England

Amy said, "The book I read for England was White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Here is the link to my review. It is a fascinating epic novel about life in North London from the early 70's to the millenium."

This novel gets high praise from all over, like this from Barnes & Noble: "Smith's debut novel is touted as a remarkable look at the immigrant's experience in a post colonial world." It's set in postwar London, featuring an unlikely friendship between Archie Jones, a simple working-class Brit, and Samad Iqbal, a Muslim Bengali waiter in an Indian restaurant. They had met in the English army in WW2. After the war, the two commiserate over their lives and those of their children; their dreams, disappointments and expectations unfolding with riotous humor as the characters in both generations struggle to carve out their own cultural identities. The book is filled with all the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of London and has themes of history, religion, faith, and science. Amy's description says it best: "The novel is a rollercoaster ride from one theme to another, from one character to another, touching on things like race, immigrants, religion, genetic engineering, sibling rivalry, parenting, fundamentalism, class and cultural differences, feminism, love, and history."