Am I really famous in Brazil? Despite the hundreds of messages I’ve received from Brazilians insisting I am, I still don’t believe it. It’s just too surreal for my brain to process. This surely must be a highly ambitious prank pulled by several bored teenagers in South America.

Here’s the abbreviated version of how I became “famous???” in Brazil:

• I posted a roundup of all the books I was reading for the B countries on my Read Around the World quest.
• I had decided to read The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis for Brazil.
• TONS of Brazilians responded with comments like, You are going to love that! and Best book ever!
• By the time I got to Brazil, I worried that the book had been overhyped and I would be disappointed.
• I started the book.
• Within a few pages, I was OBSESSED. Best. Book. Ever.
• With only 100 pages left, I felt inspired to make this video:

And then that video went viral–and I didn’t even realize the scope of what was happening at the time, because it had been shared on X and then effected Amazon sales and then it was reported by the Brazilian news. I think I finally realized that Something Big was happening in my life when a journalist at Brazil’s CNN contacted me for a television interview.

At first, I was completely and utterly overwhelmed by the response, but as I explain during this episode, the experience of going viral in Brazil has opened my heart to a flood of love and made my soul sparkle like a disco ball. Because did you know Brazil is the most loving corner of the internet? My siblings were reading the comments on my videos and could not believe that they were 99.9% positive. I was pleasantly surprised because when I saw that there were thousands of comments, I assumed that folks would be trashing my review/project/face/etc. because that’s how American trolls operate.

Americans could learn a thing or two from Brazil.

In the viral video, I joked that I now had a side quest to learn Portuguese. Many Brazilians took this literally, and tons of people offered to give me free Portuguese lessons. I freaked out again. Me? Learn Portuguese? It’s supposed to be an incredibly difficult language to learn! Besides, I’ve been using Duolingo to learn French for several years now. If I really wanted to learn Portuguese, I could do that after I became fluent in French,.

And yet, the idea of learning Portuguese became as intriguing and persistent as my call to embark on this Read Around the World quest, so I took Duolingo’s first Portuguese lesson. And then another and another until I was hooked, and had abandoned French completely, and after I was invited to speak at a literary festival in São Paulo, I found an app called Preply and signed up for one-on-one Portuguese lessons with a lovely Brazilian lady.

Agora eu falo português como um bebe.

But I’m learning and I’m obsessed with this side quest. My fifteen minutes of Brazilian fame has lasted much longer than I could have ever predicted, and at the beginning of my quest, I never thought one of my book reviews could go viral in such an exuberant and effervescent way. I’m loving this new twist to my Read Around the World adventure and shimmering with excitement for my trip next week to São Paulo! And no matter how this goes, I’m obsessed with the Portuguese language. But that’s another episode.

For Côte d’Ivoire, I read Aya, a graphic novel by Marguerite Abouet (writer) and Clément Oubrerie (illustrator). It was translated from French by Helge Dascher with lettering by Tom Devlin.

Growing up, I never had a comic book phase, but I LOVE graphic novels. Before I talk about Aya, I’d like to list some of my all-time faves:

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (and anything else by Bechdel)
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (a long time ago, in an apartment far far away, I picked this for my book club)
• Blankets by Craig Thompson  
• Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
• Nimona by N.D. Stevenson
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh (I will read anything this woman writes)
• The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
• Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley (and literally everything else she has ever written)
• Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell (if you want a cozy fall read, get this! I regret giving this book away and might buy myself a new copy for October.)

(Technically, the books above are not all graphic novel. A few are memoirs, but if Goodreads classifies them as graphic novels, who am I to argue?)

I loved Aya as much as any of the books on my list above. It’s the story of the post-adolescent romantic adventures of three women, about age 19, who live in post-colonial Côte d’Ivoire when the country was flourishing (late 1970s). Alicia Grace Chase, PhD wrote Aya’s preface and summarized it much more eloquently than I can:

The amorous hi-jinks narrated in Aya seems so familiar, so nearly suburban in their post-adolescent focus on dance floor flirtations, awkward first dates, and finding just the right dress for a friend’s wedding, that to many western readers it may be difficult to believe that they take place in Africa.

Preface to Aya, by alisia Grace Chase, Phd

So far, the overwhelming majority of the books I have read for Africa deal with heavy, weighty topics like government corruption (Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic), extreme poverty and famine (Cabo Verde), and genocide (Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo). In my pick for the Comoros, the narrator is lost at sea, clinging to a fuel tank for dear life, with very bleak prospects. In my pick for the Republic of the Congo, the narrator Broken Glass is an alcoholic relating the tragicomic lives of the patrons of a bar.

