Fiction

Around the World with Politics & Prose

THE WORLD IN BOOKS

Each day we receive a lot of questions: Who is tonight’s speaker? Where can I find The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? And, of course -- where are the stairs?

But some of our favorite requests come from the travelers (armchair or otherwise: the questions begin “I am going to...” or “I want to learn more about...” and conclude “I want to read something set there.” We love this type of literary matchmaking, so we have compiled a list of our favorite novels from around the world.

This list is in no way comprehensive or meant to be the final word. It is intended to spark conversation and exploration. But, if you’re journeying to Dublin, Denmark, or Duluth; intrigued by Kyoto or Kuwait; or want to discover Accra or Azerbaijan, browse our list. Visit the store to see our beautiful map display. And most importantly, come talk with us. Keep asking us those questions. We also love hearing your suggestions. We look forward to traveling the globe and sharing literature with you!

-- Lila Stiff, Sarah Baline & Elizabeth Sher

Click the title links to read more about these books and to buy them online.

The Bone People (Paperback)

By Keri Hulme

$16.00

ISBN-13: 9780140089226
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin (Non-Classics), 10/1986

Other Editions of this Title

THE PACIFIC

AUSTRALIA
The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville

The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

MALAYSIA
Evening is the Whole Day, Preeta Samarasan

NEW ZEALAND
The Bone People, Keri Hulme

THE PHILIPPINES
Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco

TASMANIA
Wanting, Richard Flanagan

A Golden Age (Paperback)

By Tahmima Anam

$13.99

ISBN-13: 9780061478758
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial, 1/2009

Other Editions of this Title

ASIA

South Asia

AFGHANISTAN
The Wasted Vigil, Nadeem Aslam

The Swallows of Kabul, Yasmina Khadra

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

BANGLADESH
A Golden Age, Tahmima Anam

INDIA
The Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Toss of a Lemon, Padma Viswanathan

NEPAL
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai

PAKISTAN
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Daniyal Mueenuddin

SRI LANKA
Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatje

The Surrendered (Hardcover)

By Chang-rae Lee

$26.95

ISBN-13: 9781594489761
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Riverhead Hardcover, 3/2010

Other Editions of this Title

ASIA
East Asia

BURMA
The Piano Tuner, Daniel Mason

CAMBODIA
The Disappeared, Kim Echlin

CHINA
Thread of Sky, Deanna Fei

Brothers, Yu Hua

Wild Ginger, Anchee Min

Women of the Silk, Gail Tsukiyama

HONG KONG
The Piano Teacher, Janice Y. K. Lee

JAPAN
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

KOREA
The Surrendered, Chang-Rae Lee

THAILAND
Fieldwork, Mischa Berlinski

VIETNAM
A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler

Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes

The Lotus Eaters, Tatjana Soli

The Master & Margarita (Paperback)

By Mikhail Bulgakov

$14.00

ISBN-13: 9780679760801
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage, 3/1996

Other Editions of this Title

RUSSIA & CENTRAL ASIA

AZERBAIJAN
Ali & Nino, Kurban Said

THE CAUCASUS
Hadji Murad, Leo Tolstoy

MONGOLIA
Shadow Walker, Michael Walters

RUSSIA
Collected Stories of Ivan Bunin, Ivan Bunin

Moscow
In the First Circle, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

Leningrad (St.Petersburg)
City of Thieves, David Benioff

Siberia
Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman
The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight, Gina Oschner

TAJIKISTAN
Soul, Andrei Platonov

UZBEKISTAN
The Railway, Hamid Ismailov

Secret Son (Paperback)

By Laila Lalami

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9781565129795
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 3/2010

Other Editions of this Title

THE MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

EGYPT
Taxi, Khaled Al Khamissi

IRAN
Censoring an Iranian Love Story, Shahriar Mandanipour

IRAQ
I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody, Sinan Antoon

ISRAEL
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz

KUWAIT
A Map of Home, Randa Jarrar

LEBANON
The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine

MOROCCO
Secret Son, Laila Lalami

PALESTINE
Gate of the Sun, Elias Khoury

SAUDI ARABIA
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Hilary Mantel

Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea

TUNISIA
Pillar of Salt, Albert Memmi

TURKEY
The Towers of Trebizond, Rose Macaulay

The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk

The Lovers, Vendela Vida

Half of a Yellow Sun (Paperback)

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

$15.95

ISBN-13: 9781400095209
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor, 9/2007

Other Editions of this Title

AFRICA

BOTSWANA
A Change of Climate, Hilary Mantel

ETHIOPIA
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, Maaza Mengiste

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese

GHANA
Eddie Signwriter, Adam Schwartzman

KENYA
Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong’o

The Constant Gardener, John LeCarré

NIGERIA
Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I Do Not Come to You By Chance, Daobi Tricia Nwaubani

RWANDA
Baking Cakes in Kigali, Gaile Parkin

SENEGAL
So Long A Letter, Mariama Ba

SOUTH AFRICA
Agaat, Marlene van Niekerk

The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay

Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

SUDAN
Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih

What is the What, Dave Eggers

ZIMBABWE
The Boy Next Door, Irene Sabatini

The Ice Princess (Hardcover)

By Camilla Lackberg, Steven T. Murray

$25.95

ISBN-13: 9781605980928
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Pegasus Books, 6/2010

Other Editions of this Title

SCANDINAVIA

DENMARK
Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg

GREENLAND
An African in Greenland, Tete-Michel Kpomassie

ICELAND
Independent People, Haldor Laxness

NORWAY
Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset

SWEDEN
The Ice Princess, Camilla Lackberg

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Paperback)

By Wayne Johnston

$17.00

ISBN-13: 9780385495431
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor, 5/2000

Other Editions of this Title

CANADA

MANITOBA
A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews

NEWFOUNDLAND
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Wayne Johnston

The Shipping News, Annie Proulx

NOVA SCOTIA
What is Left the Daughter, Howard Norman

ONTARIO
The Deptford Trilogy, Robertson Davies

TORONTO
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

VANCOUVER
Obasan, Joy Kogawa

American Rust (Paperback)

By Philipp Meyer

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9780385527521
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Spiegel & Grau, 1/2010

Other Editions of this Title

THE UNITED STATES

EAST COAST
A Meaningful Life, L.J. Davis
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu
American Rust, Philipp Meyer

NEW ENGLAND
Caucasia, Danzy Senna
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Carolyn Chute

MIDWEST
Everything, Kevin Canty
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
Stoner, John Williams

WEST COAST & PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion
The Living, Annie Dillard
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, Heidi Durrow
The Cookbook Collector, Allegra Goodman
Snow Falling on Cedars,David Guterson
What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going, Damion Searls

ALASKA
Correcting the Landscape, Marjorie Kowalski Cole
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon

THE SOUTH
Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
Citrus County, John Brandon
All the Living, C.E. Morgan
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy

TEXAS & THE SOUTHWEST
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
Nothing Happened and Then It Did, Jake Silverstein