots in their national languages: añoranza, say the Spaniards; saudade, say the Portuguese. In each language these words have a different semantic nuance. Often they mean only the sadness caused by the impossibility of returning to one's country: a longing for country, for home. What in English is called "homesickness." Or in German: Heimweh. In Dutch: heimwee.

The German "Heimweh", literally translated, it means "Home-ache". The counterpart of it is: "Fernweh" - "far-ache", or "distance-ache".

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While browsing my bookshelf, I had a long look at his old map - in it, Yugoslavia is still one country, just like Czechoslovakia and Russia, while Germany was two countries....

 

... and I arrived at 2 other books that also connect to theme exil and home, and to this series of world reads:

Canetti: Marocco / Switzerland / England
"Marocco" by Elias Canettti is a book I read several years ago. Back then, I also read about Canetti's biography: Elias Canetti was born in Bulgaria, in his childhood the family moved to Austria. In 1938, Canetti and his wife migrated to England as a reaction to the nationalist turn of Germany and Austria.


Fiction 18: Contemporary Romanian Prose

This is an anthology from the book fair, from the Romanian booth, it features 18 contemporary Romanian authors and their new works, with excerpts from each included. The first story, by Daniel Banulescu, needs just 3 lines to take the reader right back into totalitarian Romania: "In 1981, Nicolae Ceausescu built himself a holiday palace on Lake Snagov. Shortly after the President began spending his Saturdays, Sundays and some weekday afternoons in his palace at Snagov, the lidos along the entire shoreline of the lake thinned out and then disappeared. The restaurants in the vicinity of the palace were closed down..." (story link)

So good to see that the Romanian authors are now free to write and express their stories and experiences. And I just saw that there is a website with the authors and excerpts: Romania Writers

Reading in the book made me also think of Herta Müller, who grew up in Romania and wrote despite her fear of the government, and the consequences their words could have for her - more about that in the previous blog posts about her: Herta Müller - and here are some quotes from her, on the theme of oppresssion and home country:

“I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.” 

“If only the right person would have to leave, everyone else would be able to stay in the country.”  

“They have good streets here, but everything's so spread out. I am not used to asphalt, it makes my feet hurt, and my brain. I get as tired here in a day as I do back home in a year. That's not home, other people live there now, I wrote to Mother. Home is where you are now... And Mother wrote back to me: How would you know where home is? The place where Toni the clockmaker tends the graves, that's home.”  (link)

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Currently Reading + More Reads:

For 2014, i didn't join a specific reading challenge, but i try to read books / authors from different countries and continents, and this summer I am focusing on short stories.
Here’s more about it: Reading the world

On the left is a photo of the book phone box, it feels a bit like a magic shelf. So far, I always found books there that I didn't even know about, and that I really enjoyed.

For more reading notes in this blog, click here: life as a journey with books- and a reading list by regions is online at: World Reads by country

Other book blogs: It's Monday! What are you reading? 

reading: Long Reads, Long Walks, The Greatest Journey & Venezuela

The Old Ways, or: how to make a book last longer
There are books that I don't want to end. So I read them slowly, just some pages each day. And add pauses between chapters. "The Old Ways" is such a book. I started it in January, and arrived at the end last week, still too early - I thought it would go on for more pages, but it has a large part of footnotes and references in the back.

And so it ended, like a journey cut short - this wonderful, reflective book about walking, about the way mankind always walked and created pathes, and how following those pathes is leading you to new places, both geographically, but also in the mind. If you are interested in walks and places, I definitely would recommend it. There's a longer blog post from January, here: Reading notes: The Old Ways

From "The Old Ways" to "Out of Eden" 

But like all good journeys, this one went on, too: I had told some friends about "The Old Ways", and just as I was reading through the last chapter, one of them told me about a story she read in the "Zeit": Paul Salopek, a journalist who won the Pulitzer, is walking the world, following the trail of humans from the origins in Africa along the directions they walked to migrate and spread. The name of his project is “Out of Eden Walk”, it’s supported by National Geographic.

