2021 Theme Reads Planning

What better time could there be to remind members of the Reading Globally group of their duty to the democratic process? :-)

If we stick to what we've done in previous years, we need to pick four quarterly theme reads, and/or possibly a looser topic for the whole year. If we feel that that wasn't working optimally for us, then we need concrete suggestions for other structures. Everything should be open for discussion, but it's most productive if we think in terms of "could we try...?" rather than "I don't like ..."

As in other years, topic suggestions are needed for both themes and geographic regions. Mixtures of the two could be good as well, like the current “Russians write revolutions”

Obviously not all suggestions will be of interest to all readers, but by selecting both regions and themes, it is more likely that at least one topic will get you reading during the year.

Here is a list of previous topics: https://www.librarything.com/groups/readinggloballyficti

Readers wander in and out of this group. If you're fairly new to the group, perhaps there are topics from previous years you may have missed and would like to see revisited. If so, I would suggest going back five years or more, but a revisit is always worthwhile.

Start posting your ideas below, and (assuming there are more proposals than slots this time...) we will vote on them.

One thought I had, that it might be interesting to do something about the legacy of classical Persian and Arabic literature in modern writing from the Middle East and North Africa, given that it’s (roughly) 1000 years since the death of Ferdowsi.

We did a Middle East theme in 2012, but it doesn’t seem to have touched on the classical tradition much.

By the end of this year I'll still have 70+ countries unread in all areas of the globe so I'm likely to join in with at least one book on any topic (unless you pick Vatican City, lol).

>3 spiralsheep: Do you want to suggest a topic that would take in several of those 70 countries? There’s nothing to stop us doing “Writing from countries beginning with ‘P’” or something: that kind of semi-random approach often throws up interesting connections.

>2 thorold:
Why limit it to just Middle Eastern and North African reception of this body of literature?

I'm thinking of some of the more notable instances of European writers engaging with classical Arabic poetry (e.g. Goethe's West-Eastern Divan or FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám). I realize there are often issues with orientalism/exoticization when Western writers "discover" the Middle East, but with the migration of the twentieth and twenty-first century there are surely also more contemporary authors outside the Arab world who have turned their attention to this tradition in more nuanced ways. (In Germany, Cyrus Atabay and Navid Kermani come to mind; and it wouldn't surprise me if Salman Rushdie has written something applicable, though I'm only familiar with his Arabian Nights-inspired novels.)

>4 thorold: Well, I have more countries beginning with B left (9) than any others, lol, which would give everyone a choice of 17 countries across the Caribbean, Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, Europe, Central America, South America, West Africa, Southern Africa, South-East Asia, and East Africa.

If we're considering statistics as a theme rather than geography then I suppose a topic by population might be an interesting mix, and the current top 20 excludes the UK (although minus the US it's actually a top 19). Although, from a selfish point of view, I only have DR Congo left in that list it wouldn't deter me from reading something.

Population under 500,000 also gives an interesting group of 40+ which might sound research heavy until one realises it includes luminaries such as Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott (and various popes, lol): Gualdeloupe (Caribbean), Malta (Europe), Brunei (S-E Asia), Belize (Central America), Bahamas, Martinique, Iceland, Vanuatu (Melanesia/Oceania), Barbados, New Caledonia, French Guiana (South America), French Polynesia (Polynesia/Oceania), Mayotte (East African island), Sao Tome and Principe (Western Central African island), Western Samoa, Saint Lucia, Curacao, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Grenada, Tonga, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Aruba, Seychelles, Antigua and Barbuda, Andorra, Dominica, Marshall Islands (Micronesia/Oceania), Greenland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sint Maarten, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, ? Gibraltar (arguably UK) ?, Caribbean Netherlands, Palau, Tuvalu, Wallis and Fortuna, Nauru, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Vatican City, with multiple other arguable overseas territories of major anglophone powers. Extending it to population under 1 million would add another 12+ options: Djibouti, Fiji, Reunion, Comoros, Guyana, Bhutan, Solomon Islands, arguably Macau, Montenegro, Luxembourg, arguably Western Sahara, Suriname, Cape Verde, and the Maldives.

