Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote two fantastic books about the Vietnam War and its aftermath. The Sympathizer and The Committed. They’ve been made into an HBO series, too. The first book follows an unnamed character from his childhood in Vietnam as the son of a Vietnamese woman and a French priest. He gets a job working… [Read More]
Blog
Category: Rest of the World
Barbados: The Star Side of Bird Hill
I started this books around the world project during the pandemic, when travel was off limits. I didn’t quite realize just how many countries there were and how hard it would be to find good books from or about some of these places. It’s super easy to find books about England and Ireland written in… [Read More]
South Korea: The Disaster Tourist
I have been known to plan vacations based on where there’s been an economic crisis, because then it will be cheap. It’s not ghoulishness so much as knowing that I’m getting a bargain and the people who live in the destination will be happy to have the business. In The Disaster Tourist, Yun Ko-Eun creates… [Read More]
Dominican Republic: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, his novel about a Dominican family haunted by a fukú, a multi-generational curse. Like his protagonists, Díaz has split his time between the US and the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispañola with Haiti. Haiti is a bit of… [Read More]
Monaco: meet Me in Monaco
I found Meet Me in Monaco: A Novel of Grace Kelly’s Royal Wedding in a Little Free Library and grabbed it, because Monaco is a country and I have a long list of countries to read about. This is a fun read that moves along at a nice pace, about people who are tangentially involved… [Read More]