The walk will be 7 years long, leading through 4 continents. Salopek started walking a year ago, in Ethopia. From there, his journey took him to Djibuti, and to Saudi Arabei. His journey notes are collected in an online archive: Out of Eden Walk - Notes, the page also includes a  map room.

Visiting those first pages and notes felt like an unexpected continuation of The Old Ways, which ends with a walk along neolithic footprints in the North of England: "So now I know what I read when I finish The Old Ways… onwards to even older ways.." I wrote to a friend.

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Global Reading: Venezuela
Another rather global reading link brought me to South America this month: the March issue of "Words without Borders" is dedicated to writing from Venezuela. I think I never read stories or poetry from this country before.

There was a news article on Venezuela, too, which made me curious for some inside views. Writers get censored in Venezuela, though. Here are some lines from the webpage of Words without Borders: "The current crisis has thrown this often-overlooked country into the spotlight; the writers included here put the protests in context and demonstrate the richness of Venezuelan literature." And here is more, from the Introduction to New Venezuelan Writing by Ana Nuño: "I think the reader should know that this introduction has gone through half a dozen versions since the first draft was almost finished, for it was then that a very serious crisis erupted in Venezuela. Starting on February 4, thousands of students have taken to the streets in this country to demonstrate against a radical deterioration of living conditions over the past years, and especially against the increase in violent crime. With an annual homicide rate of close to 25,000, or roughly 79 per 100,000 residents, Venezuela has become one of the most dangerous places in the world..."

It's difficult to imagine how it feels to live in a situation like this. I think it's great that the editors of Words without Borders feature places like this. In January, they dedicated an issue to "Kurdish Literature", and in July 2013, to Iran's Postrevolution Generation.

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Currently Reading + More Reads:

For 2014, i didn't join a specific reading challenge, but i try to read books / authors from different countries and continents, and also follow the “readwomen2014” initiative. Here’s more about it: 2014 - year of reading women

For more reading notes in this blog, click here: life as a journey with books- and a reading list by regions is online at: World Reads by country

Other book blog and their current reads: It's Monday! What are you reading? (join by blogging and adding your link)

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

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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:

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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

It's Monday! What are you reading? - A reading challenge for 2013, A history of the world in 100 Objects & e-Moments

A different reading week
It's a different kind of reading week here: in 5 days, i will be leaving for some island time, so right now i am in a wrap-up-catch-up-forward mode. And knowing that there is time waiting on the island, i'm focusing on finding the books to take. Which now had an unexpected side-effect:

A World Book Reading Challenge
While looking for books, i came across the first reading challenges for 2013. Which brought a thought for my own reading: to follow the global reading challenge i started in 2012, but take it a step further, and look for country lists with fresh angles. There are so many world lists out there, top-lists and statistics of all kinds... and when I followed this approach, I was stunned by all the things I didn't know or expect. The current megacities of the world, the highest countries, the richest countries, the ones with most immigrants, and the ones with the most rain... so this is the challenge i arrived at:

7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books (Link)
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.

Looking really forward to it, and it was great to see that the first entries in the linky list.

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A History of the World in 100 Objects

The book i am still reading connects to the world theme: "A History of the World in 100 Objects", i started it in September and read it at the pace of 1 object per day. It's a most fascinating read. The author of the book is Neil McGregor, the director of the British Museum, and it was produced together with the BBC in a simple and complex challenge: 

"Colleagues from the Museum and the BBC would choose from the collection of the British Museum 100 objects that had to range in date from the beginning of human history around two million years ago and come right up to the present day. The objects had to cover the whole world, as far as possible equally. They would try to address as many aspects of human experience as proved practicable, and to tell us about whole societies, not just the rich and powerful within them. The objects would therefore necessarily include the humble things of everyday life as well as great works of art." 

To give you an idea, here the starting parts: Part 1 starts at 2.000.000 BC with "Making us Human." Following in part 2 is "After the Ice Age: Food and Sex", and Part 3 leads to the time of 4000 BC with "The First Cities and States". Last week I reached Part 10, "The Silk Road and Beyond", and with it Chapter 50. Half-time of the book, with the "Silk Princess Painting". I will pause now with this read, until i am back.

