Mordecai Richler! Anne-Marie MacDonald! Yann Martel! Robert J. Sawyer! And George F. Walker! (he does a lot of playwriting, if anyone's interested in that)
Gabrielle Roy. We read The Road Past Altamont in Can Lit and I fell in love. Plus we need to rep our French Canadians non? I'm gonna add Terry Fallis to the list of Canadians because I love him. If satire is your thing (think "The Thick of It"/ Armando Iannucci) then check him out. The American books were pretty standard. Good books but the ones you expect to hear about. So just to switch it up: Sherman Alexie - Native American and so good. Also Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. He's Native American but he teaches in Canada so we can claim him right?
This is such a fascinating tag! Also so glad you mentioned Into the Wild! It's by far my favorite nonfiction novel. It is very similar to the movie, but it does go into detail on a lot of things that the movie didn't and there's an entire chapter that talks about similar situations involving people who abandoned civilization to live off the land as well, so if you were fascinated by Chris' story that part will definitely interest you and it is definitely worth the read! Also, your hair looks so beautiful Sanne!
Murakami is een van mijn favoriete schrijvers ooit! Normaal ben ik niet zo gul met de superlatieven maar hier maak ik graag een uitzondering. Hij schrijft gewoon zo ontzettend mooi, je zit echt helemaal in het verhaal en hij verrast me keer op keer. Mijn absolute aanrader, ook al is het best indrukwekkend als je het voor de eerste keer vastneemt, is Kafka op het strand met 900 pagina's, al betwijfel ik niet dat jij al voor grotere vuren hebt gestaan. P.S.: zo leuk om iemand van deze streken op RUclips te zien! Liefs van je zuiderburen.
I'm SO SURPRISED to see Fernando Pessoa there! Here in Brazil - between us, book lovers - he's sooo loved! But Ive never seen anyone from other countries reading him - I didnt even know his books could be found in English! :D
Thank you so much for tagging me! And phew, what a tough tag!! There are so many books you mentioned that I want to check out :) I absolutely *love* Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea .... I may have to take this chance to reread them! Wide Sargasso Sea is such an incredible book... I'm pretty sure it changed my life.
If Murakami turns out to be not your thing or you want something more light-hearted from Japan, try Banana Yoshimoto. Great contemporary author! For fantasy, you might enjoy Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms.
And being Dutch, you might even know this, but I am dead-sure you will enjoy Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. If you want to venture into German "fantasy" books.That one is a joy to all booklovers, I guarantee it!
Available in English as well, I believe. Might want to check it out, it's definitely worth it. I sure hope they made the translation as pretty as the original. The book is printed in two colours, one for Fantasien and one for the real world. It's lovely.
I'm obsessed with Murakami and his modern view on ancient japanese folklore. He is just perfect. But I can understand people that can't connect with that... It may seem dark sometimes or just "unreal" for most people... (Kisses from Brazil).
This is such an excellent tag. I recognize some of these titles from going through your library and I'm really interested in reading The Circle and We, The Drowned. Actually a lot of these look great!
Great list! To Kill a Mockingbird is probably one of my favourite books. Another I'd recommend for you to read is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (the author was born in Japan, but has spent most of his life in Britain). It's absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking. He has also written The Remains of the Day, which I must admit I haven't read yet.
MacduffProd I read The Remains of the Day for a class I took last spring and I absolutely loved it. It was for a class called Approaches to Literary Interpretation so we talked a lot about identity and ideology in relation to the book. I definitely recommend it if you enjoyed Never Let Me Go!
I read "The Unconsoled" because I'm obcessed by music since I was little (I don't understand why I never chose it as a career path...) and it was such a compulsive reading... Such a great read for a time when i was also being too worried about stuff out of my control, it changed my perspective, but I have to admit it raised my ansiety a lil bit. I'd advise it to anyone who can read it in a single day or weekend (Im not a fast reader so...) so you don't feel suffocated like I did. I still have to read "The Buried Giant" which is in my shelf but I'm giving myself time to read other books before i run through an Ishiguro's book again. I'd be able to finish his entire list of books by the end of the year if I allowed myself and then puff... No more Ishiguro's new stuff to read... How sad hahaha
Excellent choices! You have made me very excited. I was about to go to bed, but now I'm going to go raid my bookshelves instead, in anticipation of doing this tag. BRB. xx
Dear Sanne, may I just recommend you a few more Asian books? 1. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa 2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy 3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga 5. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohamed Hanif I love this tag, btw. Diversity is awesome. I feel like booktube is too inundated by UK/US YA books most of the time.
Agreed with "I feel like booktube is too inundated by UK/US YA books most of the time." As much as I enjoy watching booktube hauls and bookshelf tour, a lot of the time everyone talks about the same things. the same books over and OVER. I love John Green as much as the next person but I feel the viewers see the same recommendations in a loop... so I'm very happy to see a 'Reading Diversely Tag'. Some more recommendations for you Sanne: - Anything written by Jhumpa Lahiri is fantastic imo, but a good place to start might be 'The Interpreter of Maladies' which is an excellent short stories collection. - The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (a recurring theme is discussion of the book- The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, a Russian author) - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (to go with A Thousand Splendid Suns) - since feminism is so big on RUclips rn, I Am Malala - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (written by an Indian who works as a doctor in USA, set in Africa+ USA. very good book!)
I read The Namesake at university, but I didn't enjoy it very much. I definitely want to read one of Jumpha's other books. Thanks for the recommendations :)
That edition of Ghana Must Go is gorgeous. I've read it and I had a hard time getting into it, but in the end I was glad I read it. The Circle sounds right up my alley- I pretty much love anything witchy. Thank you for sharing your recommendations!
I wouldn't start with 1Q84 if you want to get acquainted with Murakami! It's a really, really, really intense novel, and I rarely hear first time readers enjoying it -- it's great, but it feels a bit like work to get through it. I'd start with Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore, but if you start with 1Q84 I hope you enjoy it! (or I hope it doesn't put you off of Murakami!)
So happy you mentioned a Swedish book! The film version of that is actually coming out pretty soon (spring 2015 if I'm not mistaken) and I'm soooo excited!
