Join us: Around the World in 80 Books

Since that pram in the hallway is now blocking my path to good art, I find the airport's an even trickier destination. Thus it is that I begin a new journey, one that will take me around the world without ever forcing me to leave the comfort of my desk/bed/bath/tube seat. Ah, glorious. I will be aiming to travel around the world in eighty books (approximately) and will be needing your help to do so.

Here are the rules:

1. I can travel only between countries that share a border, or are either side of a body of water that needs crossing. Thus, I could go England-France-Spain-Portugal-Morocco-USA, but not Japan-Mongolia-Finland. I'm sorry if you could all work that out that without having to refer to a map - geography is unfortunately my Achilleus' heel.

2. The suggested book can be set in the country, set in one city of that country, or even set in space but by a famous author from that country. Translations get bonus points, but not if they are so complex that my eyes start revolting. And I'd prefer fiction, but if pushed will do the odd non-fiction.

3. Hopefully that's it. More rules may appear should I find the current ones make this as much effort as stressful real travel.

So, let us begin.

First stop: "The marshes" and London, England

Book: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

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It turns out that watching The Muppet Christmas Carol doesn't count as having read Dickens. Jumping into this tome, however, I discover that Dickens is hilarious. How is this for the best set of opening lines on the subject of the main character's name ever*:

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip."

His name is Philip Pirrip. Brilliant. And the book gets even better. Taken in as a baby by his bullying termagant of a sister and her gentle husband Joe Gargery, he expects a quiet life of contented apprenticeship to Joe. But tiny Pip discovers - and aids - an escaped convict (Abel Magwitch, who totally looks like Robert De Niro in my head) on the marshes one night, and soon after is sent to assist crooked old hag Miss Havisham in Satis House, a temple to time stopped and hearts broken. Ensnared in Havisham's web is beautiful young Estella, crafted into a weapon by the old lady's bitterness, and practising her charms on poor Pip. Nice.

Before I had read this book, I somehow assumed that Dickens wrote fairytales, albeit dark and workhouse-y ones. But the final chapters of this book so delighted me, with their dark looseness and ambiguous resolutions, that I was quite smitten by the whole thing.

Conclusions as a traveller:

England seems pretty grubby. To show your closeness to your host, bring cheese when coming to visit.

So, now I need your help. Please send in any suggestions for the next leg of my journey - following the rules, there's still a fairly hefty range of options left open to me. And whichever kind reader I deem to have helped me get the greatest number of literary passport stamps will receive a beautiful - and I mean beautiful - bundle of Penguin books.

Happy new year,

Sam the Copywriter

*Bar Lolita, obviously.

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Comments

[Joe]

How about The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, which takes you across to Ireland?

[Charlie G]

I love this, Sam...

But why Great Expectations? Wouldn't Tale of Two Cities have got you across the Channel in one? Down and Out in Paris and London, likewise...

[Will Hammond]

Go to Norway with HUNGER by Nobel Prize winning author Knut Hamsun. First published in 1890 it was recently released in a new translation by Canongate. Time Out described it as "one of the most disturbing novels in existence", which is a bit of an exaggeration (their reviewer obviously hadn't read Alastair Campbell's ALL IN THE MIND, which has since redefined that particular category) but it is uniquely weird.

[Jennie]

Well, if you wanted to head towards the U.S.--you could follow with something fun like Christopher Moore's latest and then hop over to Murakami's Japan and enjoy "Hard Boiled Wonderland". Or, if you wanted some fantastic non-fiction, you could read his account of the sarin gas attacks in "Underground".

[Joe]

Trust Will to pick a Norwegian disturbathon. I'm chaging which side of the Isle (see what I did there?) I'm on, and am going to suggest Blindness by Jose Saramago, from Portugal. Forget the recent film, this is a masterpiece nad is pretty much worth the Nobel prize Jose won in 1998 on its own.

And don't tell me Portugal's too far away: I've checked on Google maps; you can get there, Sam, trust me.

[Emily]

What an atmospheric, brilliant choice to start off with, Sam. I've only just finished reading it myself. Staying on the theme of lost love and another novel absolutely bursting with atmosphere, is LE GRAND MEAULNES by Henri Alain-Fournier, set in the early 20th century in deepest, darkest French countryside. Dare you go there?

[Sonja]

How about Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"?

He's from Nigeria so strictly speaking it'll be a body of water to cross...

Africa has a large range of brilliant literary masterpieces!

[alice]

I reckon head USA-ward and spend some time on the rez with 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-fight in Heaven' by Sherman Alexie. Vehemently anti-mawkish Native American writing - just great.

[Andy T]

Well, you could follow in Richard Hannay's footsteps and go across the border into Scotland with the 39 Steps. Or if you want to be a little more up-to-date how about Iain Banks' Crow Road, or Herge's Black Island, Michael Cannon's Lachlan's War, James Robertson's The Testament of Gideon Mack. Lord knows why I'm heading to Scotland in this weather though - going south makes more sense.
Oh, and re Magwitch, once you've seen Finlay Currie in the David Lean adaptation, HE's the ONLY Magwitch ever after.

