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World Reading Challenge: Books Around The Globe 2024


This year marks the seventh year of the World Reading Challenge! I’ve now been publishing recommended book lists and reading my way around the world for six years running. It’s been an ambitious and fulfilling adventure; one which continues to challenge and inspire me in different ways every year. This year I’m planning to continue this tradition with the World Reading Challenge 2024, by travelling the globe through another selection of international fiction.

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

The World Reading Challenge 2024: Background

I first created the World Reading Challenge six years ago to expand my own reading horizons and explore the world through literature. I started by reading books representing all 195 UN member and observer states, and have continued reading international literature ever since. These are the lists I’ve shared (and books I’ve read) in previous years so far:

The World Reading Challenge 2024: Introduction

I spent all of last year reading novels that were related to one country, Japan. It was an indulgent pleasure to immerse myself in a single place. I loved exploring the diversity (and strangeness!) of stories from a country that I adore so dearly.

But you know what else happened? I started to miss the feeling of exploring many distant lands and cultures through literature, which was the whole point of starting Tale Away in the first place!

So here’s the plan for this year. I’m going back to my roots and diving into literature from around the world again. The only change is the length of the list, I’m starting off with ten titles to ease into things. This leaves room to expand the list throughout the year, and maybe even add in some new releases as they hit the shelves.

How were the books selected?

The list below includes (just some of!) the books I’ve been dying to read. The books are related to their various countries in a number of ways; they are either set there, have characters from there, reflect the culture or are by local authors. The books include perspectives from a variety of authors with many of them penned quite recently. They take into account popularity, awards, reviews, ratings and availability in English.

I hope you’ll find something here to inspire your own reading, or perhaps even join me in reading them all. If you have any must-read recommendations to add this year, let me know in the comments. Hope you have a lovely year of reading ahead! 💖

Want one of these World Reading Challenge books for free?

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The World Reading Challenge 2024


Books Set Around The World: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Australia:
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, 2019

Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It’s not as if Eli Bell’s life isn’t complicated enough already. He’s just trying to follow his heart and understand what it means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way – not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.

But now Eli’s life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he’s about to meet the father he doesn’t remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum, come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the girl of his dreams.

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Books Set Around The World: The Island of Missing Trees Elif Shafak - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Cyprus:
The Island of Missing Trees Elif Shafak, 2021

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other.

A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

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Books Set Around The World: Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Egypt:
Palace Walk (The Cairo Trilogy #1) by Naguib Mahfouz, William M. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny (Translators), 1956

Palace Walk is the first novel in Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent Cairo Trilogy, an epic family saga of colonial Egypt that is considered his masterwork. The novels of the Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons – the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. The family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two world wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries.

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Books Set Around The World: Honor by Thrity Umrigar - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

India:
Honor by Thrity Umrigar, 2022

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena — a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man — Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past.

While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

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Books Set Around The World: Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Indonesia:
Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, Annie Tucker (Translator), 2002

The epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan’s gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation’s troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million “Communists,” followed by three decades of Suharto’s despotic rule.

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Books Set Around The World: How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Jamaica:
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair, 2023

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.

In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free.

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Books Set Around The World: What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Japan:
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, Alison Watts (Translator), 2020

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves — but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi — and the surprise book she lends each of them — will have life-altering consequences.

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Books Set Around The World: The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Norway:
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas, Michael Barnes and Torbjorn Stoverud (Translators), 1957

With spare simplicity, Vesaas’ novel tells the tale of Mattis, a mentally disabled man cared for by his lonely older sister, Hege. Their routine, isolated existence is interrupted when a lumberjack arrives at their lakeside cottage and falls in love with Hege, leaving Mattis fearful that he will lose his sister. The careful translation from the Norwegian underscores Vesaas’s rare sensitivity in recording Mattis’s often insightful view of his world. With a limited understanding of the unpredictable power of nature, Mattis nonetheless turns to the elements to discover the answers — with unsettling results.

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Books Set Around The World: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

South Korea:
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, Shanna Tan (Translator), 2022

Yeongju is burned out. With her high–flying career, demanding marriage, and busy life in Seoul, she knows she should feel successful, but all she feels is drained. Yet an abandoned dream nags at her, and in a leap of faith, she leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a small residential neighborhood outside the city, where she opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

For the first few months, all Yeongju does is cry, deterring visitors. But the long hours in the shop give her time to mull over what makes a good bookseller and store, and as she starts to read hungrily, host author events, and develop her own bookselling philosophy; she begins to ease into her new setting. Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that connect them all, she finds her new story as the Hyunam-dong Bookshop transforms into an inviting space for lost souls to rest, heal, and remember that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start again.

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Books Set Around The World: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - world reading challenge 2024, world reading challenge, world books 2024, books in translation, read the world, reading the world, read the world 2024, books around the world, novels set around the world, world novels, books to read, books set in different countries

Vietnam:
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, 2019

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

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What do you think of the World Reading Challenge 2024?

Have you already read some of these titles? Do you have a recommendation for a great country and book to add? What are you planning to read this year? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the World Reading Challenge 2024 in the comments below.

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These are just a few things I love using for reading and travel, which have special deals that I want to pass on to you! 🙌

  • Try Amazon Prime free for 30 days and get access to the Prime Reading library and free shipping on thousands of books. This was responsible for a significant increase in my home library!
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4 comments
  1. So glad to see your 2024 posting! I have enjoyed your challenge for several years now. Have read several of the 2024 selections and they are amazing books —- one is one of my all-time favorites. Thank you for this wonderful challenge.

    1. Hi Gabi, thanks so much for your kind words – it means a lot! I’m always happy to hear others have found new books to love. Which book was your new favourite from last years list? Really hope you enjoy some of the titles from this year too!

      1. Elif Shafak’s “The Island of Missing Trees” is one of only a handful of my all-time favorite books. “Honor” is also an amazing but tough (in terms of topic) read. And…I just added three more from the 2024 list to my digital bookshelf. Thank you for the inspiration.

        1. Amazing Gabi, and perfect timing! I’m currently enthralled in “Honor” (and totally distracted on my work commute) and picked up “The Island of Missing Trees” from the library today. Now I’m already looking forward to the next one!

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