For Bhutan, I read Folktales of Bhutan by Kunzang Choden, which is the first attempt by a Bhutanese to record in English the oral tradition of this kingdom in the eastern Himalayas. For about a year when I was in the fifth grade, I devoured any version of Aesop’s Fables that I could get my hands on, so my inner child highly approved of this choice.

The stories reminded me of Aesop’s fables and Grimm’s fairytales (the dark versions with lots of gory violence, not the sanitized Disney retellings). There were lots of similarities to the fables and fairytales of Western literature–one story was a mashup of the Frog Prince and Rapunzel–but there were plenty of creatures and spirits completely new to me.

I had trouble finding a book I wanted to read for Bhutan, and when I settled on this one, I worried I would not actually learn a lot about the country. My worries were unfounded! I learned so much about Bhutan’s geography and climate, customs, traditions, clothes, and food. The stories showed the dynamics between young and old, child and parent, and rich and poor.

Spoiler alert: the storytellers of Bhutan are not wildly crazy about the rich. The rich folks in these stories are often humiliated, stripped of their wealth, or killed in some grisly manner while the poor find magical items or meet helpful monkeys who improve their lot in life.

This was a great pick for Bhutan, and I’ve already told one of the stories to my eight-year-old. It was about a goat tail that marries a princess–yes, you read that right. There’s also a story about a girl being eaten by a python that will haunt me until my dying breath. Still, goat tails and girl-devouring pythons aside, I wouldn’t be surprised if this book gets used by one or both of my kids for a school project sometime in the near future.

For Benin, I read Angelique Kidjo’s memoir Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music. What an uplifting, inspiring book!

I knew literally NOTHING about Kidjo when I chose her memoir for my Read Around the World quest, but I’m so glad this was my Benin book. For starters, Kidjo is an incredible musician. Before picking up her memoir, I had never heard any of her musi, so I decided to listen to a few songs just to give myself some context for the book. I fell in love with her music while listening to the first song iTunes suggested. It’s the sort of music than resonates inside my soul. My musical horizons have stagnated for the past, well, couple of decades (holy shit, I’m old) and it is so refreshing to have this new bitching musician in my life.

Kidjo covers a lot of ground in her memoir: her childhood in Benin; her escape from communist Benin to France; her musical studies; her career’s trajectory; the inspiration behind various albums; and her work as an advocate for children and women in Africa.

I’m sure any Kidjo fans will love this book, but you don’t have to be familiar with her music to learn from her life. As an ambassador for UNICEF, Kidjo has traveled throughout Africa, and her memoir does an amazing job of explaining the issues that face the continent. But even while discussing important issues like female genital mutilation, Kidjo also conveys her passion for Africa.

Her passion is contagious. I’ve never really felt connected to Africa, but by the time I finished this book, I fully embraced Kidjo’s belief, “That were all a part of Africa because humanity was born there.” Spirit Rising, pg. 221.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. There are more than 50 countries in Africa, and this book provided an excellent foundation for the reading I’ll be doing on this quest.

For Armenia, I read Three Apples Fell From the Sky by Narine Abgaryan, and I absolutely adored this book. I read a lot of good books for the As, but this one is my favorite.

Three Apples Fell From the Sky is a novel about a village high in the Armenian mountains. The phrase “three apples fell from the sky” is also a phrase often used at the end of Armenian stories in lieu of “The End.” According to the book:

And three apples fell from heaven:

One for the storyteller,

One for the listener,

And one for the eavesdropper.

Three Apples Fell from the sky, pg. 7

There are a lot of compelling characters in this book, and I felt transported to the village of Maran, whose only connection to the modern world is a telegraph wire.

The village is more than a setting in this story. It’s a character as vital to this novel as any of the aging villagers–perhaps more. Every time I visit my Read Around the World cupboard and see this book, my heart fills with a cozy warm glow and for a moment, I am whisked back to a fictional remote village in a country I have never visited.

I will read anything and everything that Narine Abgaryan writes. Her writing is cozy and quirky, and her storytelling gave my soul a hug that made my insides sparkle and shimmer. For most of my life, Pride & Prejudice has been my go-to book when I need some comfort reading, but next time I need a cozy read, I strongly suspect I’ll be taking Three Apples Fell Form the Sky off the shelf.

For Antigua and Barbuda, I read Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid. Antigua and Barbuda is another small country with a population under 100,000, so when I googled “authors from Antigua and Barbuda,” I held my breath, expecting another Andorra situation. When the search results included Jamaica Kincaid, my brain did launched into happy cartwheels. I know Jamaica Kincaid! We read Annie John in my English class in ninth grade!