I read a lot of South American literature because I live in Central America and I think I'd be best if you'd start out (When it comes to Gabriel Garcia Marquez) with books like Of Love and Other Demons, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and even Memories of My Melancholy Whores You could also read Who Killed Palomino Molero? and The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa Also, I think you left out Mexico. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes are very good! Also, I love your videos xx
Such a great video! The Book of Disquiet is a collection of texts of Fernado Pessoa ( one of the best, if not the best, Portuguese author who ever lived) it's really good but a little depressing, it does a fantastic job portraying the soul of Lisbon and Portugal (weird I know). And it's not actually written by Pessoa but one of his heteronyms Bernardo Soares (at least some versions of it). An heteronym is an imaginary character created by the Pessoa to write in different styles! if you read some of his other works you see that they are all completely different: from their views to the writing itself! Pessoa has 75 heteronyms! I really love Pessoa's writing style, his poetry is wonderful! Sorry for rambling and my shitty english!
An interesting reading list. Some of my favourite books from various countries include: Australia: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton - about two families living together in a house in the suburbs of Perth over a 20 year period; The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower - a gripping read about domestic violence - more mind games than actual physical violence; The Tree of Man by Patrick White (Nobel Prize for Literature 1973) - about a man settling in the Australian bush - outside Sydney. He marries, clears his land, develops it and as he gets old sees suburbia creeping up close to his property. Very well written. These three books usually come up in "Ten best novels by an Australian". South American novelists i don't see mentioned that I enjoy are Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Bad Girl. The other is Jorge Amado's Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon. USA: Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety and Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey are brilliant reads. John Updike's Rabbit series - especially the 2nd 3rd and 4th novels are great but Crossing to Safety and Sometimes a Great Notion are even better. Russia: Anna Karenina by LeoTolstoy and A Hero of our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. If You haven't read any Murakami, read Sputnik Sweetheart or The Wind-up Bird Chronicle before Norwegian Wood. Liked Norwegian Wood but loved Sputnik Sweetheart. I could go on but that will do for now!
Have you ever been to Frankfurt Book Fair? I love that they have different countries as guest of honour every year which makes it easier to discover books from foreign countries that you probably wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
This tag makes me realize how effective my high school was in making its students read diversely. I think I can honestly say we read at least one book from every continent (except maybe Australia... Oops sorry! Oh well, I personally supplemented my own Australian reading with Melina Marchetta galore). Anyway, loving the hair Sanne!
I loved your new hair cut! haahaha I'm happy to see you talking about a brazilian author, altough I haven't read this book yet but I'm looking forward to
This is awesome. I'm Portuguese, yet I've never read a Portuguese book, nor a book by a Portuguese author. I'm embarrassed to say that. Will have to explore and get outside my box.
You are missing out a lot! I really like Saramago, but he's not very easy, as he has his very peculiar way of writing. I have read The Book of Disquiet, and it was good, but it's more like a collection of notes (the ordering of which is still argued by critics) than a usual novel. Antonio Tabucchi is Italian but set several novels in Portugal, the best being Pereira Declares). Happy reading!
I haven't read much of my country's literature as well-I'm from Panama. It just never called my attention, sadly. But just following on the Jose Saramago's recommendation, I've read only two books by him: Blindness, which I loved and deeply recommend, and All The Names, which was all right. I have The Double on my to-read shelf which is supposedly good. :) Happy reads!
elenh9898 no, I actually have not. I know, it's like a sin. Don't judge me. I've read lovely passages, just never picked up a book and read it. I will, I promise.
As you're looking for more Asian authors, I would highly, highly recommend Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. I've only read his most recent book, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, but it immediately became one of my all-time favorite books. It's moving and well-written and has a pretty unique structure/style, at least among the books I've read. (It's written in second person and is the story of a man's life and love told as if it were a self-help book.)
This video was about books you've already read, so I totally get why the books themselves aren't very diverse. :) However, now that you are aware that you haven't read that many books from other regions, maybe now you could do a "Reading Diversely" challenge. Maybe two books from each region? And this time the books have to be written by people from that region. It would be fun and pretty interesting to see what kinds of books you choose!
Ahh, I definitely need to do this tag once I'm back home with all my books. Wow, I paused the video after you mentioned The Arrival to recommend Tales from Outer Suburbia. Guess there's no need. I just read it for uni and absolutely loved it...can't wait to see what you think!
WeNeedDiverseBooks is an organization that started this year that is all about *gasp* diversity in literature! And I am a stalwart supporter of them so this video makes me happy :D I have some of those books on my list, now I have to add some of those other ones! The Head of the Saint one seems really cool :)
10 лет назад
One of my favourite German books is The Man Outside by Wolfgang Borchert. It is a short play about a young man who comes back from World War II to discover that his wife has an affair with another man. He then spends the night outside and meets some people he went to war with. And some editions also contain a collection of short stories which are all about the post war era. Another German book I really love is Zoo Station - The Story of Christiane F. It's about a teenage girl in the late 70s or 80s who develops a heroine addiction and becomes a prostitute in order to pay for the drugs. It was a huge scandal back then and is still really shocking. Apparently she never never recovered and is still addicted to heroine. I hope you find the books interesting and let me know if you might want to read them :)
I really wasn't prepared to see The Circle in here, even though I know you've read it, so I got really really excited since it's one of my favourite book series. There's a movie on its way, and the first full trailer is going to be online next week - I'm seeing it in the cinema tomorrow! It's in Swedish but they're hoping to release it internationally as well. Fun fact: both authors are on tumblr and there's also a small but amazing little fandom on there, so if anyone wants to come say hi, you can find us in the tag 'engelsfors' (my url is magicae) :)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay takes place partly in Antarctica, that could kind of count ...? :) My favorite Steinbeck is East of Eden, it's a brilliant book. I also love Love in the Time of Cholera. I'd also recommend Isabel Allende (In the Time of the Butterflies) who is Chilean, Markus Zusak (The Book Thief, I Am the Messenger) who is Australian, Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go) who is Japanese, Sherman Alexie (Blasphemy) who is Native American, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah) who is Nigerian.
I was so surprised you mentioned Portugal, it doesn't happen very often... Fernando Pessoa was a great writer in my country and we have to read some of his other work in high school... Hope you enjoy the book!!
