For China, I read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, and I loved this book. I learned so much about China (and in the process, realized just how little I know) and now I want to read more books by Chinese authors. After all, 1.42 billion people live there! That’s a lot of voices with a lot of different stories and perspectives. I could spend the rest of my life reading books by Chinese authors and never get bored. (Except I could never abandon this quest. Or Brazil.)

Wild Swans beautifully blends biography, memoir and a history of China during the twentieth century from 1903 to 1978 (shortly after Mao’s death). The story begins with a biography of the author’s grandmother, who was a war lord’s concubine and then continues with a biography of the author’s mother, who was a member of the Communist elite, and then dives into the author’s own life growing up in China under Mao. Throughout the book, the author weaves in explanations of life in China and relevant history and masterfully included details and anecdotes that immersed in her experiences.

I had to stop and tell Nathan stories from this book so many times because I just couldn’t believe the horrors of life under Mao. It was like a whole country was turned into a cult, and over a billion people are still processing this trauma. The book should have been depressing because it showed the dark side of humanity, but in the end, I was inspired by the author’s resilience and courage.

I’m still processing this book. I think I’ll be digesting it for a long time. Like, I could sit her for the next year, and write about all the thoughts I’m having and all the things I learned, and all the things I now want to study, and I still will have a million more things to say. I’m so grateful this book has been a huge success since the 1990s and already sold over 13 million copies worldwide.

For Chile, I read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I read this book before in high school and loved it, and rereading it as a forty-five year old woman, I fell in love with it all over again. The magical realism! The family saga! The backdrop of Chile’s political history during the twentieth century! What an epic book!

If you have not heard about House of the Spirits before, here’s a quick overview: it’s the story of three generation of the Trueba family, as told by the ninety-year-old patriarch Esteban and his granddaughter Alba. There’s Esteban’s wife Clara, who can talk to spirits and move things with her mind, and Esteban’s daughter Blanca who falls in love with the son of the foreman of her father’s ranch. I won’t say anything about Alba because honestly, just go read this book already.

As I read House of the Spirits, I kept thinking how a college professor could dedicate an entire class to just this book. You could spend weeks dissecting the book itself: the way Allende brings the characters to life, giving everyone main character energy, even if they only join the story for a few pages; her lush style of writing (you could easily spend an entire class just debating her use of foreshadowing); and how she deftly combines an epic family drama with political history. But then you could use House of the Spirits as a launching pad to discuss magical realism, South American literature, and the role of literature in the world. (Please tell me someone has been teaching this class, and then please let me audit it.)

But, as much as I think you could spend an entire college semester dissecting this book, you could just as easily read it in a hammock during your tropical vacation and let the lush descriptions carry you away. That’s the brilliance of Isabel Allende. She can let you enjoy a intriguing, scandalous soap opera while drinking a fruity beverage out of a coconut shell and she can also inspire you to rethink your understanding of the world.

Here’s something I did not know when I read House of the Spirits in high school: it’s autobiographical! Isabel Allende started writing it as a letter to her dying grandfather! Her uncle was Chilean President Salvador Allende, who was assassinated in 1973 during a military coup. How wild is that? You know how movie blu-rays often include a version with the director and actors comments about the making of the film? I want something like that for House of the Spirits! Maybe Isabel Allende could host a podcast and in each episode, she goes through a chapter of the book and explains the real life inspiration behind the characters, setting, etc. (Just sending this out to the Universe…)

A movie version of House of the Spirits was made in the 1990s but it stars Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, and Winona Ryder. I love all those actors, but I don’t love the idea of watching them in a Chilean story. (Seriously–Winona-Fucking-Ryder?) A few years ago, Eva Longoria was reported to be headlining a reboot of House of the Spirits for Hulu, but I can’t find any recent reporting about that. Fingers crossed someone brings this story to television someday! It would make such a fantastic drama.

For Chad, I read Told by Starlight in Chad by Joseph Brahim Said. It was translated by Karen Haire Hoenig, but I’m not sure from which language! According to the book, the author was educated at French colonial schools, so I’m going to assume the book was originally written in French, but ugh, I don’t like making that assumption… but shoutout to the translator for making this work available! The world would be a narrow place if I could only read books written in English.

Told by Starlight is a collection of stories that I can’t lump into one category. There are fables, myths, and legends with talking animals, magical items, and evil stepmothers. Some tell about the founding of great cities while another explains why eclipses happen and yet another was a mashup of Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel but with a cow. This book reminded me of Folktales of Bhutan because both told stories with recognizable themes and tropes but in ways that were steeped in their local setting. With talking lions and hippos, I never for a moment forgot that I was reading stories from Africa.