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Masala e-Moments 
The other book in the photo is an own personal task for the island time. It's my first travel novel, only available in print. As i am reading more and more e-books myself, it now seems like a logical step to create an ebook version. And while at it, i might add a current introduction, i thought. And started to read into it - and then realized that it would be a good book to take along, to read and re-format and re-new. 

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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: currently  reading... there also is a visual bookshelf, just click it to get there:

language place #11: Streets, Signs, Directions

One year ago, the first edition of the language/place carnival went live:
"> Language > Place: a joined blog cyber journey featuring international perspectives on language and place."

Since then, almost monthly, a new edition followed - each a journey in itself, hosted by different bloggers in places that reach from Hong Kong to Slovenia and New Zealand to the States.

Now, for the anniversary edition, the blog carnival returns to its place of origin in Germany - the "life as a journey" blog. The theme of this edition is: "Streets, Signs, Direction" - and following its own theme, this edition offers 3 ways to explore and visit the contributions:

> a found poem, based on single lines from each contribution
>> an itinerary: all contributions with notes and links
>>> a geographic map which also includes the former editions

enjoy the journey!
Dorothee




> Streets, Signs, Directions - a found poem

a sign of the times. a time of signs.
I am hunting the wild poetic in all its true, I walk
in a circle of simultaneous past and present,
here, there

and then on to Berlin for half a day,
too tired and in a hurry to bother stating that it felt weird to be back
wandering the vibrant neighborhoods
pulsing in different directions at the same time

fearful of being stuck there,
I close my eyes, hear the miles below the tyres
corrugated iron canopy steps telegraph wires
dog rebar water tank satellite dish

even time slows (like in a dream)
the world as I know it will end,
the day after tomorrow, and then it will restart

but not now and not here
old breath vision time and sensation
that is the only way I know where to go:
the necessary

not so long ago I was awestruck by the automation, the orderliness,
and the speed I saw all around:
there was always something happening

I focused on taking a lot of pictures
these photos served as a reference point
I am still processing

here we are standing, appropriately:
innuendos bubble champagne lipsticked rims,
sighs hopes promises unfurled
talk about crossing boundaries and borders

I hadn't expected to be so impressed by
the promise of what lays ahead -
this departure

we have a map drawn by the friend of a friend.
it evokes so many feelings
we thunder down the street
and the sensation is like flying

as we drive higher, deeper into the rolls of mountains
we have only the clouds for company.
who am I, I wonder, in this landscape?


>> Streets, Signs, Directions - an itinerary

A sign of the times. A time of signs.
For Swati Nair from India, a large part of her cherished memories lie in streets, signs and roads. "It brings this big swell of joy in my heart just thinking of the various places I have seen, the people I have met and the things I have experienced." - Signs from London

i am hunting the wild poetic in all its true, i walk
Inspired by the topic, Penn Kemp picked two poems from "Dream Sequins", a manuscript in process. Two other poems came from her travels, the first from Morocco, the second from a collection of artificial butterflies. Follow her Walking / Paraclete / From Dream / Travelling

in a circle of simultaneous past and present 
here, there
On the third day of her trip to Paris, Dorothee Lang arrived at a reflection pond in the middle of the city: "I walked through the glass lobby of the museum named by it's former use: l'Orangerie, then stopped in front of a sign with a suggested mode for visiting" - Paris dans le Calme