Carsten Jensen visited my Creative Writing class last year to talk about his writing of "We the Drowned". :) I can tell you, he has done a LOT of research for the book. It sounded really interesting. It's fun to hear you, Sanne, talk about it now. :) The title of this video alone inspired me to include diversity in my reading goals for 2015, not just quantity. :D So I'd like to read books from 6 continents, books from a minimum of different eras, dif. genres etc... I'd like to read Jane Eyre but no way am I able to do that before Monday. Too bad. :\
Yessssss, the circle! :D I'm studying post-colonialism, multiculturalism and the literary genre of talking back at the moment, and some of these books really intrigued me, especially the Rushdie one. I've only ever heard people talk about the Satanic Verses, so it would be interesting to read something else of his. We've just read Things Fall Apart, which just blew me away, and it's now on my list of favourites. We read Heart of Darkness before it, and the talking back-genre has really captured me. I have never read a book written from the colonialised people's pov, and I need to get better at that. Which means I have to read Wide Sargasso Sea as well.
Wide Sargasso Sea was written as a prequel to Jane Eye; it is the story of the woman in the attic. It might be fun to read Sargasso Sea first, but it would change your experience of Jane Eyre.
Hi I'm from the U.S. And in high school some of the classics we read are: 12 angry men, In cold blood, brave new world, adventures of huckleberry Finn, the count of monte Cristo and many others you definitely NEED TO READ IN COLD BLOOD, BRAVE NEW WORLD, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO those were some of my absolute favorites
I am slightly disappointed you didn't pick any books from arab countries. We have so much to offer and there are many books translated to english available online in pdf format. I highly recommend you do some googling about arab litterature because it is truly amazing.
www.goodreads.com/list/show/42335.Arabic_Literature_in_English_Translation This is a list of arabic novels available in english. Have fun reading them :D (Though if you ask me, I would recommend you start with The Cairo Trilogy by Naghib Mahfouz)
booksandquills This blinding absence of light by Tahar Ben Jelloun, a morrocan writer. It is not an easy book, but despite the topic very beautiful. The language! And you show one of my all time favourites: Pessoa and I'm a little suprised because my edition is kind of... huge :)
Another book to add to the list of Asian authors: The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata (an Indonesian author) this book was translated from Indonesian, btw :)
Sooo i'm from Mexico, i highly recommend if you ever get across with any of the books of these authors: Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo... i'm sure that my fellow countrymen will help me add some more names :) p.s. your hair looks pretty
My sister's favourite book is Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. She started reading 1Q84, but stopped because she started to find it boring due to it's length. So, I recommend you read Norwegian Wood if you feel like you want to start reading his books.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez also wrote 100 years of solitude which is amazing! I just read it for uni and absolutely loved it. You should definitely pick it up!
I had to read "Rabbit Proof Fence" for school and it's about the true story of three indigenous Australian sisters who are forcibly removed from their family and later escape from a government settlement, trying to find their family again by following the rabbit proof fence from north to south Australia. I read it in 7th grade for English class (I'm German) so it is quite an easy and quick read but I still think it holds up, especially because it's one of a kind and there are certainly not a lot of books about aborigines out there so~ :D
The Asian selection was a bit meagre: have you tried reading Pamuk or Mo Yan? India has tons of other excellent writers, and so does Japan (personally I think that Murakami is overrated, anyway Norwegian Wood is probably a better starting point than 1Q84).
I'm so glad to see a Gabriel García Márquez book here! I really enjoy his books, and also, you should try some Julio Cortázar books or poems! (I know my english it's awful, but I have to leave a comment :B) Greetings from Paraguay!
This is so interesting! If you're interested in Norwegian books (which I just so happened to notice that you didn't mentioned...) you should check out some of Jostein Gaarders works (The Solitaire Mystery and Sophie's World)
Would love it if you did a video about Canadian authors ad books set in Canada, of which there are many great ones; Joseph Boyden, Yann Martel, Farley Mowat, Wayson Choy, and many more.
Love Murakami but have recently also enjoyed Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami - it has a beautifully spare feeling and is I think a very moving friendship/love story.
Would love to hear your thoughts on 1Q84. The first half or so is very intriguing, but I got bogged down by and thought the story lagged/lacked quite bit. I only finished as a promise to myself to get through that page count. Also, you look very nice in this video. The shirt makes your eyes pop SO much
In Spain, for our exams to get into Uni, we have to read 4 famous books. I only enjoyed one, and I think you should add it the To Read List (: It was Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez. The other three...I was forced to read them, so I hated them. They were Gypsy Ballads, by Federico García Lorca; The Truth about the Savolta Case, by Eduardo Mendoza, and La Fundación, by Antonio Buero Vallejo (I think this one is not translated into English). I think I liked Chronicle because it was the last one and I was resigned. (: xx Happy reading!
I'm so glad that people are actually doing this tag! It's been great to hear all the responses. I've added you to the master playlist of all the responses, which is here: ruclips.net/p/PL7BGVbFZGOwtZBVcOv6mGZX5Lilb-khHf
I would like to suggest _Edge_ by Koji Suzuki as a book you might enjoy from Asia. It was a sci-fi/magical realism/horror novel set in Japan sometime in the short future. I found it as terrifying as any Stephen King novel I've ever read and as utterly enthralling as basically any book I've ever read.
You could try Ring and Spiral by Koji Suzuki - which inspired the film "the ring" and there's also a series called Vampire Hunter D which is about a vampire hunter that lives in a post-apocalyptic future by Hideyuki Kikuchi...its also has some pretty illustrations in it by an artist named Yoshitaka Amano (i think) who's pretty famous for designing the front covers of the Final Fantasy Video Game series :) Both authors are from Japan.
this is a really cool tag! i was hoping you'd mention a canadian book in the north america section, sadly we are always overshadowed by our neighbours to the south
Hello, this is a really odd question but could you do a video about a list of books you would advise to read whilst doing exams? I am doing my GCSE exams this year (UK) and I read a reasonable amount of books (about 1 a week) but I am desperate to expand my vocabulary that will help me in my exams! I realise this is quite a specific request but I think lots of people (especially my age- 15+) would really benefit from it- thank you so much :D
Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors, I started with Dance, Dance, Dance then read 1Q84 and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I'd recommend all of them, his books are like no other author's I have ever read, I really think you'll like 1Q84 :) xx
So nice to see Socorro Acioli here!!! I'm from the Northeast Region of Brazil, just like her, but she is from Ceará and I am from Sergipe. Today, she lives in Rio and I live in São Paulo! All beautiful states of Brazil! Hopefully you'll came to visit one day! Her book is beautiful! From the video, I'm obsessed with Murakami (love his view on ancient japanese folklore)!
you should check out banana yoshimoto! she was inspired by haruki murakami and while her primary translator (michael emmerich) can be rather choppy there are some beautiful descriptions in her novels. she does magical realism really well. i recommend the lake and goodbye tsugumi
Thank you again Sanne , I love your videos but you always give me more books to add to my 'to read' list...sigh, will I ever reach the bottom? Scratch that, I don't want to. XD
I have to read Midnight's Children for my World Literature course! I don't know if you've ever heard of it but where I am- Lancaster University- we major in one subject (mine being English Literature) then minor in two other subjects. I minor in philosophy and world literature, and in world literature we focus more on translation, transformation, colonialism and study writers around the world. It's great. :)
Ok, just to let you know... you may or may not like 1Q84 because it's quite, ehr, 'strange' (which is, okay I have to admit, a characteristic of Murakami's books) but I'd definitely would recommend 'After Dark' or 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman'.