I'm still mulling ideas.

>5 spiphany: Yes, that makes sense. I realised almost as soon as I posted that what mostly prompted that idea was reading a novel by the French arabist Mathias Énard. Also the recent BBC series "Art of Persia", which turned out to be mostly about literature.

All we need to do now is come up with a snappy title — how about "Unfolding the divan"? (no, maybe not that...!). There must be a good line in FitzGerald we can use.

>6 spiralsheep: "B" sounds fun, and "small countries" sounds sensible — I'd be happy to put both of those in the ballot, unless you come up with further refinements.

>5 spiphany: There are also issues with translations. Writers engaging with European translations of Arabic or Farsi, as differentiated from writers who can read the original texts, have often been basing their engagement on bad translations (and sometimes invented orientalisms) in addition to cultural misunderstandings.

My most recent read of a popular novel in a substandard translation from Turkish by a professional translator reminded me that this is an ongoing issue. The translator rendered floor mats praised for their softness, probably made of woven palm leaves, as "wicker" amongst other howlers.

>9 spiralsheep: Sure, bad translation or lack of familiarity with the cultural context is always an issue. (I work as a translator and an editor of non-native English, so these are things I grapple with a lot.)

And if the goal is to understand a foreign culture, bad or unqualified translations are absolutely a problem.

However, from another point of view, it could be argued that the accuracy with which a piece of literature is interpreted is irrelevant for its reception. I don't mean that it doesn't matter or that things like perpetuation of stereotypes should be ignored, but the interpretation takes on a life of its own and it may reveal as much about the interpreter as about the original. These mistakes and appropriations also become part of the afterlife of the original. If we're looking at the reception of classical literature, rather than the originals themselves, then unfaithful and misguided reception is potentially also interesting.

For example, the "Ossian" poems were incredibly influential in their time -- the fact that we now know they were a hoax doesn't change the effect they had on any number of authors. And even aside from downright errors, our view of the distant past is constantly changing and subject to historical contingency. The white marble statues that we associate with Greek and Roman antiquity were not, in fact white -- they were painted -- and yet the serene, fragmentary elegance of the sculptures as they exist today has pretty indelibly shaped the way we've seen and thought about antiquity for centuries. (I could go on about this, as it's a particular hobby of mine, so please don't think I'm attacking you here; that's not my intent at all, just interest in the topic.)

In any case, some of the contemporary authors I was thinking of who are located outside the Arab world are very much capable of reading the originals themselves, so lack of familiarity with the language and culture is likely not so much of a factor.

It's also always worth keeping in mind that all authors have a bias of one kind or another. Just because something is from one's own culture doesn't mean it can't be instrumentalized for unappetizing ends (as the Nazis did with works like the Nibelungenlied), or that an author is necessarily free to interpret a work in ways that don't suit the political establishment.

As so often, it ultimately comes down to reading critically with an eye to context.

>10 spiphany: "If we're looking at the reception of classical literature, rather than the originals themselves, then unfaithful and misguided reception is potentially also interesting."

This is true, but only if readers are aware they're dealing with distortions, and know the specifics of those distortions. Otherwise it's merely perpetuation of distortion. I'm not saying readers aren't allowed to read at face value or take texts literally ("The author is dead, long live the reader!"), I'm just acknowledging that it happens.

> "As so often, it ultimately comes down to reading critically with an eye to context."

Yes. :-)

>10 spiphany: >11 spiralsheep: Save a bit of the argument for when we actually pick this as a topic! :-)

>12 thorold: Lol, it's only argument in the sense that we're both presenting information we already know and largely share. A big friendly hug of a Venn diagram!

I thought we had done this before, but maybe not: Banned Books from around the World.

This would allow readers to focus on countries in which they have an interest. Part of the idea would be to explore why a particular book was banned in that specific country or region, but not elsewhere.

