Challenge: read a book about every country

[strongboar]

For Poland, Poland by Adam Zamoyski and Norman Davies's God's Playground are popular English-language introductions to Polish history.

Ok, for my list:

1. Italy - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Umberto Eco.

2. Spain - The Battle for Spain 1936-1939, Anthony Beevor

3. France - The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas, pere

4. Russia - Guslar Tales, Kir Bulychov

5. Ethiopia - The Emperor, Ryszard Kapuściński

6. UK - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4, Sue Townsend

7. USA - Under the Dome, Steven King

8. Germany - Year 1945. The End., Hans Helmut Kirst

9. Czech Republic - The Good Soldier Svejk, Jaroslav Hasek

10. China - Pierwsze Wieki Cesarstwa Chińskiego (First Centuries of the Chinese Empire), M.A. Kuenstler

11. India - The Peacock Throne: The Drama of Modern India, Waldemar Hansen

12. Denmark, 13. Sweden., 14. Norway - The Legend of the Ice People, Margit Sandemo (47 book series, and I read most of it :worried: )

15. Colombia - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

16. Israel - Herod the Great, Michael Grant

17. Canada - Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

18. Australia - My Life as a Fake, Peter Carey

19. The Congo - Heard of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

20. Ukraine - The White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov

21. Thailand - Forget You Had a Daughter, Sandra Gregory

22. Iraq - Murder in Mesopotamia, Agatha Christie

23. Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie

24. Finland - The Adventurer, Mika Waltari

25. Mongolia - The Secret History of the Mongols

26. Argentina - Diary, Witold Gombrowicz

27. Japan - Fear and Trembling, Amelie Nothomb

28. Brazil - Slave Isaura, Bernardo Guimaraes

[Teng Ai Hui]

I recently finished the Millenniun trilogy during my winter holiday and was reminded of this thread, so here's my list:

1. USA - many (most recently, Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale)

2. China - Red Sorghum by Mo Yan

3. Japan - Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

4. Sweden - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larrsson

5. France - The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

6. Denmark - Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

7. Algeria - The Plague by Albert Camus

[Candre]

As a German all this Nazi stuff like "The Book thief" (horrible Holokitsch) amuses me. Reading a book like that will tell you not very much about modern Germany nor historic Germany, but it will tell you a lot about a certain period in Germany as seen in the eyes of Hollywood. Hint: It was way worse.

Therefore, I recommend some books about two typical German characteristics: Perfectionism and obedient mentality

Friedich Dürrenmatt - The Visit

Max Frisch - The Fire raisers

Heinrich Mann - Der Untertan

[voodooqueen126]

I guess with ancient books it depends how much the people have changed.

The Ancient Romans were pagans, completely cruel but created some great and influential books (like Cicero's De Oficiis has had huge influence) but the morals in say a Roman play would be quite different from a modern Italian, because due to religious change and waves of conquest, they are quite a different people.

Likewise with the Ancient Greeks: they created the philosophy that underpins Western civilization: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle...

But the modern Greeks certainly lack their achievements (but as the riots in modern Greece show, share the laziness of the Ancient Greeks) and are a completely different people: different religion and apparently quite different genetically...

But with Israel.. well in James Michener the Source:

Eliav: There’s one better.

Cullinane: What?

Eliav: Read Deuteronomy five times.

Cullinane: Are you kidding?

Eliav: No. Deuteronomy. Five times.

Cullinane: What’s your thought?

Eliav: It’s the greatest central book of the Jews and if you

master it you’ll understand us.

Cullinane: But is it worth five readings?

Eliav: Yes…

[Myshkin]

Great thread, I've got some books to buy.

My list:

Russia: So, so many, but I'll go with my favorite, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. But anything by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, or if you're looking for a more Soviet bent, Pasternak, Sholokhov, Solzhenitsyn.

Germany: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass or Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.

Switzerland: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (I had to fit this in somewhere).

France: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Hungary: Embers by Sandor Marai.

Czech Republic: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera.

Spain: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Portugal: All the Names by Jose Saramago

Turkey: Snow by Orhan Pamuk.

India: Lots of stuff, but I'll go with The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie or The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Pakistan: Shame by Salman Rushdie.

China: Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian.

Japan: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe, or Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, or The Sea of Fertility tetrology by Yukio Mishima.

Algeria: The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Sudan: What is the What by Dave Eggers.

South Africa : Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee or Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda.

Dominican Republic: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz or In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.

Trinidad and Tobago: A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul.

Argentina: Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar.

Columbia: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Mexico: The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes.

USA: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole or V. by Thomas Pynchon.

[Vrana]

Great thread, I've got some books to buy.

My list:

Great list. Only change I'd make would be Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist for South Africa.

[Myshkin]

Great list. Only change I'd make would be Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist for South Africa.

Haven't read any Gordimer yet, but I picked up My Son's Story yesterday, so I should be rectifying that oversight soon enough :).