So I know this is an old video, but you have to read The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Swiss). I had to read it in a first year detective lit course, and I absolutely love it! Still one of my favourite novels in the genre. (Ps. Canadian literature is awesome ;) )
Have you ever read A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini? Great stand-alone novel, that, although written by an American, is very diverse in it's setting. Very beautiful story!!!! CANNOT WAIT FOR JANE EYRE WEEK, AHHH! Can you discuss which movie adaptation was your fave???!!! PLEASEEEE!
Khaled Hosseini was born and raised in Afghanistan and moved to France when he was 11 until his family moved to USA when he was 15. So even though he has citizenship in USA, he's actually a really diverse author in terms of his background as well as novels :)
Have you heard about When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka? It's about a Japanese-American family during WWII. It's devastating and beautiful and about a period of history that is not very much talked about.
Also! Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai is marvellously fun, and is about this boy whose familial expectations get too much, and who then escapes into a guava tree and is suddenly treated as a god by the village people. It's really whimsical and the author pokes fun at rigid Indian traditions of the previous generations. Highly recommend!
Omg I love ur videos I was happy to find you on a book channel! Because of your dear July video ( and the perks of being a wallflower book) I bought the catcher in the rye and I'm so excited to read it!
I enjoyed that you mentioned some translated European books that were not from Great Britain. :) But I would have loved if you had talked about some more books that were written by actual natives of these continents or countries. Like Native American or Polynesian literature? I think that would have been much more effective for a tag that's trying to promote diversity in reading. Your choices for North America and Australia in particular seemed a bit bland to me. I do understand, however, that you can't have read everything - especially if it's lesser known. :)
I wanted to mostly pick books that I already owned, because they're on my direct to read list. (It took me several hours to even find those!) But of course I'm always open for any other suggestions!
I'd probably say Heidi for Europe. I love the edition my Oma gave me :) I'm so glad she did give it to me, otherwise I would have only ever seen the old tattered copy my cousins dumped on us because they didn't want it. The copy Oma gave me has pictures and is so gorgeous and AGGHH!!! It's so great :D Also, Marcus Zusack lives in Australia if that counts.
A tip from a massive G. G. Marquez fan: don't read The General in his Labirynth. Possibly at all. It's entirely skippable, and only read it if you want to complete his major works, otherwise you'll be bored to death and have a bad impression of him as an author. I suggest you start with Love in the Time of Cholera, becaus that is one of his best novels. If you like that, then you can move on to the bigger and more difficult ones: One hundred years of solitude, and The Autumn of the Partiarch. Only of you really enjoyed these should you try his other works. If however you want to read a good biography of Bolivar (that's what The General in his Labirynth is supposed to be) I hear that "Bolivar: American Liberator" by Marie Arana is really good. I haven't read it, but people who's taste I trust reccomended it highly.
You really read more books from Australia. The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden is one of my absolute favourite series and I really think it would be one you'd enjoy :)
Haruki Murakami is amazing! I haven't read 1Q84 yet, but so far, 'Norwegian Wood' and 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' are two of my favourites books by him. Groetjes uit Nederland!
It appears that I totally forgot about Canada. I'm SORRY CANADA!
Alice Munro! Margaret Atwood! Robertson Davies! Timothy Findley! Canadians add more below!
Mordecai Richler! Anne-Marie MacDonald! Yann Martel! Robert J. Sawyer! And George F. Walker! (he does a lot of playwriting, if anyone's interested in that)
CANADA OR RIOT!
Margaret Laurence, Rohinton Mistry, Douglas Coupland, Louise Penny and Michael Ondaatje are all great authors.
Gabrielle Roy. We read The Road Past Altamont in Can Lit and I fell in love. Plus we need to rep our French Canadians non?
I'm gonna add Terry Fallis to the list of Canadians because I love him. If satire is your thing (think "The Thick of It"/ Armando Iannucci) then check him out.
The American books were pretty standard. Good books but the ones you expect to hear about. So just to switch it up: Sherman Alexie - Native American and so good. Also Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. He's Native American but he teaches in Canada so we can claim him right?
This is such a fascinating tag! Also so glad you mentioned Into the Wild! It's by far my favorite nonfiction novel. It is very similar to the movie, but it does go into detail on a lot of things that the movie didn't and there's an entire chapter that talks about similar situations involving people who abandoned civilization to live off the land as well, so if you were fascinated by Chris' story that part will definitely interest you and it is definitely worth the read!
Also, your hair looks so beautiful Sanne!
Murakami is een van mijn favoriete schrijvers ooit! Normaal ben ik niet zo gul met de superlatieven maar hier maak ik graag een uitzondering. Hij schrijft gewoon zo ontzettend mooi, je zit echt helemaal in het verhaal en hij verrast me keer op keer. Mijn absolute aanrader, ook al is het best indrukwekkend als je het voor de eerste keer vastneemt, is Kafka op het strand met 900 pagina's, al betwijfel ik niet dat jij al voor grotere vuren hebt gestaan. P.S.: zo leuk om iemand van deze streken op RUclips te zien! Liefs van je zuiderburen.
I'm SO SURPRISED to see Fernando Pessoa there! Here in Brazil - between us, book lovers - he's sooo loved! But Ive never seen anyone from other countries reading him - I didnt even know his books could be found in English! :D
What about Socorro Acioli (aquela fofa!)? Not only she is Brazilian, she is from Ceará. I was like * o * hahahahahaha
Thank you so much for tagging me! And phew, what a tough tag!! There are so many books you mentioned that I want to check out :)
I absolutely *love* Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea .... I may have to take this chance to reread them! Wide Sargasso Sea is such an incredible book... I'm pretty sure it changed my life.
