around the world in 80 novels

it's vacation season

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A summer reading list for the armchair traveler.

Thrillers & Mysteries

1. Russia - Disappearing Earth

2. Greece - Beautiful Animals

3. France - The Paris Apartment

4. Bolivia - The River at Night

5. Ireland - The Wych Elm

6. Mexico - The Savage Detectives

7. Kenya - Dust

Vacations Gone Wrong

1. Unnamed Central American Country - Do Not Become Alarmed

2. Unnamed Caribbean Country - Saint X

3. Norway - The Woman in Cabin 10

4. Thailand - The Beach

5. Greece - The Two Faces of January

6. Morocco - The Forgiven

Expat Stories

1. Cambodia - Hunters in the Dark

2. Macao - Ballad of a Small Player

3. Hong Kong - The Expatriates

4. Italy - The Imperfectionists

5. France - The Paris Wife

6. Czech Republic - The Russian Debutante’s Handbook

Tear-Jerkers

1. India - A Fine Balance

2. Scotland - Shuggie Bain

3. Ireland - The Heart’s Invisible Furies

4. Sudan - What Is the What

Love Stories Gone Wrong

1. China - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

2. Dominican Republic - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

3. Nigeria - Stay With Me

4. Ireland - Normal People

5. Czech Republic - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

6. Turkey - The Museum of Innocence

7. Italy - My Brilliant Friend

Historical Fiction

1. Japan - Memoirs of a Geisha

2. New Zealand - The Luminaries

3. Israel - The Red Tent

4. France - Queen of the Night

War Zones

1. Burma - The Narrow Road to the Deep North

2. Iraq - Redeployment

3. Sri Lanka - Anil’s Ghost

4. Nigeria - Half of a Yellow Sun

5. Vietnam - The Things They Carried

6. Vietnam - The Sympathizer

7. Bosnia - S. A Novel About the Balkans

World War II

1. Philippines - When the Elephants Dance

2. Germany - Stones from the River

3. France - All the Light We Cannot See

4. The Channel Islands - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Rom-Coms

1. Singapore - Crazy Rich Asians

2. Italy - Beautiful Ruins

3. India - Polite Society

4. France - Paris Is Always A Good Idea

Missionaries, Explorers, Researchers, and Colonizers

1. Congo - The Poisonwood Bible

2. Papua New Guinea - Euphoria

3. Brazil - State of Wonder

Family Dramas

1. India - The God of Small Things

2. Chile - The House of the Spirits

3. Ethiopia - Cutting for Stone

4. Korea - Pachinko

5. Canada - The Shipping News

6. Haiti - Breath, Eyes, Memory

7. Ukraine - Everything is Illuminated

8. Korea - The Surrendered

Based-on-a-True-Story

1. France - The Perfect Nanny

2. Argentina - Cartwheel

3. Kenya - Circling the Sun

Magical Realism

1. Japan - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

2. Virgin Islands - Land of Love and Drowning

3. Colombia - Love in the Time of Cholera

4. Jamaica - A Brief History of Seven Killings

5. India - Midnight’s Children

Feel-Good Books

1. Antarctica - Where’d You Go, Bernadette

2. Russia - A Gentleman in Moscow

3. Spain - The Shadow of the Wind

Feel-Bad Books 

1. South Africa - Disgrace

2. Pakistan - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

3. France - You Deserve Nothing

4. England - Queenie

My Underrated Favorites

1. North Korea - The Orphan Master’s Son

2. India - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

3. Korea - If I Had Your Face

4. Japan - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

5. Chechnya - A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

6. Nigeria - The Death of Vivek Oji

7. Ghana - Homegoing