And then on to Berlin for half a day
Nine from Northern Ireland is skilled in the art of finding cheap ways to get from A to B via C, D and E. In March she arrived in Sweden, coming from Kurdistan, and heading to Berlin. Meet her Everywhere and all over

wandering the vibrant neighborhoods
A stroll through the memories of a journey to Portugal inspired Steve Wing to create a collage of sideway mosaics: Streets, Signs, Directions

pulsing in different directions at the same time
Siddartha Beth Pierce is a Mother, Poet, Artist, Educator and Art Historian from Washington, DC. Her contribution reaches out to Africa, Petersburg and to Ireland in artwork and poetry, online at buddhetat's Space



fearful of being stuck there
"With hindsight we certainly would have done," Sandra Davies explains and recollects a trip that was planned as a summer stay, yet demanded some pioneering spirit: Road to Spurn

i close my eyes, hear the miles below the tyres
Sheree Mack recently was at a workshop. "We just played with words, but other poets words and then made then our own. This is a mash up I’ve made which I think fits the theme this month ’street, signs and directions. The quote used here is something my mum once told me regarding childbirth" - The Sinking Road Remix

corrugated iron canopy steps telegraph wires
dog rebar water tank satellite dish
While in the Mexican town of Tecpán, Rose Hunter sat and wrote the first draft of this poem and took this picture at the same time, from a balcony At the Hotel Virrey, Tecpán




Even time slows (like in a dream)
Sometimes direction can be found in unusual things in our environment, notes Brigita Orel. "When I get lost and the road signs are too far away to read them properly, I strive to reconnect through words" - My road signs.

the world as i know it will end,
the day after tomorrow, and then it will restart
For Julia Davies, signs are reminders of the rules of how to live, tried and tested methods for avoiding accidents, mishaps, in getting things right. "But there are so many of them, it seems like every one of them, every combination of them tells a different story, sends you in a different direction." - the highway code




but not now and not here and not present
old breath vision time and sensation
Far away in a haze of mental distraction, local signage brings Karyn Eisler back home, and reminds her that elsewhere doesn't mean better: home sense memory.

that is the only way I know where to go:
"I am very bad at directions but use other senses in good measure to find my way to places and back," says Abha Iyengar. "Though this can be embarrassing , it has never stood in the way of my adventurous streak."  - With Due Respect to Those Who Eventually Find Their Way

the necessary
Peg Duthie appreciated a stranger's wordless annotation in Jerusalem: The Necessary. For more abroad signs, visit the next blog entry, too: Roaming Near the Read Sea.




Not so long ago
It rained the whole week Jean Morris spent Up North in August, "rather undermining my cherished personal ideal of rural Yorkshire, so the signs felt particularly poignant on that damp afternoon. In retrospect and in the photo, it looks a lot more Arcadian that it felt at the time" - Not so long ago

I was awestruck by the automation, the orderliness,
and the speed I saw all around:
Forced to commute to work for a few days by bus, Parmanu finds that a regular bus ride in small-town Germany can lead to surprising encounters and discoveries: The bus ride to work

there was always something happening
Wetteravia. Known to few. Rarely mentioned on the new, slick maps of the 21st century. Pockets of memory exist in the northern valleys of Wetteravia. There is a Hof there still - Let Roucheswalwe tell you of a time it was run by Hennis Lina: Gewürzkuchen und Schattenmorellen



I focused on taking a lot of pictures
Nine is currently staying in Barcelona, and sends a photo essay from sunday protests in Barcelona: taking to the streets! Somos los de abajo

These photos served as a reference point
"Signs, signs, every where a sign..." When Linda Hofke recently went through her summer vacation photos, this sign song kept running through her head, and she realized how many pictures of signs she had taken: The Value of Signs

I am still processing
Daniela Elza purposefully stumbled onto the Occupy Vancouver rally at the Vancouver Art gallery. "There were places one could make a sign if they did not have one" - pre.occupied: intersection, street, direction



Here we are standing, appropriately
Donigan Merritt lived in many countries - currently he resides in Argentina, and walks the streets of Buenos Aires almost everyday -  Another day in Buenos-Aires

innuendos bubble champagne, lipsticked rims,
sighs, hopes promises unfurled
Linda Wastila may live in Baltimore, but her soul lives in Boston: "There's an energy on the street, an excited chitter-chatter, it enervates and leaves me feeling oddly alone." - The City Street

