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