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https://samnot.es/books/reading-around-the-world/

Fiction is for understanding lives you’ll never live, empathy for people you don’t know and won’t meet. If that’s true, this map is an embarassing display of my shallow exploration of the world. This project is about knowing the world, not through facts, figures or flags, but instead through the hearts, minds & eyes of its people. Recommendations welcome! Read To read Afghanistan A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Finland The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna France The Count of Monte Cristo The Moustache - Emmanuel Carrère Germany The Artificial Silk Girl - Irmgard Keun Ireland Beautiful World, Where Are You - Sally Rooney Italy Roman Mysteries (all titles, 3000+ pages) - Caroline Lawrence Japan Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami Nigeria The Girl with the Louding Voice - Abi Daré Russia The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov South Korea The Vegetarian - Han Kang Vietnam The Mountains Sing - Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Sam

# books / Reading Around the World

Fiction is for understanding lives you’ll never live, empathy for people you don’t know and won’t meet.

If that’s true, this map is an embarassing display of my shallow exploration of the world.

This project is about knowing the world, not through facts, figures or flags, but instead through the hearts, minds & eyes of its people.

Recommendations welcome!

Read To read

Afghanistan

Finland

France

Germany

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Nigeria

Russia

South Korea

Vietnam

Reading list by country

Albania

  • Three Elegies for Kosovo, by Ismail Kadare

Angola

  • A General Theory of Oblivion, by José Eduardo Agualusa

Argentina

  • The Kiss of the Spider Woman, by Manuel Puig
  • The Tango Singer, by Tomás Eloy Martínez

Australia

  • Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton
  • The Secret River, by Kate Grenville
  • The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
  • The Yield, by Tara June Winch

Botswana

  • When Rain Clouds Gather, by Bessie Head

Brazil

  • Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, by Jorge Amado
  • The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, by Machado de Assis

Chile

  • The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende

China

  • Wild Swans, by Jung Chang

Colombia

  • One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
  • The Sound of Things Falling, by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

Dominican Republic

  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz

Egypt

  • The Cairo Trilogy, by Naguib Mahfouz

Ethiopia

  • The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste

Germany

  • Alone in Berlin, by Hans Fallada

Ghana

  • Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi

India

  • A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
  • The Eighteenth Parallel (Hyderabad), by Ashokamitran
  • The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
  • Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie
  • Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra
  • The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga

Indonesia

  • Earth Dance, by Oka Rusmini (Bali)
  • This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Iran

  • Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi

Ireland

  • The Country Girls, by Edna O'Brien

Italy

  • The Aeneid, by Virgil
  • The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Japan

  • The Makioka Sisters, by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Kenya

  • A Grain of Wheat, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Mexico

  • The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes

Mozambique

  • Sleepwalking Land, by Mia Couto

Mauritius

  • Eve Out of Her Ruins, by Ananda Devi
  • The Last Brother, by Nathacha Appanah

Nigeria

  • Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Pakistan

  • Moth Smoke, by Mohsin Hamid

Peru

  • The Time of the Hero, by Mario Vargas Llosa
  • The War of the End of the World, by Mario Vargas Llosa

Poland

  • The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk

Senegal

  • God's Bits of Wood, by Ousmane Sembène

South Africa

  • Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton
  • The Promise, by Damon Galgut

South Korea

  • Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee

Sri Lanka

  • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka

Sudan

  • Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih

Togo

  • Michel the Giant: An African in Greenland, by Tété-Michel Kpomassie

Turkey

  • Birds Without Wings, by Louis de Bernières

Uganda

  • Kintu, by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Uruguay

  • The Shipyard, by Juan Carlos Onetti

Zambia

  • The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell

Zimbabwe

  • Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga
  • We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo

