Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Expanding Your Horizons Challenge

Book Nut's Expanding Horizons challenge fits in perfectly with my Reading Across Borders long-term challenge. Here is a preliminary list of books I would like to read for the challenge. I'll probably narrow down my choices closer to January.

1. African/African-American
Links - Nuruddin Farah (Somalia) (Finished 08 Jan 2008)
A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leone)
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

2. Asian/Asian-American
Red Poppies - Alai (Tibet)
Dream of the Red Chamber - Tsao Hsueh-Chin (China)

3. Hispanic/Latin American
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Motorcycle Diaries - Che Guevera (Finished 20 April 2008)
The Essential Neruda - Pablo Neruda

4. Indian/Indian-American
Climbing the Mango Trees - Jaffrey Madhur
Serving Crazy with Curry - Amulya Malladi
The Space Between Us - Thrity Umrigar

5. Middle Eastern (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Turkey...)
Istanbul - Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
Gate of the Sun - Elias Khoury (Lebanon) (finished 28 March 2008)
A Sky So Close or Absent - Betool Khedairi (Iraq)
The Yacoubian Building - Alaa Al Aswany

6. Native Peoples
Where We Once Belonged - Sia Fielgel (Samoa)
The Birchbark House - Louise Erdrich (finished 7 April 2008)

8 comments:

Melissa said...

That's quite a list! I'll be interested in seeing which ones you choose come January. :)

Nyssaneala said...

melissa - It's going to be a hard list to narrow down!

1morechapter said...

Great list! I really want to read Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury at some point.

Anonymous said...

This challenge is a good one isn't it? I'm considering it...

I can definitely recommend Love in the Time of Cholera and The Yacoubian Building. You've got some other books on here that I've had my eye on for a while too.

Nyssaneala said...

3m - Thanks! I've heard a lot of great things about Gate of the Sun, I really hope to get to it sometime next year.

iliana - Love in the Time of Cholera is one of my alternates for Joy's 2nds challenge, so I should be reading it sometime soon no matter what! You're the third person to recommend Youbian Building...good sign!

Eva said...

I really enjoyed Love in the Time of Cholera and The Space Between Us. :)

Nyssaneala said...

eva - good to know! Ever since I read 100 Years of Solitude 2 years ago, I have been looking to delving into Love in the Time of Cholera!

Anonymous said...

I definitely recommend the Essential Neruda. Pablo is so amazing! The editor of that book also started this non-profit that is devoted to furthering Neruda's work.