>14 SassyLassy: But aren't all foreign books banned in North Korea? ;-)

This suggestion has proved educational for me already. I had no idea the Nazis banned Ivanhoe. Or that Aristophanes' Lysistrata was banned by the Greek government in 1967. Or that The Da Vinci Code was banned in Lebanon in 2004. Or that all Voltaire's works were banned by... the Spanish Inquisition (no-one expects etc). And I'm sure US schoolchildren were overjoyed when The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron were banned in 1873. And lastly, respect to Munro Leaf and Frithjof Sælen for their children's books being banned by fascists.

>14 SassyLassy: It’s been proposed a few times, but never made the cut so far: worth trying again, thanks for proposing it!

Summary of nominations to date (titles are provisional and subject to refinement and improvement, of course):

— “Orientalism”: the classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes
— Writing from small countries
— Writing from countries beginning with “B”
— Banned books around the world

Nominations remain open until early December (shall we say the 7th?)

>2 thorold: Ive touched on a limited amount, usually in a novel about the region,and would love to learn more about it

>10 spiphany: For example, the "Ossian" poems were incredibly influential in their time -- the fact that we now know they were a hoax doesn't change the effect they had on any number of authors.

whoa! would love the know the story behind the hoax

>11 spiralsheep: This is true, but only if readers are aware they're dealing with distortions, and know the specifics of those distortions. Otherwise it's merely perpetuation of distortion. I'm not saying readers aren't allowed to read at face value or take texts literally ("The author is dead, long live the reader!"), I'm just acknowledging that it happens.

> "As so often, it ultimately comes down to reading critically with an eye to context."

Yes. :-)

yup, ditto

Personally Id prefer a theme on just classics; Im famiar with newer works, but I guess we could combine

>17 thorold: Good job on the title of the first one!!!

Im always interested in topics about kids; what about books written for children around the world?

More suggestions:

Books published or published in translation during 2020 or 2021
Regionally Focused Publishers: Books published by publishers focusing on a specific region, for example Peepal Press (Caribbean & Black British), Norvic Press (Scandinavian Literature), Slavica Publishers (Slavic and East European), etc.

Translation Prize Winners
Crime and Mysteries
Anthologies
Ancient Literature (BCE)
Brazilian Literature
Oral Literature and Epic Poetry

Edit: I like the suggestions so far too, of course.

>19 cindydavid4: The true identity of author Fiona Macleod might amuse you too, especially a photo.

>17 thorold: >20 cindydavid4: ' “Orientalism”: the classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes.'

>20 cindydavid4: 'Personally Id prefer a theme on just classics; Im famiar with newer works, but I guess we could combine'

The current title suggestion would mean people could read the classic work and then newer works under the original influence, so it seems a good combination.

>22 cindydavid4: I also read children's and ya books but they'd fit under most of the themes suggested so far, whereas if we had a whole quarter of children's books that might exclude people who prefer not to read them.

So far, the themes that I already have To Reads for are:

— “Orientalism”: the classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes.
— Writing from small countries (surely this should be called "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back"? :D Or at least Notes from a Small Population).
— Writing from countries beginning with “B” (Somewhere beginning with B ?).
— Banned books around the world.
— Books published or published in translation during 2020 or 2021.
— Regionally focused publishers (at least two from my beloved Peepal Tree Press).
— Translation prize winners.
— Children's literature around the world.

And Anthologies are usually available from libraries and always easy to justify reading.

But I'm happy to read on almost any theme except probably Crime and Mysteries, and that's mostly because I'm too lazy to do the research in an unfamiliar genre. I read a true crime book as part of my project to read around the European Union and it was a very interesting insight into the country.

>25 spiralsheep: >20 cindydavid4: etc. I’d prefer just classics

- That was my first thought as well, but I felt it would be too narrow for the group as a whole. I’m hoping my wording will cover all the possibilities!

