Current Reading Challenge – Olympic

The Olympic Challenge is an event in which you can take part without even leaving your armchair. No, you didn’t misread that – this is no sporting event; no exercise for the body, but certainly a workout for the mind!

The Olympic Challenge originated at Book Crossing UK and is about trying new things, reading books by authors from all around the world, so that each country represented in the Olympic Games is represented on your reading list. Sounds like a challenge you can get your teeth into, doesn’t it?

Well, I’ve already begun and although I’d like to think I’ll get through them all by the end of the 2008 Summer Olympics, with all the books already on my shelf, waiting to be read, I can’t devote myself entirely to reading foreign authors, so I may take a little longer. I’d like to invite all you bookworms and bibliophiles out there to join me in this quest to broaden our minds. Even if we don’t make it by the deadline – don’t think of it as that, but more as something for which we can aim – even if we can’t find an author for each and every country, it’s got to be fun trying! So, grab a book, sit back and put your feet up, and let yourself be spirited away by a foreign author – poetry, novellas and short stories count too, so there’s no need to worry about reading lots of hefty tomes! There are 210 participating countries, so I’d better get my skates on. Here goes…

Due to the fact that most of the books I read seem to be by British, American and Canadian authors, I will only list one book for those countries, whereas there may be multiple entries for others.

COUNTRIES COMPLETED

28/210

BOOKS / COUNTRIES COMPLETED:

Afghanistan

– The Kite Runner – Khaled Husseini – 9/10

Bangladesh

– Brick Lane – Monica Ali – UNFINISHED

Brazil

– The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho – 8/10

Canada

– Broken – Kelley Armstrong – 8/10

– The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood – 7/10

– The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood – 7/10

China

– Empress Orchid – Anchee Min – 8/10

Colombia

– Of Love and Other Demons – Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 3/10

Czech Republic

– Lovely Green Eyes – A Lustig – 6/10

Denmark

– Hitler’s Canary – Sandi Toksvig – 8/10

– The Woman and the Ape – Peter Høeg – 5/10

France

– The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry – 7/10

– The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – 9/10

– The Sexual Life of Catherine M – Catherine Millet – 7/10

– The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux – 6/10

– Les Liaisons Dangereuses – Choderlos de Laclos – 8/10

Germany

– A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka – 4/10

– Perfume – Patrick Suskind – 8/10

Great Britain

– Emma – Jane Austen – 6/10

India

– Q&A – Vikas Swarup – 8/10

– The Mistress of Spices – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni – 7/10

Ireland

– The Rainbow Bridge – Aubrey Flegg – 7/10

– Carmilla – J. Sheridan LeFanu – 7/10

Japan

– Geisha of Gion – Mineko Iwasaki – 9/10

– Autobiography of a Geisha – Sayo Masuda – 7/10

– Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro – 8/10

– Out – Natsuo Kirino – 7/10

Kenya

– The Constant Princess – Philippa Gregory – 8/10

– The Boleyn Inheritance – Philippa Gregory – 8/10

– Wideacre – Philippa Gregory – 8/10

Mexico

– Vernon God Little – DBC Pierre – 7/10

Nigeria

– Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – 7/10

Norway

– The Book Seller of Kabul – Åsne Seierstad – 7/10

Peru

– Daughter of Fortune – Isabel Allende – 5/10

Poland

– Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – 2/10

Russia

– Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov – 8/10

– A Life’s Music – Andrei Makine – 6/10

South Africa

– Disgrace – J M Coetzee – 6/10

Spain

– Life of Pi – Yann Martel – 8/10

Sri Lanka

– The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje – UNFINISHED

Sweden

– Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallender Mystery S.) – Henning Mankell – 7/10

– Ronia, The Robber’s Daughter – Astrid Lindgren – 10/10

Ukraine

– The Case of the General’s Thumb – Andrey Kurkov – 4/10

United States

– The Five People You meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom – 7/10

Zimbabwe

– 44 Scotland Street – Alexander McCall Smith – 6/10

ON THE SHELF:

Australia

– The Magicians Guild – Trudi Canavan

Egypt

– The Map Of Love – Ahdaf Soueif

France

– Beneath the Pyramid – Christian Jacq

– The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Greece

– Zorba the Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis

Italy

– The Last Legion – Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Iran

– The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing

Lebanon

– The Last Templar – Raymond Khoury

Netherlands

– The Crimson Petal & the White – Michel Faber

Swaziland

– By Design – Richard E Grant

Sweden

– The Man Who Smiled (Kurt Wallender Mystery S.) – Henning Mankell

Trinidad & Tobago

– The Mystic Masseur – Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul

WISH LIST (one or more for each of the following countries):

Albania

– Broken April – Ismail Kadare

– Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare

Algeria

– The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius

– The Outsider – Albert Camus

– The Plague – Albert Camus

– The Rebel – Albert Camus

American Samoa

Andorra

Angola

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina

– Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges

– Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges

Armenia

Aruba

Austria

– Young Törless – Robert Musil

– Amok – Stefan Zweig

– Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke

– The Left Handed Woman – Peter Handke

– The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke

– The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek

Azerbaijan

Bahamas

Bahrain

Barbados

Belarus

– Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin

Belgium

– The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge

– Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourvenar

– The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus

Belize

Benin

Bermuda

Bhutan

Bolivia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

– The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andrić

Botswana

British Virgin Islands

Brunei

Bulgaria

– The Green Hat – Michael Arlen

– Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Cambodia

Cameroon

Cape Verde

Cayman Islands

Central African Republic

Chad

Chile

Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)

Comoros

Congo DR

Congo Republic

Cook Islands

Costa Rica

Côte d’Ivoire

Croatia Cuba

Cyprus

Djibouti

Dominica

– Quartet – Jean Rhys

– Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Estonia

Ethiopia

Fiji

Finland

– The Summer Book – Tove Jansson

Gabon

The Gambia

Georgia

Ghana

Grenada

Guam

Guatemala

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Guyana

– Disappearance – David Dabydeen

Haiti

Honduras

Hong Kong, China

Hungary

– Embers – Sandor Marai

– Fateless – Imre Kertész

– The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai

– Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy

Iceland

– Independent People – Halldór Laxness

Indonesia

Iraq

Israel

Jamaica

– Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker

Jordan

Kazakhstan

Kiribati

Korea

– The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae

South Korea

– Land – Park Kyong-ni

North Kuwait

Kyrgyzstan

Laos

Latvia

Lesotho

Liberia

Libya

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

– The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary

– Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary

Luxembourg

FYRO Macedonia

Madagascar

Malawi

Malaysia

Maldives

Mali

Malta

Mauritania

Mauritius

Micronesia

Moldova

Monaco

Mongolia

Morocco

Mozambique

Myanmar

Namibia

Nauru

Nepal

Netherlands Antilles

New Zealand

– The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield

– Faces in the Water – Janet Frame

Nicaragua

Niger

Oman

Pakistan

Palau

Palestine

Panama

Papua New Guinea

Paraguay

Peru

– The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa

– The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargas Llosa

Philippines

Portugal

– The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago

– The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago

– The Double – José Saramago

Puerto Rico

Qatar

Romania

Rwanda

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

São Tomé and Príncipe

Samoa

San Marino

Saudi Arabia

Senegal

Serbia-Montenegro

Seychelles

Sierra Leone

Singapore

Slovakia

Slovenia

Solomon Islands

Somalia Sudan

Suriname

Switzerland

– Julie: or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

– Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

– Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

– Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

– The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt

– Homo Faber – Max Frisch

– On Love – Alain de Botton

Syria

– Aithiopika – Heliodorus

Tajikistan

Tanzania

Thailand

Timor-Leste

Togo

Tonga

Tunisia

Turkey

– Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar

Turkmenistan

Uganda

United Arab Emirates

Uruguay

– Maldoror – Comte de Lautréamont

Uzbekistan

Vanuatu

Venezuela

Vietnam

– The Ravishing of Lol V.Stein – Marguerite Duras

– The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras

Virgin Islands, US

Yemen

Zambia