Although the stories are wildly different, they all take pride in Chad’s tradition and heritage. That’s what drew me to this book. For Africa, I’ve been reading a lot of books that explore dark themes like colonialism, government corruption, and extreme poverty, and there’s plenty of that in Chad. At the moment, Chad is ranked 189th out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index, and the U.S. State Department strongly discourages travel to that land-locked country, so I was interested in a more upbeat perspective. Or, put it another way: all places have culture and stories and traditions that matter.

Is this the sort of book that I will be urging all my bookworm friends to read? Nope!

But did this book introduce me to stories that deepened my sense of the world? Absolutely.

I’ll leave you with this quote that gave me fresh insights into oral traditions:

As far back in time as men can remember, albeit they forget very fast, the oral tradition is there to remind them constantly of events that happened before they were born. Its elasticity and capacity for changing and evolving allows the tradition to yield to the exigencies of the moment; it adapts according to the place and the time in which the individuals live. And thus it guarantees the orderly continuation of custom, linking the past to the present and the present to the future.

Told by starlight in chad, pg. 65

That’s the sort of passage that makes me want to run back to college and spend a year in the stacks writing a thesis about the power of stories.

For Central African Republic, I read Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza, and WOW, it was not at all what I expected. It’s the story of two women whose husband dies unexpectedly, so I assumed I was in for a dark, morose tale. NOPE! It was lively, funny, smart and downright effervescent.

The story is set in 2011 when the country is on the brink of a civil war that started in 2012 and continues to this day. If you live in the United States and feel like our government and elections are a bit chaotic, then spend a little time on the Wikipedia page for Central African Republic. You might come away with a new understanding of what it means to live under a “chaotic” government.

At only 124 pages,Co-wives is a fast read, but Yabouza packed the story with information about life in Central African Republic, including the CAR’s “democratic elections” and the corruption of its government and judicial system. She also weaves daily life into the story with details about clothing, food, family structure, houses, commerce, and customs surrounding grief, courtship, and marriage.

I’d like to especially draw your attention to the local tradition for Mother’s Day: the husbands wear their wives’ dresses and cook dinner. (I think I’ll stick with flowers.)

And the story itself was very interesting! It brought me along the co-widows’ journey, riling up feelings of anger and indignation, and the ending was unexpected but inevitable and emotionally satisfying.

The book was translated from French into English by Rachael McGill (great work there!), and its the first book from the Central African Republic to be translated into English. But this is not the sort of book that should only be read during a Read Around the World quest. It’s a wonderful, uplifting story with a feminist edge that I absolutely adored.

Well, Canada broke my heart.

There was a tiny fight on TikTok when I asked for recommendations for Canada. Nothing like the uproar when I posted about my pick for Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Balkans are spicy and I’m still a little terrified) but for Canada, folks were roughly divided into two camps I shall describe as “Read Anne of Green Gables!” and “For Fuck’s sake, read anything but that.” I read the entire Anne of Green Gables series as a child, plus I’ve read tons of Margaret Atwood, so once folks suggested I read something by a First Nations author, that seemed like the right choice for me. There were a lot of votes for Five Little Indians by Michelle Good and when I learned it was a novel that followed the lives of five survivors of residential schools, my gut screamed, “Yes, please!”

If you have never heard about residential schools, this Wikipedia article provides a decent crash course. I only learned about residential schools a few years ago when headlines started popping up about the discovery of mass graves.

Michelle Good’s novel sucked me in. It was beautifully written with the sort of writing that carries the reader along. The chapters are told from the viewpoint of five different survivors of the same residential school, and Michelle Good brought them all to life. I felt like I had a personal relationship with each character, and the varying viewpoints was such a brilliant way to show the extent and impact of the abuses committed at the residential schools.

My heart broke for the children stolen from their families and sent to boarding schools meant to crush out their indigenous cultures. And it broke again for the parents who could not save their children. And then my heart shattered because based on media I consumed before Five Little Indians, I thought of Canada as this romantic utopian place with lots of maple syrup and hockey that was immune to the problems of the United States.

Nope. Evil shit also happened in Canada.

But I’m glad this book broke my heart because I think we need to break our hearts in order to let more love inside. It’s like tearing down a wall in order to add a wing to a house. This book added a whole new wing to my heart and soul. Now, when I think of Canada, I’ll still think of L.M. Montgomery and Margaret Atwood, but I’ll also think about the victims of the residential schools. They need us to listen to their stories so they can heal. They need us to listen so humanity can learn and reckon with its evils and grow and do better.