>22 cindydavid4: Children’s books is another one that’s been in the ballot a few times, we could try it and see if there’s a base of support for it.

>23 Settings: Thanks! That should be enough to make sure we have to hold a ballot, which is a Good Thing!

Brazil would be a subset of “countries beginning with “B” :-) — we have done South America before, but that was seven years ago.
What would you say about putting Brazil together with Mozambique, Cape Verde, Angola and Portugal? That could give some interesting perspectives, perhaps?

Literature derived from the oral/epic tradition would be a good one!

I see the point of publisher- or prize-focussed themes, but I wouldn’t vote for them. Mostly because many of us don’t live in the UK and US or read (mainly) in English.

>27 thorold:

Makes a lot of sense.

Did not suggest Lusophone literature because I wrongly assumed both Angola and Mozambique were in the Southern Africa theme - only Mozambique was and that's not much overlap at all.

>28 Settings: Yes, Mozambique didn’t really get its fair share of attention in the Southern Africa theme — too much competition. Maybe it will do better second time around.

>7 thorold: "Unfolding the divan"
Well, at least one author has picked up on the wordplay opportunities of "divan" and run with it, e.g. Osman Engin's West-östliches Sofa

>19 cindydavid4: Wikipedia has a good overview: Ossian

Actually, I suppose literary hoaxes and scandals could potentially be an interesting topic, too ... "Fakes, forgeries and fictional manuscripts"?

Though we're likely to be on problematic ground again in cases where authors have assumed a false identity in order to create an aura of authenticity (more problematic, arguably, than sincere engagements with a foreign culture/literature such as Goethe's West-Eastern Divan). And depending on interpretation the debate about authorship and authenticity could get more controversial than we might want (religious texts...).

But there are also more playful reasons why an author might make a pretense of being someone else or translating a lost manuscript while letting the reader in on the joke. This is the stuff postmodernism is made of, after all, though it certainly didn't start with it.

>30 spiphany: “Fakes, forgeries...”. — could be worth a try, we might have to be inventive to find material, but it would be fun.

>22 cindydavid4: >25 spiralsheep: Children — Further thought: what about picking “childhood” as a theme instead? That would allow for both books written for children and books about education, growing up, children and parents, child-labour, etc., and wouldn’t exclude those who don’t normally read children’s books.

>28 Settings: I'd like to lobby for Lusophone countries to include: Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, AND East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau (or all of the above minus Portugal if anyone has strong anti-colonial feelings). I've really enjoyed my Portuguese language/cultural reading experiences so far.

>32 spiralsheep: That was what I intended to say in >27 thorold:, of course, but I was too lazy to look them up. Apologies to São Tomé and the rest!

>31 thorold: 'what about picking “childhood” as a theme'

I'm all in favour of expanding themes to be more inclusive for potential readers. "The literature of childhood" (or similar) sounds good.

>31 thorold: Wikipedia has a list that could serve as a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Literary_forgeries
It includes a depressing number of fake Holocaust memoirs but some of the other titles/authors sound intriguing (Andreas Karavis, for example). And inventing ancient Greek manuscripts seems to be a very longstanding and persistent practice indeed!

I have a suspicion that finding copies of the texts could turn out to be the crucial challenge, since generally hoaxes tend not to be republished, much less translated, once they're discovered to be such. But at a pinch I suppose Borges could be included, or something like the Saragossa Manuscript.

There are some interesting overlaps with the topic of "oral literature" here. Ossian is just one example of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fascination with oral narrative in the context of romanticism and emerging nationalism in Europe. While the Ossian poems were not authentic, many of the people who did go out and collect folk and fairy tales and other oral narratives in fact made alterations to the texts before publication or didn't necessarily collect the stories from the uneducated peasants they say they did. I know this is the case at least to some degree for the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales, and there are debates about how much of the Kalevala is Lönnrot's own creation and how much is the oral material.

This isn't necessarily all due to irresponsible ethnography but rather to some extent an inevitable part of the process of transforming a living oral tradition into fixed written form: something is changed, something is lost. An oral narrative is a performance that is anchored in a particular context, and a written text is neither.

