Back in August 2022, I published a guide to travelling the world without leaving your favourite reading spot.
This year, I wanted to go a little further, by producing and sharing my reading 'bucket list' - and here it is! How? Why? What next? How can YOU help?
Read on ...
The idea was prompted by the fact that my girlfriend's currently enjoying a few weeks in Australia and New Zealand. I was curious to see which, if any, authors I had read from those countries, and it all snowballed from there ...
I've been keeping off my reading for well over a decade, so a couple of hours delving into that, and some searching, and these are the stamps on my literary passport. my basic criteria is that the author must have been born in that country, or have citizenship of it. For the inquisitive amongst you, I've listed the countries and at least one qualifying author at the end of this post.
So, how can you help? Whilst I'm not setting any hard targets for this, it would be great to be able to update you at the beginning of 2025 with lots of countries ticked off. There are some obvious gaps in Africa and Asia ... which authors do YOU recommend? Get in touch!
Here are the places I've 'visited' so far ...
EUROPE
France - Françoise Sagan
Germany - Patrick Süskind
Italy - Dante Alighieri
Ireland - Seamus Heaney
Norway - Jo Nesbo
Poland - Stanislaw Lem
Russia - Boris Akunin
Spain - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Sweden - John Ajvide Lindqvist
Ukraine - Andrey Kurkov
UK - William Shakespeare, etc
NORTH AMERICA
Canada - Margaret Atwood
Dominican Republic - Junot Díaz
Mexico - Silvia Moreno-Garcia
United States - Raymond Chandler, etc
SOUTH AMERICA
Brazil - João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Columbia - Gabriel Garcia Márquez
Guyana - John Agard
Peru - Mario Vargas Llosa
ASIA
China -Cixin Liu
India - Aravind Adiga
Iraq -Jim Al-Khalili
Japan - Seishi Yokomizo
AFRICA
Algeria - Albert Camus
Nigeria - Oyinkan Braithwaite
South Africa - Antony Sher
Zambia -Wilbur Smith
OCEANIA
Australia -Germaine Greer
New Zealand - Katherine Mansfield