After all the picks that preceded it, Aya was a breath of fresh air. I’ve been enjoying my African picks for my Read Around the World quest, and it’s important to grapple with these important issues, but Africa is not all genocide and government corruption. It’s also music and dancing and flirting and fighting over boys with your girlfriends. It’s sibling squabbles and teens drinking too much alcohol and making out with the cute guy you met at midnight and choosing schoolwork over sleazy guys because damnit, you want to be a doctor. Africa is so much more than the American media suggests, and Aya expanded my literary experience with Africa in a delightful and enchanting way.

If I had to describe Aya in just a sentence, I’d say it’s Sex in the City: The Côte d’Ivoire edition. If you ever enjoyed the hijinks of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, then you’ll adore Aya, Adjoua, and Bintou.

I’ve already ordered Aya’s sequel and I’m impatiently awaiting its arrival.

For Costa Rica, I read Where There Was Fire : A Novel by John Manuel Arias. I don’t always share the covers for the books I read, but let’s take a moment to admire this one:

Bravo to the cover designer! This cover perfectly captured the book’s energy, story, and themes. I’ve designed the covers for three of my four published books, and damn, I really need to hire a cover designer for the next one. (Although I have a feeling my next book will be published traditionally… just putting that vibe out into the Universe.)

Although Spanish is the official language of Costa Rica, this book was written in English; but the author used the inverted question mark (¿) in the dialogue to remind the reader that the character would have been speaking Spanish. In a comment on my TikTok post for this book, someone raised an objection:

Hi! I’m Costa Rican and I love this series but I wish you had done better research before choosing this as the book from my country. It wasn’t originally written in Spanish nor was it published here…

I see the point this TikToker was making, but I also stand by my choice. I’m on a quest to read a book by an author from every country in the world in alphabetical order, because my muse/inner voice/intuition would not stop nagging me to do this project. Since my muse is the instigator of this whole epic endeavor, I’m doing my best to lean into my intuition when I pick the book for each country. That means I’m not ticking off boxes of imaginary criteria to please the masses and critics. Instead, I’m listening to suggestions, reading tons of book descriptions, and then choosing the book that screams, “Me! Me! Me!” For Costa Rica, that was Where There Was Fire.

And I’m so glad I read this book!

It was lush and vibrant and saturated with magic. The story alternates between 1995 during an epic hurricane and 1968 when a banana plantation burnt to the ground. The third person narrative shifts amongst characters, both major and minor, in a way that deepens the reading experience (and makes me, as a writer, intensely jealous). John Manuel Arias is also a poet, and the way he chose words and manipulated language made my skin tingle.

This novel is in the tradition of magical realism, and I could tell Arias was influenced by Allende and Márquez, but he also owned the genre and made it his own. Towards the novel’s end, he even tipped his hat to Márquez in a description of San José:

A lottery ticket vendor whose wife has cancer smiles with every piece sold, every cólon that will go toward her treatment. A café owners named Shakespeare recites lines from The Comedy of Errors; his patrons munch on croissants with their eyes closed, content. A stout, devout woman flits from passerby to passerby, quoting the good book–not the Bible but One Hundred Years of Solitude, she says.

Where There was Fire pg. 264

What a lovely ode to Gabo! And if you like magical realism, then you should definitely run and get a copy of Where There Was Fire immediately if not sooner. Although be warned: you’ll never look at a banana quite the same way again.

For the Republic of the Congo, I read Broken Glass: A Novel by Alain Mabanckou which was translated from French by Helen Stevenson.

Broken Glass is the name of a 64-year-old former schoolteacher who frequents a bar called Credit Gone West. The owner of the bar gives Broken Glass a notebook and urges him to write, so Broken Glass fills the notebook with the stories of the patrons of Credit Gone West, eventually leading to his own tale.

The novel is written in the voice and style of a drunk, with no periods and sporadic capitalization. For example, here’s the opening line:

let’s say the boss of the bar Credit Gone West gave me this notebook to fill, he’s convinced that I–Broken Glass–can turn out a book,

Broken Glass at pg. 1

I picked a random spot to end that opening line because it just keeps going, a rambling run-on sentence of drunken chaos, but there are also references to literary classics sprinkled throughout the book, reminding the reader that Broken Glass was once a schoolteacher, and beneath the inebriation and despair, there’s a really intelligent man lost to alcoholism.

The book takes place in the town of Trois-Cents in the Republic of the Congo, but this is a universal story about alcoholism and addiction. The patrons of Credit Gone West are addicted to alcohol (for Broken Glass, it’s all about the red wine) but they are also desperate to have their stories recorded in Broken Glass’s notebook.

