Travel the World in Books: North and South America and Foodie Favourites!

Having started the Travel the World in Books readathon with Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I've now temporarily traded Barcelona for the hills of Pakistan and am absolutely immersed in I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai. It's the readalong pick for Nonfiction November next month so I'm jumping the gun a bit but it came into the library and I couldn't resist. It is incredible to think about the age of the author when you're reading something so full of wisdom. I'm learning a huge amount from it!

Back to the daily topics for the readathon, and I'm of course catching up on a couple of days at once. As I'm so hopelessly narrowly read I am including everything I've read since I began blogging in these geographical posts. Hopefully next year I'll have enough to just talk about the previous years' books!

Canada

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie

I just finished this a couple of weeks ago and only picked it up because it was longlisted for the Giller Prize this year. Before that I'd never heard of it - besides Margaret Atwood I don't tend to read a lot of CanLit, which I will be changing - but I'm so glad I picked it up! Will is eleven and never goes outside. His mother has agoraphobia and he has picked up on how much it would worry her if he did so he just doesn't, until one day he does and he meets a boy. When the boy disappears Will ventures into the Outside to try to find him and all kinds of things happen along the way. I thought this would just be interesting because of the plot and its subject but it's actually also got a lot of really interesting stuff about the way that native peoples have been treated in Canada. Super great. 

Dominican Republic

Drown and This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

These are the two most incredible short story collections I've ever read. They're all interlinked and based around the same character, Yunior, who also features in Diaz's novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Both collections are all about childhood and growing up and women and life. The stories are full of Dominican culture and expectations and they are just so other to what I know. They are the best kind of learning and I love them. 

Haiti

An Untamed Stateby Roxane Gay 

Really I wanted to read Bad Feminist but my library don't have it and I couldn't buy it because of my book buying ban so I settled for this and I'm very glad that I did. It's extremely uncomfortable reading but probably one of the most memorable books I've read this year (yes, I actually did read this one this year!). It is about a wealthy Haitian woman who is kidnapped while visiting her parents and held to ransom and the things that she endures and the way that her American husband deals with the situation. As well as having a lot of background about Haiti, a country I know little about, it's also a really interesting look at family dynamics and what you should be able to expect from your parents and spouse. 

USA

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

This is one of my favourite books. I recently reread it and it really stands up. It's about three generations of a dysfunctional family gathering at their beach house in Maine and the way they (mostly fail to) communicate and be in each others lives and really it's about the importance family, regardless of your history. 

I am really mad at myself for having nothing from South America on here but I guess I know where I need to focus my attention next!

Food Glorious Food!

In terms of world cuisine, I'm a big fan! I like to try as much different stuff as I can but I do find a lot of cookery books fairly uninspiring. Massive exceptions to this rule are The Edible Atlas by Mina Holland which goes around the world giving histories of each country/region and a couple of recipes particular to that area. I borrowed it from the library but must get my own copy once the new year hits. Also Miss Masala by Mallika Basu which is an Indian cookery book but also kind of an autobiography and has a lot of background about dishes and tips for cooking Indian food in general, the most useful of which I have found to be, stop calling it naan bread. Naan is the Indian word for bread. It's like when you ask someone to enter their 'Personal Identification Number Number'.

Fiction with food... Favourites are the previously mentioned Chocolat and it's sequels by Joanne Harris which will just make you want to eat all the sweet things. Also Sarah Addison Allen's books, all set in small towns in the U.S and almost all featuring recipes which I'm dying to make. My favourite is Garden Spells. Heading back to the UK and another author who writes gorgeous fiction with recipes is Jenny Colgan; particularly the Cupcake Cafe series and the Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams books. 

I'm really enjoying this readathon so far. I've got tons of recommendations from other people's posts and I really like how it's bringing things to my attention and making me remember. 

Make Mine an Indie: Canongate

Welcome back to another edition of Make Mine an Indie, this week featuring the publishers of one of my all time favourite authors, Scarlett Thomas.

Canongate was established in 1973 and has pretty much been successful and independent since then, with a brief hiccup around 1994. The publish a wide range of things with an emphasis on the international and nurturing new talent from around the world. They are also one of the founding members of the Independent Alliance, which also includes Faber & Faber and Icon among other publishers.

At first I found Canongate's website slightly scary as it's set up in a totally non-traditional and unexpected way, but after a while browsing it I think I'm in love! I've been signed up to their newsletter for a while now and honestly while on my book buying ban I try to avoid reading it because I know that I'll immediately want to read everything mentioned... Besides Scarlett Thomas's work I've also read a few of their other titles and can say they're probably one of my favourite publishers.