If Murakami turns out to be not your thing or you want something more light-hearted from Japan, try Banana Yoshimoto. Great contemporary author! For fantasy, you might enjoy Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms.
And being Dutch, you might even know this, but I am dead-sure you will enjoy Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. If you want to venture into German "fantasy" books.That one is a joy to all booklovers, I guarantee it!
machinaheart The never ending story was a book!?!?!?! :O I adored the movie as a child
Available in English as well, I believe. Might want to check it out, it's definitely worth it. I sure hope they made the translation as pretty as the original. The book is printed in two colours, one for Fantasien and one for the real world. It's lovely.
:O I am soo finding that!
I'm obsessed with Murakami and his modern view on ancient japanese folklore. He is just perfect. But I can understand people that can't connect with that... It may seem dark sometimes or just "unreal" for most people... (Kisses from Brazil).
This is such an excellent tag. I recognize some of these titles from going through your library and I'm really interested in reading The Circle and We, The Drowned. Actually a lot of these look great!
The Circle was such an intriguing read. Those girls are so different so bringing them together in that way was great.
Great choices, but going to continue the call for Canadian lit! Also Mexican lit! North America is more than the US ;)
Great list! To Kill a Mockingbird is probably one of my favourite books.
Another I'd recommend for you to read is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (the author was born in Japan, but has spent most of his life in Britain). It's absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking.
He has also written The Remains of the Day, which I must admit I haven't read yet.
MacduffProd I have already read Never Let Me Go and I LOVE it. Damn, I knew I would forget about something.
MacduffProd I read The Remains of the Day for a class I took last spring and I absolutely loved it. It was for a class called Approaches to Literary Interpretation so we talked a lot about identity and ideology in relation to the book. I definitely recommend it if you enjoyed Never Let Me Go!
I am so keen to read Never Let Me Go, it's been on my tbr list for a while now!!
I read "The Unconsoled" because I'm obcessed by music since I was little (I don't understand why I never chose it as a career path...) and it was such a compulsive reading... Such a great read for a time when i was also being too worried about stuff out of my control, it changed my perspective, but I have to admit it raised my ansiety a lil bit. I'd advise it to anyone who can read it in a single day or weekend (Im not a fast reader so...) so you don't feel suffocated like I did. I still have to read "The Buried Giant" which is in my shelf but I'm giving myself time to read other books before i run through an Ishiguro's book again. I'd be able to finish his entire list of books by the end of the year if I allowed myself and then puff... No more Ishiguro's new stuff to read... How sad hahaha
Loved this, and appreciate the amount of work to make it! Your editions of so many of those title are just beautiful :)
Excellent choices! You have made me very excited. I was about to go to bed, but now I'm going to go raid my bookshelves instead, in anticipation of doing this tag. BRB. xx
Dear Sanne, may I just recommend you a few more Asian books?
1. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
5. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohamed Hanif
I love this tag, btw. Diversity is awesome. I feel like booktube is too inundated by UK/US YA books most of the time.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Agreed with "I feel like booktube is too inundated by UK/US YA books most of the time." As much as I enjoy watching booktube hauls and bookshelf tour, a lot of the time everyone talks about the same things. the same books over and OVER. I love John Green as much as the next person but I feel the viewers see the same recommendations in a loop... so I'm very happy to see a 'Reading Diversely Tag'.
Some more recommendations for you Sanne:
- Anything written by Jhumpa Lahiri is fantastic imo, but a good place to start might be 'The Interpreter of Maladies' which is an excellent short stories collection.
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (a recurring theme is discussion of the book- The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, a Russian author)
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (to go with A Thousand Splendid Suns)
- since feminism is so big on RUclips rn, I Am Malala
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (written by an Indian who works as a doctor in USA, set in Africa+ USA. very good book!)
I read The Namesake at university, but I didn't enjoy it very much. I definitely want to read one of Jumpha's other books. Thanks for the recommendations :)
That edition of Ghana Must Go is gorgeous. I've read it and I had a hard time getting into it, but in the end I was glad I read it. The Circle sounds right up my alley- I pretty much love anything witchy. Thank you for sharing your recommendations!
I really loved this video, of course, and thank you to mention The Head of the Saint, with its stunning cover. : )
I wouldn't start with 1Q84 if you want to get acquainted with Murakami! It's a really, really, really intense novel, and I rarely hear first time readers enjoying it -- it's great, but it feels a bit like work to get through it. I'd start with Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore, but if you start with 1Q84 I hope you enjoy it! (or I hope it doesn't put you off of Murakami!)
I was just thinking that! I feel like it's best to start with one of his shorter books so you can get used to his style/weirdness.
I second that.
Thanks for letting me know :)
I completely agree! I read those two first and I think it enriched my Murikami experience
So happy you mentioned a Swedish book! The film version of that is actually coming out pretty soon (spring 2015 if I'm not mistaken) and I'm soooo excited!
I'm getting back into my university reading list and I'm ADDICTED to Sanne's videos
I read a lot of South American literature because I live in Central America and I think I'd be best if you'd start out (When it comes to Gabriel Garcia Marquez) with books like Of Love and Other Demons, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and even Memories of My Melancholy Whores
You could also read Who Killed Palomino Molero? and The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Also, I think you left out Mexico. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes are very good!
Also, I love your videos
xx
Such a great video! The Book of Disquiet is a collection of texts of Fernado Pessoa ( one of the best, if not the best, Portuguese author who ever lived) it's really good but a little depressing, it does a fantastic job portraying the soul of Lisbon and Portugal (weird I know). And it's not actually written by Pessoa but one of his heteronyms Bernardo Soares (at least some versions of it). An heteronym is an imaginary character created by the Pessoa to write in different styles! if you read some of his other works you see that they are all completely different: from their views to the writing itself! Pessoa has 75 heteronyms! I really love Pessoa's writing style, his poetry is wonderful! Sorry for rambling and my shitty english!
I love Wide Sargasso Sea,I love the fact that Jean Rys,gave Rochester mad Wife a voice.
