Around the World in 80 Books
North America
Fiction
Danticat, Edwidge – The Dew Breaker
Davies, Robertson – Fifth Business (the first book of The Deptford Trilogy)
Roth, Henry – Call It Sleep
Welty, Eudora – Delta Wedding also contained in Complete Novels
O’Connor, Flannery – Everything That Rises Must Converge
Flagg, Fannie – Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe
Nonfiction
Heat Moon, William Least – Blue Highways: a Journey into America 917.3 H
Paz, Octavio – Labyrinth of Solitude, and The Other Mexico 972.08 P
Steinbeck, John – Travels With Charley: In Search of America 917.3 S
Twain, Mark – Life on the Mississippi 917.62 T
South America
Fiction
Allende, Isabel – The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge – Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Borges, Jorge Luis – Ficciones
Carpentier, Alejo – Lost Steps
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Vargas Llosa, Mario – The Feast of the Goat
Nonfiction
Adams, Mark – Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time 385.37 A
Arana, Marie – Bolivar: American Liberator B Bolivar
Darwin, Charles – Voyage of the Beagle 508.8 D
Millard, Candice – River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey 918.113 M
Africa
Fiction
Adichie, Chimamanda – Purple Hibiscus
Boyd, William – Brazzaville Beach
Caputo, Philip – Horn of Africa
Coetzee, J.M. – Disgrace
Courtenay, Byrce – Power of One
Mahfouz, Najib – Midaq Alley
Nonfiction
Hochschild, Adam – King Leopold’s Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa 967.5 H
Oliver, Roland Anthony – Africa Since 1800 960.23 O
Soyinka, Wole – Of Africa 960 S
Theroux, Paul – Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown 916.04
Australia and Oceania
Fiction
Carey, Peter – Oscar and Lucinda
Grenville, Kate – The Secret River
Hulme, Keri – The Bone People
Keneally, Thomas – Office of Innocence
Malouf, David – The Complete Stories
White, Patrick – Riders in the Chariot
Nonfiction
Bryson, Bill – In a Sunburned Country 919.4 B
Chatwin, Bruce – The Songlines 919.4 C
Horwitz, Tony – Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before 910.92 H
Hughes, Robert – The Fatal Shore 994 H
Antarctica
Fiction
Bainbridge, Beryl – The Birthday Boys
Bledsoe, Lucy Jane – The Big Bang Symphony
Brockmeier, Kevin – The Brief History of the Dead
Masello, Robert – Blood and Ice
Rollins, James – Subterranean
Shute, Neville – The Far Country
Nonfiction
Fox, William L- Terra Antarctica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent 919.8904 F
Huntford, Roland- The Last Place on Earth 919.89 H
Smith, Roff – Life on the Ice: No one goes to the Antarctic alone 919.89 S
Solomon, Susan – The coldest March : Scott’s fatal Antarctic expedition 919.89 S
Asia
Fiction
Babel, Isaak – The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel
Dai, Sijie – Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Holthe, Tess – When the Elephants Dance
Murakami, Haruki – Norwegian Wood
Roy, Arundhati – God of Small Things
Sofer, Dalia – Septembers of Shiraz
Nonfiction
Figes, Orlando – Natasha’s Dance: a cultural history of Russia 947 F
Hessler, Peter – Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory 303.4832 H
Perrin, Noel – Giving Up the Gun : Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 952 P
Seierstad, Asne – Bookseller of Kabul 958.1 S
Europe
Fiction
Beauvoir, Simone de – The Mandarins
Isherwood, Christopher – The Berlin Stories
Kundera, Milan – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Roth, Joseph – The Radetsky March
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos – The Shadow of the Wind
Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giuseppe – The Leopard
Nonfiction
Bierman, John – Napoleon III and His Carnival Empire B Napoleon III
Orwell, George – Homage to Catalonia; Down and Out in Paris and London 946.081 O (Note: this volume has double the Orwellian goodness, but you only have to read one)
Sweet, Matthew – Inventing the Victorians 941.081 S
Winter, J. M. – The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century 940.3 W
Worldwide or multi-continent
Fiction
Ali, Monica – Brick Lane
Ansay, A. Manette – Blue Water
Lahiri, Jhumpa – The Namesake
O’Brian, Patrick – Master and Commander
Mason, Daniel – The Piano Tuner
Verne, Jules – Around the World In 80 Days
Nonfiction
Kurlansky, Mark – Salt: a world history 333.85632 K
Levinson, Marc – The Box : How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger 387.5442 L
Theroux, Paul – The Great Railway Bazaar 915 T
Winchester, Simon – Atlantic : great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories 551.46 W