Global Reads: Travel the World

Global Reads: Travel the World

I cannot remember a time when I did not enjoy reading, how about you? But when I read, I read books that interest me and reading books by authors from countries other than those in the West was not at the top of my list until I embarked on my first Virtual Literary World Tour. For new readers of this blog, my mother died unexpectedly on October 3, 2012, and my heart was broken. To heal my heart, I decided it was important for me to do something that I love, which was reading. To add depth to my personal project, I decided to read books written by authors who were born in 30 different countries.

After successfully completing the Virtual Literary World Tour, I discovered the importance of reading globally. Looking back, I realized that I did not have the appropriate title for my reading project, and instead, I should have called it Global Reads: Travel the World. I traveled the world through the eyes of the authors, and the whole reading project was a culturally enriching experience. And now that I have done it once, I strongly recommend to others to read books by authors who are from faraway places. This is more critical today because we are living in a global village where the world is our stage. Because the whole notion of Global Reads: Travel the World is so important, I have incorporated it into my informal liberal arts education, and it will be the second Virtual Literary World Tour.

Recently, I have been learning the important lesson of keeping things simple. One of my great strengths lie in my capacity to consume and assimilate large amounts of data, and I often forget that not everyone is blessed with that skill. And because I read so much, I often forget that not everyone will be as excited about reading as much as I do. Reading gives me great pleasure, so I always make time to read, and I have the Kindle app on my Android phone so while I am waiting, I can read a book, and I usually have a book that I am reading in my purse.

Reading globally exposes you to new ideas because you are seeing things through new lenses. Since I have been intentionally reading “globally” for close to two years now, I will choose 12 books that you can start reading to keep things simple for you. And I will only include the books that I actually enjoyed, and most of the books are easy reading.

Global Reads: Travel the World

1. Hunger: A Novel, Knut Hamsun, Norway
2. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, Germany
3.  Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa, Tibet
4. Out Stealing Horses: A Novel, Per Petterson, Norway
5. The Coroner’s Lunch, Colin Cotterill, United Kingdom, Thailand
6. A Man Lay Dead: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #1 (Inspector Roderick Alleyn), Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand
7. The Laughing Policeman (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard), Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Sweden
8. Silence of the Grave (Reykjavik Murder Mysteries, No. 2), Arnaldur Indriðason, Iceland
9. Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah’s Book Club), Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
10. Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih, Sudan
11. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis (Had some issues with the way women are portrayed)
12. Beowulf
13. All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel, Erich Maria Remarque, Germany

 Related Posts

• Global Reads: Travel the World In 120 Days With The Invisible Mentor
• All Quiet on the Western Front, Book Review
• Beowulf, Book Review
• Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, Book Review

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Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people. Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.

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