Witch Doctor's Apprentice: Hunting for Medicinal Plants in the Amazon
Read your way around the world to develop intercultural skills to succeed in the workplace. Take a virtual trip around the world with these over 50 books.
These days a lot of companies are focusing on diversity and inclusion training. And that's a very good thing. Many are recommending books for participants to read to start developing cultural awareness. From personal experience, I can say that you can learn a lot from the right book.
The information from a book that I was reading a couple of years ago, helped me to successfully complete an important project. I knew exactly how to interact with the interviewee from Bolivia because I’d read the Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice
. The Binti Complete Trilogy is another important book because it teaches us the importance of having difficult conversations. It's also about confronting your prejudices.
. The Binti Complete Trilogy is another important book because it teaches us the importance of having difficult conversations. It's also about confronting your prejudices.
In a global workplace, to thrive, professionals need to know how to get along with others from different cultures. And that’s why it’s so important to read your way around the world. You'll get insights into cultural norms. Reading novels will help you to become more empathetic. Especially so, when the characters are well-developed.
As a black woman, who is an avid reader, I'd like to join the diversity and inclusion conversation. I'll do this by giving you an idea of how to read the world. This is something that I've done intentionally. And I've been doing it since 2013.
First, when my mother died from a heart attack, to heal my heart, it was important to do something I loved. I chose reading books. In four months, I visited over 30 countries via the books I read.
I decided that I would use the author's birth country to measure the number of countries I visited. However, in a few instances, the author was born in one country, lived in another, and the story set in a country he visited. An example is the Coroner's Lunch
.
Besides learning about what life is like in Laos, where the Coroner's Lunch is set, readers also learn the important lesson of persistence. The main character was placed in a job position in which he was not qualified to perform. But it was done with the intent that he would fail. He rose to the occasion. And mastered a new set of skills. You know what, he succeeded, much to the dismay of the higher-ups.
This is a very relatable experience. And one that many professionals have experienced. In this article, I've included some of the global literature that I've read. In the last two years, I haven't read as much global fiction. I'd like to say that last week, I read Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor
by Nnedi OkoraforThe Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician: A NovelThe Coroner's LunchThe Devotion of Suspect XHunger: A NovelThe Dew Breaker
Have you read?
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Review
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – My Thoughts
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a Book Review
- Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Review
- Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, Review #theclassics
- Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice – Nicole Maxwell
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around Africa
July’s People, Nadine Gordimer, South Africa
Nervous Conditions
, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwe
We Should All Be Feminists
, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigeria
Things Fall Apart
, Chinua Achebe, Nigeria
Season of Migration to the North
, Tayeb Salih, Sudan
The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician: A Novel
, Tendai Huchu, Zimbabwe
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around Asia
Norwegian Wood Publisher: Vintage, Haruki Murakami, Japan
The Devotion of Suspect X
, Keigo Higashino and Alexander O. Smith
The Journey to the West
, Anthony C. Yu, China
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa, Tibet
Ru: A Novel, Kim Thúy, Vietnam, Canada
Gilgamesh: A New English Version, Mesopotamia (Iraq)
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around Australia/Oceania
My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin, Australia
Bittersweet: A Novel
, Colleen McCullough, Australia
A Man Lay Dead: Inspector Roderick Alleyn #1 (Inspector Roderick Alleyn), Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around Europe
Hunger: A Novel, Knut Hamsun, Norway
Out Stealing Horses: A Novel, Per Petterson, Norway
The Bookseller of Kabul, Asne Seirstad, Norway
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, Germany
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Brothers Grimm, Germany
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Germany
Lord of the Flies, Centenary Edition, William Golding, United Kingdom
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon, United Kingdom
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, United Kingdom
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, United Kingdom
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, United Kingdom
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell, United Kingdom
Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren, Sweden
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson, Sweden
The Laughing Policeman (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard), Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Sweden
The Trial, Franz Kafka, Austria
The Shooting Party (Penguin Classics), Anton Chekhov, Russia
Pinocchio (Puffin Classics), Carlo Collodi (The original, not the “Disneyfied” version), Italy
Scaramouche
, Rafael Sabatini, Italy
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel, Milan Kundera, Czech Republic, France
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, France
Zorba the Greek
, Nikos Kazantzakis
The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues (Dover Thrift Editions), Plato, Greece
Medea of Euripides, Euripides, Greece
Jason and the Golden Fleece: (The Argonautica), Apollonius, Greece
Slowness: A Novel, Milan Kundera, Czech Republic
Aesop’s Fables (Oxford World’s Classics), Ancient Greece
The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, Holland
Two Pints, Roddy Doyle, Ireland
Under the Glacier, Halldór Laxness, Iceland
Silence of the Grave (Reykjavik Murder Mysteries, No. 2), Arnaldur Indriðason, Iceland
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around North America and the Caribbean
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Mordecai Richler, Canada
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Mordecai Richler, Canada
Whale Music, Paul Quarrington, Canada
A Jest of God (Phoenix Fiction), Margaret Laurence, Canada
The Handmaid’s Tale
, Margaret Atwood, Canada
On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition), Jack Kerouac, United States
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, United States
The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, Lois Lowry (The Worlds of Lois Lowry 3-Copy Boxed Set (The Giver, Messenger, Gathering Blue)), United States
Son, Lois Lowry, United States
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, United States
The Outsiders, SE Hinton, United States
The Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger, United States
No Telephone to Heaven, Michelle Cliff, Jamaica
Brother Man (Macmillan Caribbean Writers Series), Roger Mais, Jamaica
The Duppy, Anthony C. Winkler, Jamaica
The Lunatic
, Anthony C. Winkler, Jamaica
The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danticat, Haiti
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around South America
Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah’s Book Club), Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
Ficciones (English Translation), Jorges Luis Borges, Argentina
Global Reading List: Read Your Way Around the World
- The Coroner’s Lunch, Colin Cotterill, United Kingdom (The story is set in Laos, the author was born in the UK and now lives in Thailand)
- Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice, Nicole Maxwell, United States (The author was born in the US, but she spent a lot of time in Latin America
- Binti: The Complete Trilogy, Nnedi Okorafor, United States (The author was born in the US, but of Nigerian descent. The main character is from a tribe that's based off a tribe in Namibia.)
, Nicole Maxwell, United States (The author was born in the US, but she spent a lot of time in Latin America
, Nnedi Okorafor, United States (The author was born in the US, but of Nigerian descent. The main character is from a tribe that's based off a tribe in Namibia.)
Read Your Way Around the World to Develop Intercultural Skills
The books listed in the blog post are all books that I've read. Some of them, the subject matter was very difficult to read. Many of the books were written a long time ago. However, they're still relevant today. Ru gives you insights into what refugees go through. When reading Hunger, you'll feel what real hunger is like. I think it's important to read your way around the world.
Although I didn't like several of the books, I'm glad I took the time to read them. Reading the world helped me to get a broader perspective of the world. I now invite you to read your way around the world to develop intercultural skills.
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This was first Published on April 9, 2020.