On that note, some books I'm particularly excited to read:

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
From the Canongate website:


Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again.

A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive, Reasons to Stay Alive is more than a memoir. It is a book about making the most of your time on earth.

You probably don't need me to tell you about Matt Haig, particularly if you're on twitter and a fan of people saying sensible things. People who have read this book say that it's immense and I'd really like to read it. 
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
From Olivia Laing's website
:

What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens?

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives – from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to the depredations of the AIDS crisis – Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone.


Humane, provocative and deeply moving, The Lonely City is a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.

This sounds really really intriguing and just entirely like something I want to read as soon as possible! Not out until March 2016 though.

Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
From the Canongate website:




Fantastic, fantastical and utterly incomparable, Kelly Link's new collection explores everything from the essence of ghosts to the nature of love. And hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the pyramids . . . 

With each story she weaves, Link takes readers deep into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed universe. Strange, dark and wry, Get in Trouble reveals Kelly Link at the height of her creative powers and stretches the boundaries of what fiction can do.

I have another of Kelly Link's collections and have read several of her short stories in other collections and loved them. Also I definitely don't read enough short stories!

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot




There isn't yet a description for this other than in Canongate's 2016 catalogue but it sounds like a fascinating blend of memoir and nature writing, and as you'll know if you've been around these parts for a while, I'm all about something that has to do with the healing power of the sea!







Published by Canongate that I've already read and you should get hold of asap: Going Out, Popco, The End of Mr Y, Our Tragic Universe, Monkeys with Typewriters, The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas, The Edible Atlas by Mina Holland, and the entire Canongate Myths series.

God I love Canongate! Find them on their website, twitter and facebook.

Catch up on the rest of the Make Mine an Indie series here, and if you have a favourite publisher you'd love to see featured please let me know!

Travel the World in Books: Africa, Asia, Australia & Europe

As promised I'm running a couple of days behind schedule on the discussion topics for the Travel the World in Books Readathon, but here I am with day 4 and day 5 combined! I'm going to go by continent and mention the highlights of what I've read. None of them have as many as I'd like them to but that can be rectified!

Africa

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This is a mini book version of the TED talk that she gave and is absolutely fascinating and just so important. If I could, I would make everybody read it. It's particularly interesting to see feminism from a non-Western point of view.

The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
This book is set between London and Nigeria and is the story of eight year old Jessamy, a child with an active imagination, and her struggle to come to terms with both her English and Nigerian heritage. It's a little bit creepy, a little bit mysterious and very well written.

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
I'm including this even though I had to return it to the library unfinished because I only stopped reading it due to time constraints, not because I didn't like it. It tells the story of four brothers who decide to become fishermen and the tragedy that befalls their family because of that decision. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year and incorporates a lot of Nigerian fairytale elements into it. I'm planning to finish it sometime soon.

Asia

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
I've read Kafka on the Shore by Murakami as well as getting distracted a few (very enjoyable) chapters into 1Q84 which I will be getting back to soon. I read Norwegian Wood way back in 2012 and looking back on my posts about it (I read it as part of a readalong) there were things I loved and things I really didn't like. I like the way Murakami writes relationships though, they always seem to be fairly detached, in as much as they don't take over the entire book. He also writes well about people's internal state, and this book is very much about the psychological condition of the main character, Toru.

Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw

A beautifully written novel about Indonesia during the '60s. Rereading my review I remember very little about it, but I have clung onto a desire to read more of Tash Aw's work and the memory that I learned a lot from it!

Australia

The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart

This is the only book I remember reading that's actually set in Australia, which I kind of feel terrible about, but it's a very good one! It's nonfiction and about how Susan Maushart got rid of technology from the lives of herself and her kids for a 3 month period. They lived in Perth while 'the experiment' was going on and it is mentioned quite a lot but it's not really the central focus of the book. Regardless, I would highly recommend this book, particularly if you're interested in how technology affects our habits.

Europe

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

This book is super cute. Anna is sent by her father to the American School in Paris for her senior year, where she meets Etienne...It's YA and just really lovely, all about exploring Paris and falling in love.

Chocolat, The Lollipop Shoes and Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure by Joanne Harris

A trio of books about chocolatier Vianne Rocher and her various adventures around (mostly rural) France. These books are full of magic and wonder and yumminess and they are some of my favourites. Actually I'd highly recommend all of Joanne Harris's work, but these fulfill the international criteria.

Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co by Jeremy Mercer

This is Jeremy Mercer's memoir about the time that he spent in the famous Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company. It's fantastic, and if you didn't already want to go there its tales of eccentricity and literacy will definitely make you want to!

That's all I have for today but I've been reading everyone else's posts and my TBR has already grown exponentially!