ARCHIVE

07 Sep 2026 Why Marx Was Right - Terry Eagleton 06 Sep 2026 How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic - Sallust 01 Sep 2026 The Artificial Silk Girl - Irmgard Keun 01 Sep 2026 There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness - Carlo Rovelli 29 Aug 2026 On Character: Choices That Define a Life - General Stanley McChrystal 27 Aug 2026 Chess - Stefan Zweig 23 Aug 2026 President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman - William Lee Miller 20 Aug 2026 The Ascent of Rum Doodle - W. E. Bowman 11 Aug 2026 Moral Ambition - Rutger Bregman 11 Aug 2026 The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna 09 Aug 2026 How the UK electricity system works 06 Aug 2026 Head North - Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram 02 Aug 2026 Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama 02 Aug 2026 Reading Around the World 27 Jul 2026 Becoming - Michelle Obama 21 Jul 2026 Galatea - Madeline Miller 21 Jul 2026 The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama 20 Jul 2026 The Road - Cormac McCarthy 18 Jul 2026 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris 11 Jul 2026 Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid 05 Jul 2026 Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf 04 Jul 2026 The River of Doubt - Candice Millard 30 Jun 2026 Eisenhower in War and Peace - Jean Edward Smith 28 Jun 2026 More Tales From Shakespeare - Michael Morpurgo 21 Jun 2026 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 09 Jun 2026 Rivals S2 Ep6: The Storm 08 Jun 2026 Courage is Calling - Ryan Holiday 05 Jun 2026 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer 16 May 2026 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 26 Apr 2026 London Marathon: One Year On 15 Apr 2026 A Little Humanity 11 Apr 2026 A Year of Living Simply - Kate Humble 08 Apr 2026 40 Before 40 08 Apr 2026 Montaigne - Stefan Zweig 04 Apr 2026 William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction - Stanley Wells 19 Mar 2026 Unreasonable Hospitality - Will Guidara 15 Mar 2026 Hitler's Secret - Rory Clements 15 Mar 2026 Nemesis - Rory Clements 08 Mar 2026 HRV & Me: Taming a messy stressy mind 02 Mar 2026 Nucleus - Rory Clements 19 Feb 2026 Corpus - Rory Clements 08 Feb 2026 Resonance 16 Jan 2026 A Night to Remember: Sinking of the Titanic - Walter Lord 01 Jan 2026 Everything I've read in 2026 (so far) 31 Dec 2025 Everything I've read in 2025 28 Dec 2025 The Cry of the Owl - Patricia Highsmith 15 Dec 2025 Someone from the Past (British Library Crime Classics) - Margot Bennett 01 Dec 2025 Death in Ambush (British Library Crime Classics) - Susan Gilruth 23 Nov 2025 A Cold Wind From Moscow - Rory Clements 10 Nov 2025 The Boleyn Traitor - Philippa Gregory 24 Oct 2025 Death Makes a Prophet (British Library Crime Classics) - John Bude 13 Oct 2025 The Cheltenham Square Murder (British Library Crime Classics) - John Bude 04 Oct 2025 Sussex Downs Murders (British Library Crime Classics) - John Bude 22 Sep 2025 The Lake District Murder (British Library Crime Classics) - John Bude 15 Sep 2025 The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy 10 Sep 2025 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie 30 Aug 2025 Marble Hall Murders - Anthony Horowitz 25 Jul 2025 Where Angels Fear to Tread -- EM Forster 10 Jul 2025 Steve Jobs -- Walter Isaacson 10 Jul 2025 The Fifth Risk -- Michael Lewis 10 Jul 2025 The Ride of a Lifetime -- Bob Iger 03 Jul 2025 James -- Percival Everett 01 Jul 2025 Great Expectations -- Charles Dickens 23 Jun 2025 Hillbilly Elegy -- JD Vance 10 Jun 2025 Principles 09 Jun 2025 Revenge of the Tipping Point -- Malcolm Gladwell 06 Jun 2025 The Grand Babylon Hotel -- Arnold Bennett 04 Jun 2025 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo -- Taylor Jenkins Reid 03 Jun 2025 Rebecca -- Daphne du Maurier 29 May 2025 A Promised Land - Barack Obama 29 May 2025 Less - Andrew Sean Greer 13 May 2025 Careless People - Sarah Wynn-Williams 07 May 2025 Looking Glass War - John Le Carre 04 May 2025 A Murder of Quality - John Le Carre 01 May 2025 London Marathon 2025: Training Retrospective 29 Apr 2025 The Human Factor - Graham Greene 28 Apr 2025 London Marathon 2025: Race Review 27 Apr 2025 Photos: London Marathon 2025 27 Apr 2025 Spectating the London Marathon 2025 [Sunday 27th April] 26 Apr 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 16 23 Apr 2025 Call for the Dead - John Le Carre 21 Apr 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 15 16 Apr 2025 The Manchurian Candidate - Richard Condon 13 Apr 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 14 05 Apr 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 13 30 Mar 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 12 26 Mar 2025 Effortless - Greg Mckeown 23 Mar 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 11 16 Mar 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 10 09 Mar 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 9 02 Mar 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 8 22 Feb 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 7 16 Feb 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 6 16 Feb 2025 Problems & [Meta] Problem Solving 14 Feb 2025 Little Dribbling - Bill Bryson 10 Feb 2025 Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel 09 Feb 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 5 09 Feb 2025 Three Zero 03 Feb 2025 The iPad mini has genuinely changed my life [no hyperbole] 02 Feb 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 4 28 Jan 2025 Coming AI: Valuing Humans in a world where they have no economic value 28 Jan 2025 Value & Price 27 Jan 2025 The Vegetarian - Han Kang 27 Jan 2025 Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel 26 Jan 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 3 19 Jan 2025 Deriving my own proof for Unitary matrices 19 Jan 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 2 17 Jan 2025 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 12 Jan 2025 London Marathon 2025: Week 1 09 Jan 2025 NYC & DC '24 08 Jan 2025 Linear Algebra Playground 07 Jan 2025 Configuring an IKEA wireless light switch: Saving you the pain 07 Jan 2025 Goals & Goal-setting 06 Jan 2025 Digital Feeds 05 Jan 2025 London Marathon 2025: Training Begins
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