I do have to give one warning about this book: it discusses in excruciating detail some scenes that involve excrement and urine. I’ve been exposed to a lot of scatological humor by way of reading Day Pilkey with my son Julian, but there were a few scenes that would shock even my eight-year-old boy. I LOVED THIS BOOK and it made me think a lot about alcoholism, but if you are enjoying a quiet lunch and want some reading material… chose something else.

I’ll definitely be reading more books by Alain Mabanckou. Just maybe not while I’m eating lunch.

I did it! I recorded a podcast episode!

I know, I know, it’s been over a half year. Where have I been? READING AROUND THE WORLD.

At the end of 2023, I started a quest to read a book by an author from every country around the world in alphabetical order and I embarked on that journey with lots of trepidation, hesitation, and reluctance. My muse had been nagging me for over two years to start this quest, but I had excuses and concerns. (For example, there are too many countries. Also, the books would probably be boring. p.s. Did I mention how many countries there are? 197!)

But my muse would not relent, and as my new quest built momentum, I stopped podcasting and instead shared my journey on TikTok. That was a new endeavor and it took a lot of bandwidth to get used to filming and editing videos. I didn’t have the time or inclination to podcast while I was doing that. Besides,I was already talking a lot on Tiktok–what more could I possibly say during a podcast episode? How much talk from Courtney Henning Novak does the world actually need?

Yet I missed podcasting, and once my Read Around the World quest had sufficient momentum, my muse nagged me to resurrect Adventures With My Forties. I told my muse I needed to clean the bathroom. She told me to hire cleaners. I told my muse that the people who enjoy my TikToks would not be interested in my podcast episodes. My muse rolled her eyes and told me to stop whining and record an episode already.

So here I am.

Why did I start my Read Around the World quest? Because my muse would not leave me alone.

And now why I am podcasting again? Same damn reason.

My muse is a relentless diva who gives zero figs about back to school nights and errands and cluttered countertops, but she was right about the Read Around the World quest. DID I MENTION I’M GOING TO BRAZIL IN TWO WEEKS??? Since my muse knows how to generate some interesting adventures, I’m going to lean in again and answer the call to podcast.

Hello. How’ve you been??

For the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I read How Dare The Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyiman with Abigail Pesta. The story begins in a refugee camp in Burundi the night it is attacked by rebels who are brutally murdering the members of minority tribes. The rebels set fire to the refugees’ tents and shoot Sandra’s mother and six-year-old sister. While she’s trying to escape, a rebel points a gun at Sandra’s head–and that’s just the first chapter.

The writing style is conversational, almost like meeting a beloved friend for coffee, and I was sucked right in despite being apprehensive about the subject material. It’s not easy to read about a ten-year-old escaping a burning refugee camp with dead bodies everywhere when your own children are in the next room playing Minecraft, but thanks to Sandra and her co-author Abigail, I did not want to stop reading and inhaled this one in just a few days.

Sandra describes her childhood in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the harsh realities of living in a war-torn country. Her family belongs to a minority tribe, the Banyamulenge, who were first driven out of Rwanda and then had to flee the DRC. After the massacre at the refugee camp in Burundi, Sandra’s family, along with the other survivors, are invited to immigrate to the United States. Sandra’s family is resettled in Rochester, New York where Sandra begins middle school knowing barely any English. (In other words, they layered trauma upon trauma.)

Despite such a dark beginning, How Dare the Sun Rise is ultimately a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and our ability to overcome traumatic experiences. In high school, Sandra became an activist and a voice for her people and all refugees. Along with several of her siblings, she now runs the Jimbere Fund, a nonprofit that works to empower female entrepreneurs who live in the Congo. I was so moved by Sandra’s story, I donated $100 to the Jimbere Fund as soon as I finished her memoir, and as my social audience builds, I hope I can inspire more people to donate to causes inspired by my Read Around the World quest.

There were so many parts of Sandra’s story that made me cry or sent shivers down my spine, but this one quote keeps echoing in my mind:

[A]s I watched the people in the church cry, I had a realization: They cared. I had assumed that people in America did not care. But in that instant, I realized they did. They just didn’t know our story. They didn’t know what life was like in a refugee camp, or how it felt to endure a massacre. In America, we live in a world where Kim Kardashian dominates the news, not massacres in Africa.

how dare the sun rise, by sandra uwiringiyimana with abigail pesta, pg. 189.