An interesting reading list. Some of my favourite books from various countries include:
Australia: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton - about two families living together in a house in the suburbs of Perth over a 20 year period; The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower - a gripping read about domestic violence - more mind games than actual physical violence; The Tree of Man by Patrick White (Nobel Prize for Literature 1973) - about a man settling in the Australian bush - outside Sydney. He marries, clears his land, develops it and as he gets old sees suburbia creeping up close to his property. Very well written. These three books usually come up in "Ten best novels by an Australian".
South American novelists i don't see mentioned that I enjoy are Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Bad Girl. The other is Jorge Amado's Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon.
USA: Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety and Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey are brilliant reads. John Updike's Rabbit series - especially the 2nd 3rd and 4th novels are great but Crossing to Safety and Sometimes a Great Notion are even better.
Russia: Anna Karenina by LeoTolstoy and A Hero of our Time by Mikhail Lermontov.
If You haven't read any Murakami, read Sputnik Sweetheart or The Wind-up Bird Chronicle before Norwegian Wood. Liked Norwegian Wood but loved Sputnik Sweetheart.
I could go on but that will do for now!
Have you ever been to Frankfurt Book Fair? I love that they have different countries as guest of honour every year which makes it easier to discover books from foreign countries that you probably wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
This tag makes me realize how effective my high school was in making its students read diversely. I think I can honestly say we read at least one book from every continent (except maybe Australia... Oops sorry! Oh well, I personally supplemented my own Australian reading with Melina Marchetta galore).
Anyway, loving the hair Sanne!
I loved your new hair cut! haahaha I'm happy to see you talking about a brazilian author, altough I haven't read this book yet but I'm looking forward to
This is awesome. I'm Portuguese, yet I've never read a Portuguese book, nor a book by a Portuguese author. I'm embarrassed to say that. Will have to explore and get outside my box.
You are missing out a lot! I really like Saramago, but he's not very easy, as he has his very peculiar way of writing. I have read The Book of Disquiet, and it was good, but it's more like a collection of notes (the ordering of which is still argued by critics) than a usual novel. Antonio Tabucchi is Italian but set several novels in Portugal, the best being Pereira Declares). Happy reading!
mcol3 thank you so much, I will definitely check it out. I have such a huge list of books I need to read, I really need to hurry up and read them all.
I haven't read much of my country's literature as well-I'm from Panama. It just never called my attention, sadly. But just following on the Jose Saramago's recommendation, I've read only two books by him: Blindness, which I loved and deeply recommend, and All The Names, which was all right. I have The Double on my to-read shelf which is supposedly good. :) Happy reads!
Wait you have not read Paulo Coelho?
elenh9898 no, I actually have not. I know, it's like a sin. Don't judge me. I've read lovely passages, just never picked up a book and read it. I will, I promise.
@Kitzhun Because I don't speak Danish...
As you're looking for more Asian authors, I would highly, highly recommend Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. I've only read his most recent book, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, but it immediately became one of my all-time favorite books. It's moving and well-written and has a pretty unique structure/style, at least among the books I've read. (It's written in second person and is the story of a man's life and love told as if it were a self-help book.)
Into the wild is absolutely wonderful. Both book and film are as good as each other which is very rare! Hope you enjoy it! xx
Loved that you didn't put one of those very famous Brazilian writers and used the lovely Socorro.
This video was about books you've already read, so I totally get why the books themselves aren't very diverse. :) However, now that you are aware that you haven't read that many books from other regions, maybe now you could do a "Reading Diversely" challenge. Maybe two books from each region? And this time the books have to be written by people from that region. It would be fun and pretty interesting to see what kinds of books you choose!
Great selection! However, got to point out that North America ALSO includes Canada and Mexico! Would have loved to hear about our amazing canadian lit
The Arrival by Shaun Tan is literally in every Australian primary school library! Love that book.
I'm so happy that you alked about the Circle! I love those books. I am currently rereading them as audiobooks while I draw comics.
Ahh, I definitely need to do this tag once I'm back home with all my books.
Wow, I paused the video after you mentioned The Arrival to recommend Tales from Outer Suburbia. Guess there's no need. I just read it for uni and absolutely loved it...can't wait to see what you think!
WeNeedDiverseBooks is an organization that started this year that is all about *gasp* diversity in literature! And I am a stalwart supporter of them so this video makes me happy :D I have some of those books on my list, now I have to add some of those other ones! The Head of the Saint one seems really cool :)
One of my favourite German books is The Man Outside by Wolfgang Borchert. It is a short play about a young man who comes back from World War II to discover that his wife has an affair with another man. He then spends the night outside and meets some people he went to war with. And some editions also contain a collection of short stories which are all about the post war era.
Another German book I really love is Zoo Station - The Story of Christiane F. It's about a teenage girl in the late 70s or 80s who develops a heroine addiction and becomes a prostitute in order to pay for the drugs. It was a huge scandal back then and is still really shocking. Apparently she never never recovered and is still addicted to heroine.
I hope you find the books interesting and let me know if you might want to read them :)
I really wasn't prepared to see The Circle in here, even though I know you've read it, so I got really really excited since it's one of my favourite book series. There's a movie on its way, and the first full trailer is going to be online next week - I'm seeing it in the cinema tomorrow! It's in Swedish but they're hoping to release it internationally as well.
Fun fact: both authors are on tumblr and there's also a small but amazing little fandom on there, so if anyone wants to come say hi, you can find us in the tag 'engelsfors' (my url is magicae) :)
***** Yay! I follow one of the author on Tumblr already, I think. And I'm excited to see the trailer :)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay takes place partly in Antarctica, that could kind of count ...? :)
My favorite Steinbeck is East of Eden, it's a brilliant book. I also love Love in the Time of Cholera.
I'd also recommend Isabel Allende (In the Time of the Butterflies) who is Chilean, Markus Zusak (The Book Thief, I Am the Messenger) who is Australian, Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go) who is Japanese, Sherman Alexie (Blasphemy) who is Native American, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah) who is Nigerian.
I was so surprised you mentioned Portugal, it doesn't happen very often... Fernando Pessoa was a great writer in my country and we have to read some of his other work in high school... Hope you enjoy the book!!
Carsten Jensen visited my Creative Writing class last year to talk about his writing of "We the Drowned". :) I can tell you, he has done a LOT of research for the book. It sounded really interesting. It's fun to hear you, Sanne, talk about it now. :)
The title of this video alone inspired me to include diversity in my reading goals for 2015, not just quantity. :D So I'd like to read books from 6 continents, books from a minimum of different eras, dif. genres etc...
