Project Read the World: August Update

Just like the past couple of months, I read a lot of books in August. However, I'm still reading more books by American authors than by authors from around the world. I thought that I might have 4 books to add to my progress in my project to read a book from each country in the world, but once again, I ended up only finishing 3 books.

August books for Project RW: 3

Total books: 8/195

The Books

Zambia - The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell

I don't remember how I found out about this book, but I seem to keep choosing books that follow several generations of a family living in a particular country. In this case, the book follows three different families whose lives overlap in Zambia. It was sometimes difficult to keep all the characters and family lines clear in my mind, but the stories were entertaining.

Genre-wise, this story seems to be magical-realism (despite majoring in English, I haven't read much magical-realism, but I think that's what The Old Drift would be). The book has elements of historical fiction as well as science fiction. 

Plot-wise, the book has basically everything. There's love, politics, family, technology, and pretty much anything that could happen does happen.

Even at over 600 pages, you don't realize how long the book is because the author keeps the pace of the novel moving quickly. Once you start to see the families becoming connected, you want to read even faster to find out what happens next as their plot-lines began to converge.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. But, I feel like I probably missed out on the significance of some parts of the story. I just don't have any background knowledge about Zambia, so I felt lost at times while reading.

France - Rebel Chef: In Search of What Matters by Dominique Crenn

When I started this project, I said that I rarely read books published in countries where English isn't the official language. However, I have actually read a good amount of French literature (in French) thanks to my degree and my time living there. I considered reading a novel in French for this portion of the challenge, but when I saw that this book was being released over the summer, I had to read it.

One of my favorite things about France is the food. It's a cliche thing to say, but it's also true.

I first found out about Dominique Crenn while watching Chef's Table on Netflix. Crenn is from France but moved to the US in her 20s. She felt that the chef culture in France was too rigid for her to ever hope of becoming the head of a restaurant there. She became working at a restaurant in San Francisco in the 80s. As she made her way to other restaurants, she moved up, becoming head chef and executive chef before opening her own place, Atelier Crenn.

It was fascinating to learn about Crenn's life in France as well as her experiences as a chef. Although I know a little bit about food culture in France, I liked hearing the perspective of someone who is French and who chose to go somewhere else to pursue her culinary aspirations.

It also helps that Crenn is such an impressive person. She has worked to be as conscious of the atmosphere inside the kitchen as she is about the food produced there. She makes a point to treat her staff well. That probably shouldn't be remarkable, but in the restaurant industry, it is.

Even if you aren't trying to read a book from every country, you would probably enjoy reading Rebel Chef. At the very least, everyone should watch her episode on Season 2 of Chef's Table.

Saudi Arabia - Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea

Let me just start off by saying that I accidentally stayed up until 2 am while reading this book. It was unintentional. I was already up a little late because I was having trouble reading. I decided to read before trying to go back to sleep, and I kept needing to read just one more chapter over and over before I stopped.

The book is narrated by an anonymous woman who sends out an email each week to a list of Saudi readers. Each chapter is one email that tells part of the story of four upper-class girls from Saudi Arabia. All of the girls are old enough to begin getting married and are attempting to navigate love in a culture that is strict about the ways that men and women interact.

Relationships are difficult enough as is, but the added constraints that these girls face makes their search for love even more difficult. Marriages are arranged, engagements are announced and canceled, and lovers both find and desert each other as the girls try to figure out their roles in society.

Even though the lives of the girls in the novel differ so much from the lives of girls in the US, there were still familiar themes of heartbreak and love. The book was an emotional journey, and as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't stop reading.

Highly recommended!

What's Next

Umm, since it's somehow 2/3rds of the way through September, and I'm just now posting my August update, I've already started reading more books for the project. Instead of sharing the books now, I'm just going to wait 10 days and plan to get the September update completed in a timely manner. Maybe.

I am planning to try to finish reading all of the books that I currently have checked out of the library plus three books that I already own before putting any more books on hold from the library. I don't know how much that's going to affect this project. I have three books checked out to read for Project Read the World, but if I don't put more books on hold for it, that could potentially slow down my progress because I'd have to wait longer to get more. I absolutely have to make a dent in reading the books I already have though.

We'll see what happens.

Feel free to follow along on Instagram or on Goodreads for more frequent updates. If I start to get overwhelmed with updating here, I'm more likely to still keep updating on those two sites.