[Vic]

If a may suggest a
Spain - "For whom the bell tolls" by Hemingway
US-NY - Picadilly Jim, PG Wodehouse // US - Long Island, The Great Gastby, Fitzgerald
US - LA - The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy,
China - Mandchouria - The Girl who played go, Shan Sa
India - Burmese Days, G. Orwell
Australia - The Last continent, Terry Pratchett,
Chile - Distant Star, Robert Bolano
Mexico - All the Pretty Horses, Cormac Mc Carthy,
Namibia - Born of the Sun: A Namibia Novel, Joseph Diescho

... it will give you a good start.

[Charlotte]

How about Ire.and, with, perhaps, Paddy Clark Ha ha ha, by Roddy Doyle? Or perhaps Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Both of which can be said to transition nicely from Great Expectations.

(In general I feel sure that Irish literature is full of great expecctations dashed, but don't have time to think up examples)

[Charlotte]

How about Ire.and, with, perhaps, Paddy Clark Ha ha ha, by Roddy Doyle? Or perhaps Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Both of which can be said to transition nicely from Great Expectations.

(In general I feel sure that Irish literature is full of great expecctations dashed, but don't have time to think up examples)

[Bethany]

Stick with Dickens now you've got the bug, and move on to Martin Chuzzlewit - it'll take you to the United States of America. That said, it isn't Dickens' best, so perhaps either one of two books set in France in the 1950s: Francoise Sagan's "Bonjour Tristesse" or Elaine Dundy's "The Dud Avocado".

Bon voyage!

[Elizabeth]

Or are you making it too easy for yourself to escape from this fair isle of ours? Shouldn't you in fact be having to travel through at least Wales or Scotland before you escape to foreign climes? This would mean, by the technicality of having being born in Swansea when his father was lecturing at the university, that you could indulge in the wonderful and under rated London Fields by Martin Amis

[Bev]

What a brilliant idea. I'm going to give it a go, too - let's see how far I get! I'm starting in Paris, with Simenon's Inspector Maigret, and a battered old 1972 Penguin edition of the Sixth Omnibus: Maigret and the Wine Merchant. Why? Because I was already reading it. And I'll have fun deciding where to go from France...

[Will Smith]

Head to Canada...more specifically Toronto. Read Dionne Brand's 'What We All Long For'. Go on. I dare you.

[Naomi Alderman]

How about travelling from Rome across Europe with Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God? Or to Russia with The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin? Or if you like a good children's book, to the USA with Joan Aiken's Night Birds on Nantucket?

[Peter]

Sam, you can sail from Southend-on-Sea to Le Havre, and your arrival will mirror the arrival there of Barbara and Harold Rhodes in the opening pages of William Maxwell's "The Chateau." It's a very charming and beautiful novel about travel. The Rhodes are an American couple visiting Europe right after World War II, and most of the book is set in France, where they stay at a chateau in the Loire Valley, and become thoroughly confused by their hosts, and by French culture. The tone is gently comic, and Maxwell captures so well the excitement and pleasurable disorientation of visiting new places. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Rafael Alves]

i would suggest a gentle channel crossing into Normandy with Gemma Bovery (graphic novel). it was originally published in the Guardian. the book deals with a woman depressed with London/England that moves to Bailleville (Normandy).

I think it's specially good for this "trip" because the city itself is a carachter, with Gemma being delighted with her new life in France, summarizing a lot of stereotypes english-french have of each other.

It's name is an obvious pun to Madame Bovary, referenced a lot in the comic.

i would like you to clarify in the next post if each journey should follow in a country by country journey or you can go from US to Congo, then Mumbai etc. Thius is a very nice idea, looking forward.

Rafael Alves, Brasil.

[Anna]

I'd rather choose Joyce's Ulyses and head up to Dublin and take a bloom's day off around the city :)

Nice idea!

[KASemenova]

I suggest you head across the Channel with some Anna Gavalda. Perhaps her book of short stories--I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere. I think short stories are perfect for travel; they lend themselves to periods of closing the book and staring out the window, pondering the countryside (or the waves, or the Chunnel walls) and what you just read. If you're in novel-reading frame of mind, then pick up her Hunting and Gathering. It's the French, as we all know and love (and loathe) them, but the France of Sarkozy, not of Chirac. A France where Dumas is a historic figure, not a contemporary, and that is as it should be.

[jelsamina]

I suggest you either hole up in a Paris apartment building with Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog or soak up the Riviera sun with Francoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse.

[Malene Hald]

Maybe you could go across the water to Denmark, and read Doghead by Morten Ramsland. A very funny and sarcastic family novel - you follow the family in several generations, which truly describes how awful the world can be!

[Shelbi]

I have also started my own journey -- I have a list of books off my "Planning your own journey" page. Just started January 1st, so it's in progress...but hopefully we will get at least a few books from every country within the next couple months.

Good luck with your reading!

http://aroundtheworldin80books.wordpress.com/

Shelbi

[Packabook - Books Set In France]

Well yes - France is the next obvious destination, opening the door to many other countries.

How about enjoying Paris through the eyes of the artists with 'Luncheon of the Boating Party' by Susan Vreeland.

Suzi

[isle of wight b&b]

I have a list of books off my "Planning your own journey" page. Just started January 1st, so it's in progress