I'd like to read Jane Eyre but no way am I able to do that before Monday. Too bad. :\
Yessssss, the circle! :D
I'm studying post-colonialism, multiculturalism and the literary genre of talking back at the moment, and some of these books really intrigued me, especially the Rushdie one. I've only ever heard people talk about the Satanic Verses, so it would be interesting to read something else of his. We've just read Things Fall Apart, which just blew me away, and it's now on my list of favourites. We read Heart of Darkness before it, and the talking back-genre has really captured me. I have never read a book written from the colonialised people's pov, and I need to get better at that. Which means I have to read Wide Sargasso Sea as well.
Wide Sargasso Sea was written as a prequel to Jane Eye; it is the story of the woman in the attic. It might be fun to read Sargasso Sea first, but it would change your experience of Jane Eyre.
love love loved wide sargasso sea! can't wait to see your review!
I was so happy to see that you included a portuguese author :')
Hi I'm from the U.S. And in high school some of the classics we read are: 12 angry men, In cold blood, brave new world, adventures of huckleberry Finn, the count of monte Cristo and many others you definitely NEED TO READ IN COLD BLOOD, BRAVE NEW WORLD, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO those were some of my absolute favorites
I am slightly disappointed you didn't pick any books from arab countries. We have so much to offer and there are many books translated to english available online in pdf format. I highly recommend you do some googling about arab litterature because it is truly amazing.
It would be great if you could give some recommendations! :)
www.goodreads.com/list/show/42335.Arabic_Literature_in_English_Translation
This is a list of arabic novels available in english. Have fun reading them :D
(Though if you ask me, I would recommend you start with The Cairo Trilogy by Naghib Mahfouz)
booksandquills This blinding absence of light by Tahar Ben Jelloun, a morrocan writer. It is not an easy book, but despite the topic very beautiful. The language! And you show one of my all time favourites: Pessoa and I'm a little suprised because my edition is kind of... huge :)
booksandquills Have you not read The Kite Runner? I think originally written in English but one of my all time favourite books!
No New Zealand? Not even the Luminaries? :( We always get forgotten!
Another book to add to the list of Asian authors:
The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata (an Indonesian author) this book was translated from Indonesian, btw :)
Just as a suggestion for Jane Eyre week (which is an awesome idea by the way!) have you read The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde?
Nice video! So many beautiful covers. (And wow your hair looks great)
Sooo i'm from Mexico, i highly recommend if you ever get across with any of the books of these authors:
Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo...
i'm sure that my fellow countrymen will help me add some more names :)
p.s. your hair looks pretty
Midnight's Children is one of my most favorite books ever. I think you'll love it.
True. That book is so special💜✌👍👌
One of my favorite books, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent an Australian author. It's about the last woman to receive the death penalty in Iceland.
My sister's favourite book is Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. She started reading 1Q84, but stopped because she started to find it boring due to it's length. So, I recommend you read Norwegian Wood if you feel like you want to start reading his books.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez also wrote 100 years of solitude which is amazing! I just read it for uni and absolutely loved it. You should definitely pick it up!
I had to read "Rabbit Proof Fence" for school and it's about the true story of three indigenous Australian sisters who are forcibly removed from their family and later escape from a government settlement, trying to find their family again by following the rabbit proof fence from north to south Australia. I read it in 7th grade for English class (I'm German) so it is quite an easy and quick read but I still think it holds up, especially because it's one of a kind and there are certainly not a lot of books about aborigines out there so~ :D
Great list! :)
I've just purchased the danish copy of We, The Drowned, and can't wait to get started! :)
Your haircut looks great!! :)
Kimberly Destree Thanks!
The Asian selection was a bit meagre: have you tried reading Pamuk or Mo Yan? India has tons of other excellent writers, and so does Japan (personally I think that Murakami is overrated, anyway Norwegian Wood is probably a better starting point than 1Q84).
I'm so glad to see a Gabriel García Márquez book here! I really enjoy his books, and also, you should try some Julio Cortázar books or poems! (I know my english it's awful, but I have to leave a comment :B)
Greetings from Paraguay!
You should totally read something by Leo Masliah, or Mario Benedetti. Both are my favorite Uruguayan writers and their art is amaaaaazing. :)
This is so interesting! If you're interested in Norwegian books (which I just so happened to notice that you didn't mentioned...) you should check out some of Jostein Gaarders works (The Solitaire Mystery and Sophie's World)
Would love it if you did a video about Canadian authors ad books set in Canada, of which there are many great ones; Joseph Boyden, Yann Martel, Farley Mowat, Wayson Choy, and many more.
Love Murakami but have recently also enjoyed Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami - it has a beautifully spare feeling and is I think a very moving friendship/love story.
Would love to hear your thoughts on 1Q84. The first half or so is very intriguing, but I got bogged down by and thought the story lagged/lacked quite bit. I only finished as a promise to myself to get through that page count.
Also, you look very nice in this video. The shirt makes your eyes pop SO much
In Spain, for our exams to get into Uni, we have to read 4 famous books. I only enjoyed one, and I think you should add it the To Read List (:
It was Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez.
The other three...I was forced to read them, so I hated them. They were Gypsy Ballads, by Federico García Lorca; The Truth about the Savolta Case, by Eduardo Mendoza, and La Fundación, by Antonio Buero Vallejo (I think this one is not translated into English).
I think I liked Chronicle because it was the last one and I was resigned.
(:
xx
Happy reading!
I'm so glad that people are actually doing this tag! It's been great to hear all the responses. I've added you to the master playlist of all the responses, which is here: ruclips.net/p/PL7BGVbFZGOwtZBVcOv6mGZX5Lilb-khHf
I would like to suggest _Edge_ by Koji Suzuki as a book you might enjoy from Asia. It was a sci-fi/magical realism/horror novel set in Japan sometime in the short future. I found it as terrifying as any Stephen King novel I've ever read and as utterly enthralling as basically any book I've ever read.
