Read The World Interest Group – Reading History

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CountryTitleAuthorDescriptionMonth ReadYear Read
AustriaThe TobacconistRobert SeethalerA tender, heartbreaking story of one young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna.January2025
AzerbaijanAli & NinoKurban SaidMuslim boy and Christian girl fall in love with the backdrop of Russian occupation, retreat, then invasion.July2024
BeninWhy Goats Smell BadRaouf MamaCollection of 20 traditional folktales that makes the Fon culture of Benin come alive. According to Mama, a native speaker of Fon, this is the first time many of these tales have been translated and retold in English.October2023
BhutanTales in ColourKunzang ChodenShort stories about life for women in Bhutan.November2024
DominicaWide Sargasso SeaJean RhysWritten as a prequel to Jane Eyre, story brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. September2024
EnglandThe Secret Garden or Alice's Adventures in WonderlandFrances Hodgson Burnett or Lewis CarrollWhen orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors. The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers a way in—and becomes determined to bring the garden back to life. Alice in Wonderland is an 1865 novel by English author Lewis Carroll. It tells of a young girl named Alice, who falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children.October2025
HaitiClaire of the Sea LightEdwidge DanticatApril2024
HawaiiAll I Asking For Is My BodyMilton MurayamaThe gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers a way in—and becomes determined to bring the garden back to life.October2024
IcelandHow Iceland Changed the WorldEgill BjarnasonA tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel. Again and again, one humble nation has found itself at the frontline of historic events, shaping the world as we know itJune2025
IrelandSmall Things Like TheseClaire KeeganBill Furlong, a coal merchant in a rural town in Ireland in 1985, ostracized growing up because he was born to an unwed mother, wrestles with his conscience when encoutering the cruelties of the nuns at the local convent and complicit townsfolk controlled by the church.April2025
JapanThe Restaurant of Lost RecipesHisashi KashiwaHealing food stories of father & daughter food detectives who run café and find clients' lost recipes.August2025
NamibiaThe Purple Violet of OshaantuNeshani Andreasseveral interconnected stories to offer a compelling picture of the plight of African women. For Kauna, marriage is nothing more than loveless entrapment, and she defies convention by making no secret of her suffering. When her abusive husband is found dead, the villagers are quick to suspect her. Related from the point of view of her best friend, Kauna's story reveals the value of friendship between women of all kinds.May2025
NetherlandsShocked EarthSaskia Goldschmidtexplores the dangers of industrial gas extraction, changing farming methods and their impact on our environment, and what it means to have your identity intensely entwined with your place of birth, in this compelling family saga.September2025
New ZealandWhale RiderWiti IhimaeraYoung girls' grandfather refuses to train her in traditional Maori fighting techniques because she is female.May2024
NicaraguaThe Country Under My SkinGioconda BelliThe author’s growing dissatisfaction with domestic life, and a blossoming awareness of the social inequities in Nicaragua, led her to join the Sandinistas, then a burgeoning but still hidden organization.February2024
NigeriaSankofa: A NovelChbundu OnuzoA beautiful exploration of the often-complex parameters of freedom, prejudice, and individual sense of self, the story is about a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew. August2024
NorwayThe UnseenRoy JacobsenBorn on the Norwegian island that bears her name, Ingrid Barrøy’s world is circumscribed by the moods of the sea by which her family lives and dies. But her father dreams of building a quay that will end their isolation, and her mother longs for the island of her youth.November2023
SingaporeA Tiger in the KitchenCheryl Lu-lien TanThis is an inspiring, funny, and hunger-inducing memoir about a young woman who goes back to her Singaporean roots and begs her Aunties to teach her to cook.February2025
South AfricaDisgraceJ. M. CoetzeeProfessor of English loses everything after affair with vulnerable student.March2024
SwitzerlandAllmen and the DragonfliesMartin SuterA thrilling art-heist escapade that evokes a world of European high culture and lusury, while plumbing the vicissitudes of less exalted human foibles and obsessions. Johann Friedrich von Allmen, a bon vivant of dandified refinement, has exhausted his family fortune. Forced to downscale, he inhabits the garden house of his former Zurich estate, attended by his Guatemalen butler Carlos. Allmen's fortunes take a turn when he meets Jojo, a rich, stunning blonde whose lakeside villa contains 5 Art Nouveau bowls decorated with dragonflies by a famous artist, which he steals. He embarks upon a dangerous bid to cash them in.November2025
SyriaWhere the Wind Calls HomeSamar YazbekAli, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole—is this his funeral? Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. July2025
Tibet/ChinaWe Measure the Earth With Our BodiesTseering Yangzom LamaTwo sisters forced to flee to Nepal with their families after the 1950 invasion by China.March2025
UkraineGrey BeesAndrey KurkovLittle Starhorodivka lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, a rival from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under constant threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees.January2024