Pakistan

Jill said, "I just finished The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is my 'Pakistan' read for our challenge. Here is my review."

At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . . Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

Bonnie said, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a novel. I felt a need to say that because this synopsis and Jill's review make it seem so real!"

Wendy's review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Turkey

Bonnie said, "I found a review of The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak on Myrthe's The Armenian Odar Reads. The book looks good, so I wanted to add it to our list."

In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres.

Bangladesh

Historia said, "I found a VERY good book from Bangladesh - one of the poorest countries on the world. I am still reading it, but I like it so much, I wrote up a post about it: Banker to the Poor."

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus is nonfiction. The simple idea of micro-loans is revolutionizing developing economies. Instead of lending large sums of money to often corrupt bureaucracies, economist Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to offer tiny sums, as little as $5, to individual craftspeople, tenant farmers, and subsistence entrepreneurs so they could keep themselves afloat between buying and selling. That was in 1983. Sixteen years later, with $2.5 billion being dispersed annually to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh and repayment rates close to 100 percent, Yunus is being hailed as the father of a new economic model that is bringing people out of poverty. In Banker to the Poor, Yunus explains why his program works.

World books ~ a list

Debnance said: "Here are some highly recommended around the world reads that I've already read."

Africa:
Mango Elephants in the Sun ~ by Susana Herrera (Cameroon)
Angry Wind ~ by Jeffrey Tayler (Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali)
Dark Star Safari ~ by Paul Theroux (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa)
The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears ~ by Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia)
The Camel Bookmobile ~ by Masha Hamilton (Kenya)
Glory in a Camel's Eye ~ by Jeffrey Tayler (Morocco)
Half of a Yellow Sun ~ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families ~ by Philip Gourevich (Rwanda)
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin (Zimbabwe)

Antarctica:
Surviving Antarctica ~ by Andrea White (Antarctica)

Asia:
The Places in Between ~ by Rory Stewart (Afghanistan)
Oracle Bones ~ by Peter Hessler (China)
Family Matters ~ by Rohinton Mistry (India)
Eat, Pray, Love ~ by Elizabeth Gilbert (India, Italy, Indonesia)
The Septembers of Shiraz ~ by Dalia Sofer (Iran)
Ten Thousand Lovers ~ by Edeet Ravel (Israel)
Japanland ~ by Karin Muller (Japan)
Tasting the Sky ~ by Ibtisam Barakat (Palestine)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist ~ by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)
Three Cups of Tea ~ by Greg Mortenson (Pakistan, Afghanistan)
Madonnas of Leningrad ~ by Debra Dean (Russia)
Shadow of the Silk Road ~ by Colin Thubron (China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey)
Zaatar Days, Henna Nights ~ by Maliha Masood (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey)

Australia/South Pacific:
Shooting the Boh ~ by Tracy Johnson (Borneo)
Getting Stoned with Savages ~ by J. Maarten Troost (Fuji, Vanuatu)
The Naked Tourist ~ by Lawrence Osborne (New Guinea)
An Evening Among Headhunters ~ by Lawrence Millman (Tonga)

Europe:
Andorra ~ by Peter Cameron (Andorra)
Small Island ~ by Andrea Levy (England)
Words in a French Life ~ by Kristin Espinasse (France)
The Keep ~ by Jennifer Egan (Germany)
My Family and Other Animals ~ by Gerald Durrell (Greece)
Independent People ~ by Halldor Laxness (Iceland)
The Ginger Man ~ by J. P. Donleavy (Ireland)
Dreamers ~ by Knut Hamsun (Norway)
The Trumpeter of Krakow ~ by Eric P. Kelly (Poland)
The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo ~ by Paula Huntley (Serbia)
Spanish Lessons ~ by Derek Lambert (Spain)
A Child's Christmas in Wales ~ by Dylan Thomas (Wales)

North America:
Madam Dread ~ by Kathie Klarreich (Haiti)
Place Where the Sea Remembers ~ by Sandra Benitez (Mexico)
My Name is Asher Lev ~ by Chaim Potok (United States)

South America:
Journey to the River Sea ~ by Eva Ibbotson (Brazil)
Portrait in Sepia ~ by Isabel Allende (Chile)
Secret of the Andes ~ by Ann Nolan Clark (Peru)