At the time, I didn’t like Annie John. In fact, I hated it, but that was in 1993 or 1994, so I figured it was time to give Jamaica Kincaid another chance. I considered reading something other than Annie John, by my inner voice clamored for a reread of the coming-of-age story I despised thirty years ago.

I’m so glad I did.

In 2024 at the age of forty-five and with a daughter almost eleven years old (I read Annie John in January), I absolutely and unequivocally ADORED Annie John. I loved the exploration of an intense mother-daughter dynamic and equally intense adolescent friendships. I loved Kincaid’s writing style. And I loved the glimpse into life in Antigua.

Why did I hate Annie John so much when I was in ninth grade? I can’t recall a specific reason, but I have this vague memory of discomfort while reading it. Maybe the coming-of-age story hit too close to my own inner struggles as I myself was coming-of-age. Or maybe I was just extra annoyed with my English teacher that week. But whatever the reason for my initial disgust, it’s so lovely to see how my relationship with this book has changed. Instead of being “that awful book we had to read in school,” it’s now “that lovely novella that gave me a glimpse into my daughter’s inner world.”

Once I finish my journey around the world, I’ll definitely be returning to Kincaid’s other works.

For Argentina, I read Eva Perón: A Biography by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz. This book gave me a rich glimpse into not only Evita’s life, but the story of Argentina, and it humbled me, making me realize how little I learned about the world as a history major in college.

Why I Chose This Book:

If you google authors from Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges usually tops the list. I’ve read Borges before and adore his work, so I was very tempted to read him again for this quest. But since I already read Borges, I wanted to try reading something by a female Argentinian author. While I was at a children’s museum with my kids, I googled and searched for a female author and though there were many options, I could not find any English translations. Then I thought, if I can’t read a book by an Argentinean female, maybe I can read a book about one? Eva Perón immediately popped into my head, and boom, I quickly found a biography about Eva that was written by a female journalist from Argentina.

The Book Itself:

This is a chunky tome with a lot of detailed history about Argentina. I learned A LOT, and I felt like I was back in the college library stacks, meticulously gathering information for a research paper. It’s dense, packed with political and social history. I’m glad I picked this biography, but if you’ve never read Borges, he’s an amazing pick for anyone on a Read Around the World quest.

Eva Perón:

As I started this biography, my knowledge about Eva Perón was limited to the musical Evita, specifically the movie version with Madonna and Antonio Banderas. (Spoiler alert: Evita never danced the waltz with Ché). Not surprisingly, the musical portrays a romantic mythical version of the Eva story. Eva and her husband Perón hustled to craft this mythology, destroying documents and even films that starred Evita when she was an actress. (Of course, you could also argue she never stopped being an actress…) For example, the musical has an entire sequence that shows how Eva made her way to Buenos Aires, but actually, no one knows how she got there. Did she go with the tango singer? Alone? With her mom or an older sister? Did she go, come back, and then try again? Eva’s origin story is shrouded in a lot of mystery.

Argentina And My US-Centric Education:

As I read this book, I was astonished by how little I knew about Argentina. I was a freaking history major! But alas, I took classes that focused on the United States and Europe. I really only knew this much about South America: (1) it took a long time to sail a ship around its tip so the Panama Canal was kind of a big deal; (2) at some point, the pope drew an imaginary line on a map and divided South America between Spain and Portugal; and (3) the Mayans were pretty awesome.

But Argentina’s history is so much more complicated than that! Now, if I sit down with someone and they ask me to tell them about Argentina’s history, I won’t be able to give them a precise description with dates. I’d say something like, there was so much upheaval and scheming and corruption and I had no idea that so many Nazis fled there. Obviously, I’m not going to be teaching any courses on Argentina in the near future! But I now know enough to say, There is a lot to learn about Argentina and I’d like to learn more about the history of the world that goes beyond the events that directly involved the United States.

That’s my big takeaway from this biography about Eva Perón: the world is complicated, interesting, and messy, and there’s a lot more to modern history than the stories of the United States. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, there’s a lot more to history than the version typically taught in U.S. classrooms.

For Belgium, I read I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. In this story, forty women are locked in a prison cell in an underground bunker, guarded by silent men. No one remembers how or why they came to be imprisoned.

I do not want to say too much about this book for fear of spoiling it. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that Harpman made me think a lot about what it means to be human. I’m still wondering how to classify this work–speculative? post-apocalyptic? sci-fi? feminist? literary?–and I suppose that is one of the reasons this book made me think so much.

