Tirelessreader

This is my challenge – which I’ve chosen to accept – I want to try to read one novel from every country in the world! Preferably a classic, something of the ‘best’ that the country has to offer, unless that is one that I’ve already read. If I can’t find a book by a native I’ll take a novel or other book written about the country by someone else who lived there. I’m aiming for a work that can tell me a lot about the country and its people. If I can, I’ll read it in the original language (which will slow me down a lot!) I’ve settled down to a rate of about one book a month and it’s my intention to post my impressions of at least one of the books each month. I find I’ve already covered a lot of countries.

For each country, I’m limiting myself to novels – when I started I wasn’t sure that I would actually be able to find a novel for every nation! As far as I can find out, no one else has yet read one novel from every country.
As to the definition of a ‘country’, I don’t intend to limit myself to any particular list (which will anyway probably be out of date by the time I finish.) I’m including lots of territories, should-be countries and once-were countries. I’m reading them in order of population size – largest to smallest, from China to Vatican City! Of course I’d already read books from quite a few countries before I started this project in 2011, so I’m reading another one from those places.
Everyone gets to set their own rules – mine are: no audio books (great as they are, they count as a passive rather than an active reading experience for me); and preferably no unpublished books (I want anyone to be able to follow my trail). I will always love reading printed books (and, I have to admit, seeing them decorating my bookshelf) so I will give them preference over e-books. And although I want to avoid translations as much as possible, since I’ve only managed to read in ten languages I will unfortunately often be dependent on a second-hand version. My comments aren’t meant to be sophisticated literary criticism, just to give someone who might be tempted to give the title a try an idea as to what it’s like to read.
Lately my ‘month overseas’ has expanded to include also reading a title of travel literature on the country, listening to its music, trying to play some, watching its films (where possible), and trying to learn some of its language if it’s one I don’t know.
I’ll make a page for each country, and if you feel like making a suggestion as to what is the one book you’d recommend to someone as of the highest literary merit, the best read or the one that speaks most about that country, I hope you will do so to help me decide for the countries I’ve not yet covered, and for everyone else. Please feel free to do this for the countries I’ve already covered, too.

Here is a map of countries I’ve read so far:

Where I’m up to!