Talk about crossing boundaries and borders
Michelle Elvy was out sailing last week, and following the nautic theme, together with her partner Bernard Heise contributed an adventure of the Bay of Islands: The (Road)way of the Orca



i hadn't expected to be so impressed by
Dave Bonta looked for a video poem: "I think this poem by Pablo Neruda, "Fable of the Siren and the Drunks," might fit your theme ("how to navigate in a foreign place and surrounding - what to do when we don't understand / or aren't understood..."): Lorelei

the promise of what lays ahead
Michael Solender reflects on the directions and streets of life in a flash story: Life is in the Right Always

this departure
Nicolette Wong sends a photo from her 100-day project; Le Bleu du Ciel blog: "...because all departures are forced.": Departure



We have a map drawn by the friend of a friend.
"One of the things i like so much about living where i do is that directions are vague and at once specific," notes Sherry O'Keefe from Montana. "We were given directions on how to get to a place to catch catfish. the place is called gritty stone, but instead of saying "drive out to gritty stone", a map of sorts was offered" - the not-a-problem hand wave

It evokes so many feelings
"I'm a sign enthusiast. Is there a word for this type of person? Here are 10 signs (from dozens) I've photographed this year. Signs are like a higher being talking to us, directing us, entertaining us. No one should ever overlook them," states Christopher Allen, and sends a Year in Signs

We thunder down the street and the sensation is like flying
Jonas Knutsson is preparing for the cold winter and long nights in Iceland, and sends a couple of connected/disjointed riffs from Rejkjavik - Street Scenes



As we drove higher, deeper into the rolls of mountains
we had only the clouds for company.
Uma Gowrishankar is a writer and artist from Chennai, India. In her blog, she recently explored how a place and the story attached to it rests on a terrain where history merges into myth and legend. - There was once this man called Parashara

Who am I, I wondered, in this landscape?
Not the same person, surely
Signage tells us a lot about culture, especially when we're being warned about what not to do. "I thought we were pretty laissez-faire here in Quebec, but a recent trip to Iceland revealed a new level of 'proceed-at-your-own risk," Beth Adams notes in Fire and Brimstone


>>> Language > Place - a world map
This map leads to the locations of the language/place carnival #11, marked with blue pins. Also included: the previous carnival homes, marked with yellow houses. Click the places on the map to enter. There also is a larger popup version of the map. (and if you are interested in creating an own map, there now is a quick guide on how to create a map)


Streets, Signs, Directions - larger version / größere Karte


The blog carnival and Edition #12: Food!

You can read more about this blog carnival on the >Language >Place info page, which includes guidelines, a note about the carnival, the list of previous editions and related links.

Previous host Parmanu added a reflection on the carnvial as it developed in his blog: "With age, the carnival begins to show its value as a concept. So much of individual writing on the Internet is buried under a tangled web that search engines can barely reach; a carnival like “Language-Place” offers a theme-based portal to navigate such writing." - the whole entry is online at: Parmanu/Language-Place blog carnival.

Some notes on how the three-pronged presentation appraoch are online in Karyn Eisler's blog Living ?s, starting with General Thoughts, and moving to The Map, The Poem, The Itinerary...: here's the link: Living ?s / Language/Place

Edition #12 will be hosted by poet & writer Linda Hofke. Though a Pennsylvania native, Linda has lived in Germany for over a decade. She blogs at Lind-guistics and Linda's Life on the Other Side. The feature theme for this edition is “Food" - but as always, a wide range of contributions is welcome. The edition is planned for late November 2011. Submissions are open November 1-20, more details in the guidelines, and a personal invite here: Food for Thought.

Thank you for visiting!

shores, migration, modern times + a better world I

Last week, the language/place carnival went live. The feature theme: Assimilation/Individuation. One of the first pieces I read of it was "London Migration" by Sandra Davies - a personal and powerful dual take on the theme, with the series of migration painting and the combined reflections:

"London migration combines country ‘portraits’ for each of the sixteen ancestors known to have migrated into London, with maps and place names of where they originated. The decision to move from one’s birthplace might be prompted by dreams of success or by harsh economic necessity."

