Buckle up, friends. Top Ten Tuesday is back!
This week is a TTT Rewind: a chance to explore a topic you missed the first time around or revisit a favorite. I’m rewinding to a July topic I meant to write on: Top Ten Books Set Outside the United States.
Read my list–which includes other countries and, um, beyond–and then click on over to The Broke and the Bookish to see what everybody else is up to!
1. England. So many of my favorite writers are English: Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Kate Atkinson, Jane Austen (she’s so favorite she’s on there twice). My most recent English trip-by-book was Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave Is Forgiven. Love and struggle and sacrifice during the Blitz. A little uneven in terms of tone, and the ending felt a little abrupt or unsatisfying (maybe too satisfying?) to me. But it was gripping and worth the read.
2. Australia. Shirley Hazzard, Markus Zusak, Liane Moriarty. I just binge read Moriarty’s latest, Truly Madly Guilty. It’s very much in the same vein as her last two books, but it’s my favorite since the earlier, weirder The Hypnotist’s Love Story. It feels a little manipulative, but . . . I like it anyway.
3. Germany. I admit it: I totally forgot Markus Zusak was Australian. He is also German, and the author of The Book Thief, set in Nazi Germany and narrated by Death. If you haven’t read this yet, you must.
4. Nigeria. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun. Set during the civil war that followed the secession of the Igbo people from Nigeria in 1967. Gripping and gorgeously told.
5. Other Planets. I just reread Jonathan Lethem’s Girl in Landscape, which begins in future New York City but mostly takes place on the Planet of the Archbuilders. It’s wonderfully weird and I’m so glad I picked it up again.
6. Fairyland. Catherynne Valente has a lovely series about The Girl Who . . . Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making; Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There; Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two and, I have just discovered, Raced Fairyland All the Way Home. Start with the first book and read them all. You will fall in love.
Where do you go when you travel by book?
You’ve already included 2 of my favourites: The Book Thief and Half of a Yellow Sun.
I’d add:
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)
A Fine Balance by Rohin Mistry (India)
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Muakami (Japan)
Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda (France)
Plainsong by Kent Haruf (Colorado, USA)
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