The word that kept popping into my head while reading I Who Have Never Known Men was “spare.” The author gave us just enough details to imagine the characters and setting, and that was it. There was nothing lush or cozy about this book. I felt like I was right there, in the underground bunker, baffled by silent guards in a world closed off from seasons, time, and humanity.

When people ask how I’m picking my books for my Read Around the World quest, I often say that first I’m looking for an author from the country and second I’m looking for books set in that country. Now that I’ve finished Belgium, I can fine tune my response.

First, I’m looking for an author from the country, hopefully someone who lived there for a significant amount of time. Then, if I have a lot of choices, I’m looking for the book that calls to me. Sometimes, the book that calls to me will be set in the country. But sometimes, like with Belgium, I feel called to read something set in an underground bunker with some strong post-apocalyptic vibes. I’m exploring the world with this project but I’m also expanding my reading horizons to discover authors that were not on my radar.

I’m so glad that my Read Around the World quest brought this book into my life. I can’t wait to convince a friend to read it so we can obsess about it together.

For Angola, I read The Return of the Water Spirit by Pepetela, which is the nom de plume of Artur Carlos Maurício Pestana. Pepetela was born in Angola in 1941, left for Portugal in 1958 to study engineering, spent time in France and then Algeria, and returned to Angola at the end of its war for independence in the 1970s.

The Return of the Water Spirit is a novella that takes place in Luanda, the capital of Angola in the late 1980s as the newly independent country abandoned socialism in favor of capitalism. Buildings in the city have mysteriously begun to crumble and fall, but anyone inside floats safely to the ground.

The story is a scathing critique of capitalism that draws upon African mythology. It was a quick enjoyable read that gave me a lot of insights into life in Angola in the 1980s, and I’d recommend it to anyone on a Read Around the World quest or any bookworm interested in a modern-day fable that might challenge their preconceived notions about the world.

For Andorra, I read The Teacher of Cheops by Albert Salvadó. Andorra is a tiny landlocked country located between France and Spain. As of 2023, its population was about 85,000 souls–that’s 50,000 fewer people than the city of Pasadena, California, where I live. Still, I hoped I could find a book that gave me a glimpse into life in Andorra from the perspective of an Andorran-born writer.

Spoiler alert: I could not.

I found one Andorran-born writer whose works have been translated into English, but he writes historical fiction. I read through the descriptions of his available works, and it didn’t seem like any of them were located in Andorra.

I did find plenty of books written by English speakers who had traveled to Andorra or even lived there, but none of them were from Andorra. For example, the chef Eric Ripert has a memoir, 32 Yolks, and he lived in Andorra for several years during his childhood. Could I read that instead? I considered this option for several days, but in the end, it just didn’t feel right for my quest. Eric Ripert is FRENCH, not Andorran, and I’ve already read several books by French authors. I am trying to break away from my tendency to read books written by authors from a limited part of the globe, and choosing 32 Yolks for Andorra felt like cheating.

Look. I’m not saying I’m entirely above cheating during this project. But cheating when I’m only on the As? Maybe when I get to the Qs, but Andorra is way too early to cheat with a French chef’s memoir.

I then briefly wondered if I could read something in Catalan? Like something really short? Hey, I took Spanish for four years in high school, and yes, one of those teachers is from Lithuania and the other is a nice Jewish girl from Ohio, but yo hablo un pocito de nevermind. If I want to finish this quest in my lifetime, I have to stick to books written in or translated into English.

I resolved to read something by Albert Salvadó and chose The Teacher of Cheops because I’ve always been fascinated by ancient Egypt, and the book was…

well…

It wasn’t my favorite.

It’s about an accountant in ancient Egypt, and I didn’t think it was possible to write a boring story about ancient Egypt, but apparently there is at least one way.

The translation is also appalling. A translator is credited, and it’s highly possible he let Google do the work. On the bright side, I now have a deep appreciation for the skill, time and talent involved in translating works into English. (Alberto, if you are reading this, please hire a different translator for your next book.)

There are some terrible sex scenes (to the point of at least being humorous) and some cringey misogny, but hey, at least I read a book by an Andorran author. Right?

For Belarus, I picked Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich AND I CANNOT CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT ABOUT THIS BOOK, GAH! IT WAS SO FREAKING GOOD!!!!

I picked Svetlana Alexievich as my author for Belarus because (1) although she was born in Ukraine, she spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and Belarus and she is a citizen of Belarus and (2) she won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for “her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” She was the first author to win the Nobel Prize for non-fiction in a half-century! The New Yorker has a great article about her work.