London migration also connects to the book i am reading these days, "When I Lived in Modern Times" by Linda Grant - a story of immigration and trying to built a better world (published by Granta Books, who belong to Granta Magazine). The book is partly set in the London of 1936 / 1945, and shows the London of the refugees. One of the refugees is Evelyn. Her mother fled from Lativa to London, to escape the turmoils of the Russian revolution and the growing discrimination of Jews there. In London, they fit in, in a refugee way:

"Maybe in some other place my mother and I would have been forced to dissolve our identities. But in Soho, it didn't matter. No-one asked questions. Within those few streets off Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road it was acceptable to be different, it was normal. We were all ethnics, from somewhere else. Everyone had their own churches and social clubs. ... Meanwhile, I was looking around to figure out who exactly I was. In the end, all I had to know myself by was a fragment of something and I was trying to find out what was the main whole it had broken off from.
It turned out that the fragment was part of a story, I was part of a grand narrative that had started before I was ever born. Who was I?" 

This is told in flashback - the book itself sets in some years later, in 1946. Evelyn is twenty by then, and on her own. At one point, she walks through the London - from Piccadilly Circus past Lilywhites, into Trafalgar Square, through St. James Park, past Buckingham Palace, and back to the East End. Her walk through London brought me back there, to this city of so many faces. This city that saw me walking through it a couple of times, too, from its royal palaces to its brick roads.


(British Museum Gates / London Bus)


(Brick Lane, London East End)

Here's the blog post from my own trip there: London: around the world in a day

Back to the London of 1946: Carried by the spirit of the time, Evelyn decides to depart from London, and to head to Palestine, to join those who are builiding a new state – a better world: Israel. It's a story of the past, of course, but many lines in this book speak to our own modern times. Like this one, about the difficult political situation in the middle east, and the hope for peace, and the measures to fight for the own freedom:

It made me think of Israel today, of course, how peace is still a dream there. And of course, of the countries in the middle east that are in the state of recreation. It also made me think of the counterpoint view, that there is no other way to peace that peace. But then, looking at the arms and troops that circulate in each country, it seems a very idealistic hope to overcome a totalitarian regime by remaining peaceful.

“You are a terrorist,” she said.” - “I am not a terrorist, I am a freedom fighter.”
And some pages later:
"The terror won’t last for long, and then we’ll have a country and there will be peace.”

Reading those chapters also brought me back to the collection of immigration stories that I read last year: "Common Boundary". It struck a chord in the foreword by Jason Dubow already: 

"These stories of immigration are about people who mentally and emotionally live between places, languages and cultures. And, really, aren't we all a jumble of perspectives? .. And so, when you're done reading, ask youself: Who now am I?"

The huge theme of identity, again. Who was I? Who now am I? - It gets echoed directly in one of the language/place contributions, Cathrine Lodoens poem (Linguistically me): "It’s been 24 years. Maybe it’s time to stop feeling like a foreigner"..

and it is the centre point of the Boundary story "Beginning in the Midwest" by Rewa Zeinati, who moved back to the Middle East after living in the US for several years:

"I am a citizen with two identities, and many more to embrace. Must we be one or the other? We are nothing if not an anthology of our experiences and the places we've lived and traveled."

----
NOTE + LINKS
there is a second post on the book, which includes a letter from a friend who lives in Tel Aviv, about the current protests there: shores, migration, modern times + a better world II

and 2 additional links:
- The original book post about Common Boundary - Stories of Immigration
- And a link to an insightful recent interview with Rewa Zenati on the theme of migration, with questions like this: "Can you tell us about Beirut? What do you most enjoy about your home city, and how does it differ from the US cities you lived in?" - The Atrium / An interview with Rewa Zenati

to see the world

last year, for poetry month, Tammy Ho Lai Ming, editor of Asian Cha, offered to write poetry, for free. "Send me an email and tell me what you want me to write about. Or simply send me an image; I will come up with something."

what a beautiful invite, i thought. and wrote back. i immediately knew what the poem could be about: London - i was there the summer before, and Tammy and i almost managed to meet there. so i returned to the pictures i took, and sent some Liverpool Street scenes, plus the link to this London blog entry: "London - around the world in a day".

which itself includes a poem, one of the found kind, made of lines from that day spent around the world.

