Reading the world in 2026
I’ve been a regular reader since childhood — mostly of older novels, mostly in English, occasionally in Chinese1. As a result, my taste in literature has admittedly developed an Anglocentric (and Sinocentric) slant.
Recently, I’ve gone back to The Storygraph to track my reading2. Despite my ever-growing to-read list, The StoryGraph Reads the World Challenge managed to pique my interest.
The challenge provides prompts for 10 countries. For each country, you pick a book (fiction or nonfiction), set in the country, by an author from that country.
Here are the books I’ve chosen for now:
- Afghanistan — My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird by Afghan Women
- Albania — Broken April by Ismail Kadare
- Bulgaria — Death and the Gardener by Georgi Gospodinov
- Croatia — Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugrešić
- France — The Fall by Albert Camus
- Iraq — Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
- Morocco — This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun
- Senegal — At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
- Sweden — Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
- Thailand — Bright by Duanwad Pimwana
I hope I’ll have something to share from each of these :)
If you have any thoughts on these books, or happen to have more recommendations for these countries (apart from France), do email me and let me know!
I’d say 65% English, 30% Traditional Chinese, 5% Japanese.↩
My profile, if you even care >_<↩