Secondhand Time is an oral history and unlike anything I’ve ever read. It feels like Alexievich has invented a new genre. I majored in history in college, and I loved my history classes at Dartmouth, but while reading Secondhand Time, I kept wishing my classes had included more of this sort of history. The history I studied in college was the stuff of dates and documents, battles and elections, and the men (and occasional woman) in charge. This book presented the stories of regular people struggling to live in the former Soviet Union. Instead of learning about the weapons used at a battle, I learned about how the battles affected those living in war-torn countries. Instead of reading treaties, I learned about the artists and engineer who gathered around kitchen tables to about Stalin. Instead of memorizing dates, I absorbed emotions. And finally, instead of walking away with one central thesis, I came away with a kaleidoscope of experiences that showed the vastness of Soviet life and the complexity of responses to its demise.

Secondhand Time weighs in at 470 pages, and since it’s nonfiction, I guessed it would take me a month to read. I also thought it would be too difficult to read at night, so I would read it in tandem with some lighthearted fiction.

NOPE.

I could not stop reading this book. I read it every moment possible, including while lounging at an indoor water park with my kids, and I was sad when it was done.

I really can’t do justice to this book in a blog post. A lot of stories took place in Russia, but there were stories throughout the former Soviet Union, including Azerbaijan and Belarus and even some ex-pats living in the United States. Alexievich unflinchingly gathered the stories of prisoners, diehard Communists, refugees, orphans, and victims of domestic violence. There were people hoping for a new Stalin and people who told of the horrors they endured under Stalin’s regime. There were elderly folks left destitute when communism fell, and people who felt liberated by its end.

Here are a few impressions from Secondhand Time:

For members of the former Soviet Union, salami means something I can’t comprehend, but I quickly noticed how often references to salami came up in the stories. It’s like a national obsession!

They bought us with candy wrappers, display cases full of salami, colorful packing.

Secondhand Time, pg. 111 (on the betrayal of communism).

We believed that salami was spontaneously generated by freedom.

Secondhand time, pg. 287 (about the past).

Even today, many people want to go back to the Soviet Union, except with tons of salami.

secondhand time, pg. 463.

There was a lot of nostalgia for the “kitchen generation” when folks in the Soviet Union gathered in their kitchens and discussed politics, communism, books, philosophy and art.

There were train stations, bitter winters, and refugees with nowhere to go as their homelands are torn apart by war in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s end. I don’t often cry while reading*, but I teared up many times while reading Secondhand Time. I cried for the suicide stories. The orphans. The people living in poverty I can’t imagine. I’m so grateful that Alexievich gathered these stories and wove them together so I could bring this world into my heart.

I cannot say enough good things about Secondhand Time. I will definitely be reading everything Alexievich has written and seeking out more books of this kind. And though its early days in my Read Around the World quest, this very well might be the book that leaves the deepest impression on my soul.

*It’s how I’m wired. I just don’t cry that often. I wish I cried more often because when I do cry, it’s such a cathartic release of pent up emotions. Perhaps there’s a seminar I can take…

For Algeria, I read Fantasia: An Algerian Calvacade by Assia Djebar, and I adored this pick.

The book starts with a helpful glossary, and then an even more helpful timeline that starts in 1510 (the beginning of Turkish rule in Algeria) and ends in 1968 (six years after Algeria granted independence from France). I consulted the glossary and timeline at least a hundred times each while reading the book, and both deepened my reading experience.

Djebar described this work as “a preparation for an autobiography” and the book explores a lot of fascinating themes: the differences between writing in Arabic (her mother tongue) and French (both father tongue and step-mother tongue); growing up in a progressive home in a traditional society that has been colonized; love and marriage; and the complicated feelings that arise while living abroad.

The book alternated between autobiographical fiction and historical non-fiction, the latter chapters delving into Algeria’s history of conquest and colonization. It was unlike anything I’ve ever read. I’m a writer myself, and I’ve read so much about the hero’s journey, I’ve come to believe that it’s the spine for any good story. NOPE! This book did not follow any traditional Western storytelling conventions, and yet I was dazzled by how this book defied the expectations of the hero’s journey while still delivering a beautiful and moving book.

(Note to self: keep an open mind about storytelling conventions!!! Remember that the convention serves the story, not the other way around.)

Fantasia is the first book in a quartet. When I finished it, I really wanted to dive into the next installment, but in the interest of maintaining momentum on my Read Around the World quest, I continued on to Andorra.