Sandra is right. People care about people, but the news is a business focused on making money, so the media will always feature the content that brings in viewers. I personally could not listen to stories about massacres all day, every day, but I believe that bearing witness to other peoples’ stories of grief, anguish, and trauma makes me a better person and enriches my life. Sometimes we need the distraction of some Kardashian drama, but our hearts are also vast enough to bear witness to the atrocities of the world and as we bear witness, we change ourselves, and as we change ourselves, we change humanity.

This is definitely a book I plan to give to my children when they are a little older. Anyone who takes the time to read this memoir will want to donate to the Jimbere Fund so Sandra’s family can continue their important work.

If you are interested in reading this book, or any others from my Read Around the World quest, you can check out my Amazon shop. I receive a tiny percentage of any books purchased through the shop at no extra cost to you.

For Comoros, I read A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir and translated from French to English by Aneesa Abbas Higgins. It was the winner of the Prix Senghor 2016 and the English PEN Translates Award Prize, and both awards are well-deserved. I absolutely loved this book.

Eel is a seventeen-year-old young woman who is adrift at sea and waiting to die, and to pass the time, she is telling the story of how she ended up in her predicament. The entire story is told in a single sentence, giving it a sense of manic urgency. This 217 page sentence is spoken by Eel, a snarky and irreverent Comorian who reminded me of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye.

It has been DECADES since I read The Catcher in the Rye, but as I read A Girl Called Eel, I kept thinking how this is the first coming-of-age novel I have ever read that matches Catcher’s energy and vibe. As much as I adored Holden as a high schooler, Eel is an even more compelling narrator. She has a relatable snarkiness that most high schoolers would appreciate, and she covers issues ranging from typical high school drama to a woman’s place on the island of the Comorian island of Anjouan.

I kept debating whether this book is appropriate for a high school literature class as it deals with some dark issues like abortion and domestic violence, but I suspect I’ll be encouraging my daughter to read A Girl Called Eel in a few years when she starts high school. It’s a great way to spark some important conversations about the challenges of coming-of-age no matter where you live in the world.

As a final note, aside from being the best coming-of-age story that I’ve ever read, this book also beautifully described life on the Comorian island of Anjouan. I was so intrigued by the author’s descriptions that I watched this YouTube video that toured the Medina of an island in the Comoros, and it was exactly as I had been imagining it in my mind’s eye.

For Colombia, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, and it was exactly the book I needed to read this past week. A few days before I started, I learned that my Aunt Berta only has about two weeks to live. She has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, so we knew she was dying, but we didn’t think it would be this fast. It has actually now been two weeks and a day since that prediction, and Berta is alive and having more good days than bad–but still, I’ve had so many feelings. Gabo helped me navigate the past two weeks, giving me space for all my feelings and a distraction when I needed an escape from reality.

Needless to say, I absolutely loved One Hundred Years of Solitude.

But at first, I wasn’t too impressed. I read something by Márquez when I was in high school–maybe One Hundred Years of Solitude? maybe Love in the Time of Cholera? maybe both?–and I recalled loving his writing, but for the first couple hundred pages, I thought the book was overhyped. A lot of folks on social media told me this was their absolute favorite book of all time, so perhaps my experience with the book was ruined by high expectations.

That all changed around the halfway mark.

There wasn’t a specific passage or sentence or chapter that converted me from thinking “this book is solid” to “this book is an absolute masterpiece.” It was more about me surrendering to Marquez. If you’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude, you probably remember that a lot of characters have similar names. The novel follows a hundred years of the Buendía family, starting with the marriage of two cousins, and the names José, Arcadio, Aureliano, Remedios, and Ursula get repeated again and again amongst the generations. My copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude includes a family tree, but I was still confused trying to keep all the characters straight. When I realized that was the point, and surrendered to the confusion, my heart opened up and embraced the book.

I believe like so many works of great literature, this book will mean different things to different readers, and it will also mean different things to the same reader at different points in her life. One Hundred Years of Solitude is now an esteemed member of my Pantheon of Comfort Reading, a trusted friend that I can call upon when I need a literary hug. For this reading, I felt breathless at the vast expanse of life and humanity and the inevitable ups and downs in any life, town, or family. A lot of people on social media warned me that this book was sad and devastating, but for me, it was also joyful and uplifting. (But also, this is why we don’t marry our cousins!!!)

I realize I haven’t told you much about this book, but I don’t need to write a book report. This is my blog, and there are already thousands of articles and blog posts out there dissecting and summarizing One Hundred Years of Solitude. Today, I just want to marvel at how this book is so universal, bridging together readers around the world, and yet so deeply intimately personal, meaning different things to each of us.

p.s. If you want to buy the One Hundred Years of Solitude, its listed in my Amazon storefront. I receive a tiny commission at no extra cost to you!

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.