You could try Ring and Spiral by Koji Suzuki - which inspired the film "the ring" and there's also a series called Vampire Hunter D which is about a vampire hunter that lives in a post-apocalyptic future by Hideyuki Kikuchi...its also has some pretty illustrations in it by an artist named Yoshitaka Amano (i think) who's pretty famous for designing the front covers of the Final Fantasy Video Game series :) Both authors are from Japan.
this is a really cool tag! i was hoping you'd mention a canadian book in the north america section, sadly we are always overshadowed by our neighbours to the south
Hello, this is a really odd question but could you do a video about a list of books you would advise to read whilst doing exams? I am doing my GCSE exams this year (UK) and I read a reasonable amount of books (about 1 a week) but I am desperate to expand my vocabulary that will help me in my exams! I realise this is quite a specific request but I think lots of people (especially my age- 15+) would really benefit from it- thank you so much :D
Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors, I started with Dance, Dance, Dance then read 1Q84 and The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I'd recommend all of them, his books are like no other author's I have ever read, I really think you'll like 1Q84 :) xx
So nice to see Socorro Acioli here!!! I'm from the Northeast Region of Brazil, just like her, but she is from Ceará and I am from Sergipe. Today, she lives in Rio and I live in São Paulo! All beautiful states of Brazil! Hopefully you'll came to visit one day! Her book is beautiful! From the video, I'm obsessed with Murakami (love his view on ancient japanese folklore)!
Sanne, your new hair is so lovely! :) x
Thank you :)
Herman Bang. Wrote new journalism articles, but in the 19th century. Pretty rad dude.
I'm South African and you just mentioned a writer I didn't even know we had, (So many books added to my to be read list!)
you should check out banana yoshimoto! she was inspired by haruki murakami and while her primary translator (michael emmerich) can be rather choppy there are some beautiful descriptions in her novels. she does magical realism really well. i recommend the lake and goodbye tsugumi
Thank you again Sanne , I love your videos but you always give me more books to add to my 'to read' list...sigh, will I ever reach the bottom? Scratch that, I don't want to. XD
I have to read Midnight's Children for my World Literature course! I don't know if you've ever heard of it but where I am- Lancaster University- we major in one subject (mine being English Literature) then minor in two other subjects. I minor in philosophy and world literature, and in world literature we focus more on translation, transformation, colonialism and study writers around the world. It's great. :)
Great video! I also read Disgrace for university and ALSO never finished Midnight's Children (both for Liebregts' contemporary lit course), oops...
Haha yup, that was the course I was talking about!
You must read "Ella que todo lo tuvo" by Ángela Becerra, she is. A colombian writer. And The boook is so amazing.
Ok, just to let you know... you may or may not like 1Q84 because it's quite, ehr, 'strange' (which is, okay I have to admit, a characteristic of Murakami's books) but I'd definitely would recommend 'After Dark' or 'Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman'.
I absolutely loved this tag
So I know this is an old video, but you have to read The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Swiss). I had to read it in a first year detective lit course, and I absolutely love it! Still one of my favourite novels in the genre. (Ps. Canadian literature is awesome ;) )
I loved " Del amor y otros demonios" from García Marquez :D... "Of love and other demons" I really recommend it
Have you ever read A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini? Great stand-alone novel, that, although written by an American, is very diverse in it's setting. Very beautiful story!!!! CANNOT WAIT FOR JANE EYRE WEEK, AHHH! Can you discuss which movie adaptation was your fave???!!! PLEASEEEE!
its* - sorry I'm obviously a horrible English major.
Yes, of course!
Khaled Hosseini was born and raised in Afghanistan and moved to France when he was 11 until his family moved to USA when he was 15. So even though he has citizenship in USA, he's actually a really diverse author in terms of his background as well as novels :)
Charr Frears Yeah he's actually a family friend of mine :)
Have you heard about When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka? It's about a Japanese-American family during WWII. It's devastating and beautiful and about a period of history that is not very much talked about.
Also! Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai is marvellously fun, and is about this boy whose familial expectations get too much, and who then escapes into a guava tree and is suddenly treated as a god by the village people. It's really whimsical and the author pokes fun at rigid Indian traditions of the previous generations. Highly recommend!
I recomend Cortazar or Borges, both argentinian and amazing..
Rayuela one of my fav
Fun fact: Into the Wild is a true story. It actually happened. I read it in high school. :)
You should read the Outsiders. It's an amazing book.
Omg I love ur videos I was happy to find you on a book channel! Because of your dear July video ( and the perks of being a wallflower book) I bought the catcher in the rye and I'm so excited to read it!
I can't believe you didn't put 'The Book Thief' for Australia.
jane eyre week is a great idea especially since that is what i'm reading right now. what a pleasant coincidence.
Love in the times of cholera is one of my favourite books. Probably the most beautiful love story ever!
I enjoyed that you mentioned some translated European books that were not from Great Britain. :)
But I would have loved if you had talked about some more books that were written by actual natives of these continents or countries. Like Native American or Polynesian literature? I think that would have been much more effective for a tag that's trying to promote diversity in reading. Your choices for North America and Australia in particular seemed a bit bland to me. I do understand, however, that you can't have read everything - especially if it's lesser known. :)
I wanted to mostly pick books that I already owned, because they're on my direct to read list. (It took me several hours to even find those!) But of course I'm always open for any other suggestions!
I'd probably say Heidi for Europe. I love the edition my Oma gave me :) I'm so glad she did give it to me, otherwise I would have only ever seen the old tattered copy my cousins dumped on us because they didn't want it. The copy Oma gave me has pictures and is so gorgeous and AGGHH!!! It's so great :D
Also, Marcus Zusack lives in Australia if that counts.
A tip from a massive G. G. Marquez fan: don't read The General in his Labirynth. Possibly at all. It's entirely skippable, and only read it if you want to complete his major works, otherwise you'll be bored to death and have a bad impression of him as an author. I suggest you start with Love in the Time of Cholera, becaus that is one of his best novels. If you like that, then you can move on to the bigger and more difficult ones: One hundred years of solitude, and The Autumn of the Partiarch. Only of you really enjoyed these should you try his other works.
If however you want to read a good biography of Bolivar (that's what The General in his Labirynth is supposed to be) I hear that "Bolivar: American Liberator" by Marie Arana is really good. I haven't read it, but people who's taste I trust reccomended it highly.
I am from South America and you should read Mario Vargas Llosa books.
You really read more books from Australia. The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden is one of my absolute favourite series and I really think it would be one you'd enjoy :)
Haruki Murakami is amazing! I haven't read 1Q84 yet, but so far, 'Norwegian Wood' and 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' are two of my favourites books by him.
Groetjes uit Nederland!