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Bibliophiliac is the space where one passionate, voracious reader reflects on books and the reading life. You will find reviews, analysis, links, and reflections on poetry and prose both in and out of the mainstream.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. Franz Kafka

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday: Other Shores, Other Worlds


Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. There is nothing like a list, and there is no list I love more than a book list. This week's Top Ten Tuesday is Top Ten Books Set Outside the U.S. That We've Enjoyed. Trish at Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity made a great suggestion on twitter (@TriniCapini) that the TTT list include other worlds and other universes, which I thought was genius! My list includes real and imaginary places.

1. Snow by Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk, a Nobel Prize winning novelist, lives and writes in Turkey. This multi-layered, evocative novel is set in the provincial city of Kars (also the Turkish word for snow). A beautiful book.
2. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. This wildly inventive and immersive novel goes back and forth in time, and is set in England, Iceland, and Ireland.
3. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist. An eerie and disturbing novel set in a dystopian version of Sweden.
4. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman. This stunning fantasy trilogy is set in a parallel universe that is very similar to Oxford, England.
5. Red Rising by Pierce Brown. My students could not put down this fast-paced YA novel set on Mars.
6. The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. If you haven't read this biopunk science fiction novel set in Thailand, you owe it to yourself to do so. Weird and wonderful.
7. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Another wholly original work of fantasy that creates a world like no other.
8. Arcadia by Iain Pears. Partially set in a recognizable England, partially set in a possible future (maybe parallel) universe, partially set within a created world.
9. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I heard/saw people talking about this book for the longest time, then finally took the bait. This book has everything: witches, Oxford, vampires, the Bodlieian Library, timewalking, history. Perfect.
10. Norwegian Wood and A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Two fantastic novels that have so many layers of meaning and beauty--set in Japan.

What books have you liked or loved that are set in other countries--or other universes?

5 comments:

bermudaonion said...

I loved Between Shades of Gray. It's set in Lithuania and very personal to me since my maternal grandparents immigrated from that country.

bibliophiliac said...

@bermudaonion-I need to read that book. Some of my students read it last year and were blown away.

Andi said...

Some I love and some I need to try! Especially Mieville. I've never read him!

bibliophiliac said...

@Andi-You have to read Perdido Street Station. It is unlike anything else I have read.

Lisa said...

Oh, I never thought of other worlds for my list!