And what if
we miss each other?

And did you get what
you wanted from this life,
even so?

And is this the same
living and dying?

*

as it turned out, Tammy picked up on the first image of the blog post - a tube moment, and wrote the poem: "to see the world". now, in this month of journeys, the poem went live at 3:AM:
to see the world.

so good. all of it. how it all happened, and the images and words of the poem. especially these:

allow me to hold your hand amidst this flock of
chance passengers and passing chances—

if only to understand one thing:
that we can still the world
in an eternity of nano-seconds.

*
and an additional note: looking at those images from the day in London again, i stopped at the one from Liverpool Street. it's the one that i returned to this year in my photo files, when following the call for "Windows" by YB. and it morphed into the cover image there: YB Windows.

once upon a forest (UN forest report 2011)

this post belongs to the 5th anniversary Festival of the Trees, which is online now.



It's hard to imagine, but a long time ago, the whole of Germany (just as most of Europe) was covered with forest. Then, bit by bit, tree by tree, people turned parts of the forest to farmland. Then the age of industrialization began - and with it, the forests kept shrinking.

It was around 1980 that things reached a low-point in Germany: due to a combination of acid rain, draught and insects, about 25% of the remaining forest was damaged. The word to sum up the crisis was: "Waldsterben"- "Forest dying". (If you check wikipedia, you will find a long article in German on it: Waldsterben.)

The crisis led to several save-the-forest-and-nature-in-general-programs. Since then, the pollution of the air and the rivers decreased noticably. Endangered species are returning. And the forests are growing again.

Now, in June 2011, the UNO issued an "European forest report" - the good news is that the forest areas in Europe stopped shrinking, and even are increasing again. The German magazine "Welt" has an infomap of Europe that shows the forest situation in each country: the color of the country indicates the percentage of forest: Germany is in the 31-45% range, Europe's "forest" countries are Sweden and Finland with more than 60% forest:

(About the map: the dots give the absolute account of forest in a country, measured in million hectare. For example, Germany has 11,1 million hectares of forest - and Russia: 809, more than all European countries summed up.)

But not all is good news: seen globally, the forests are shrinking, especially in South America. And some of the growth is due to large monocultures tree plantations.

The completed UN Report is online here: State of the World's Forests 2011.

For some articles based on it, try "Forests in Europe and North America are growing but remain vulnerable to threats" and "UN report: Europe's forests are growing".

(more tree blog posts: label/tree)

upcoming: WOR(L)DS APART by Smitha Murthy + Dorothee Lang

very excited to share this news:

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Slated to release Summer 2011 by Folded Word:

WOR(L)DS APART:
The Intersecting Journeys of Friends Who Never Met

by Smitha Murthy and Dorothee Lang

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. A dialogue across continents and cultures unfolds, captured in letters that reach from China and India to Germany and the Mediterranean Sea.
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more about our book, here in the brand new book blog: "WOR(L)DS APART"

whenever i look at the book cover, i remember this line from a conversation in India - i think it was in Varanasi, with a woman who came from a trekking tour, and knew she would return to the place. "Good journeys don't end," she said. i noted the words in my mini-travel-diary, without realizing their full meaning. back then, i had no idea that sometimes, they even turn into folded words.

big THANKS to Jessi Graustein at Folded Word for picking up this word journey, and now turning it into a book. which again, isn't the end of the journey - the blog will be open to further destinations. here are the lines from the Folded Word announcement:

"Our new WOR(L)DS APART blog is devoted to building an online community around the book "WOR(L)DS APART: Intersecting Journeys of Friends Who Never Met" by Smitha Murthy and Dorothee Lang. This book is part travel narrative, part life narrative. It documents the development of a friendship across cultures, space, time, and language. You can find an excerpt on the blog, with more excerpts and interaction opportunities coming soon."

and great to read about the other upcoming titles from Folded Word, especially Freight from Mel Bosworth, and Girl, Wolf, Bones from Nora Nadjarian, both fellow authors. for the full announcement, click here: "New Titles New Blogs".