>35 spiphany: I have an interesting case of the opposite of a fake/forgery on my To Read pile: a literary novel written by a journalist seeking a way to evade government censors and publish his factual reporting of a democidal massacre. The stratagem was a success. He published in two languages, and lost his journalistic job, but he wasn't arrested or disappeared. Apparently the government didn't believe anyone important ever read literary novels.

>36 spiralsheep:

Some of the science fiction published in Eastern Europe after WWII was thinly veiled anti-regime writing. Most of it made it through the censorship - who would connect a colony on Mars to a country on Earth... ;)

>37 AnnieMod: Perhaps spiphany is onto something and we need a Fakes, Forgeries, and Factitious Fictions theme?

>25 spiralsheep: Orientalism

I thought this term was no longer popular; or is it used for Arab and Persian lit rather than Chinese, which I always associate the term with

>24 spiralsheep: Hee, never heard of him, interesting he'd write under a women's name, usually its the other way around. Love stories like this

>31 thorold: what about picking “childhood” as a theme instead? That would allow for both books written for children and books about education, growing up, children and parents, child-labour, etc., and wouldn’t exclude those who don’t normally read children’s books.

Yes that would work better, tho that seems almost too broad; Im more interested in books about or for children in other cultures. But the theme would suggest many different ideas, so more participation. (Thinking I might try including children's books in the Reading Through Time group) So Im good. with this

Might I suggest

reads from newly independent countries (or countries that claimed themselves independent) (21st century): Kosovo, Chechnya, South Sudan, South Ossetia, Catalonia (there might be others, these from the top of my head)

20-21st century Genocides

>32 spiralsheep: I was trying to think of why you'd put those countries together and thought it might be Portugese - so I learned a new word 'Lusophone'! Would love to find the origin for it. So then what term do we use for countries that speak spanish, I assume Hispanic? Im probably wrong.

ETA aHa! Love linguistics (wanted to go into it instead of teaching) anyway "Etymology. The term Lusophone is a classical compound, whereby the combining form "Luso-" derives from the Latin term for an area roughly corresponding to modern Portugal, called Lusitania. The suffix "-phone" derives from the Ancient Greek word φωνή (phōnē), meaning "voice".

>31 thorold: >34 spiralsheep: sure, Im in!!

>42 Tess_W:

Wikipedia has a helpful list. Sorting seems a bit broken though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_date_of_formation#Sort...

Edit: Also missing ones that aren't as universally recognized, I think.

>42 Tess_W: 20-21st century Genocides

oh man, Im not sure I could handle too much reading of these.....tho I do wish more people knew about them

>39 cindydavid4: "Orientalism. I thought this term was no longer popular; or is it used for Arab and Persian lit rather than Chinese"

So, this is complicated and a full explanation is probably best left to whoever leads the theme if we choose it but here's a very short summary...

"Oriental" basically means eastern as opposed to "occidental" which means western. The traditional usage centres Europe by implying that Asia is "Oriental", i.e. East-of-somewhere, because it's east of Europe. "Middle East" implies the same about West Asia (and sometimes also North Africa). But the Chinese, for example, don't see themselves as East-of-Europe because to them China is the centre, so East Asia is a geographically accurate description of China but "Oriental" isn't.

"Orientalism" is a term made famous by Edward Said to describe the representation of Asia from a European perspective, usually through colonialist / racist stereotypes such as the "inscrutable Chinese", the "cruel Arab", the "lazy Black slave". So "orientalism" can cover anything from mild cliches such as Willow Pattern crockery to overtly racist Fu Manchu movies. It certainly covers the historical European writers who were fascinated by various Asian cultures and repackaged them for European consumption (another related term you probably know is "exoticism").

>43 cindydavid4: If you want a matching set of language words then "Hispanophone" for Spanish speakers.

>39 cindydavid4: "Oriental" is now considered racist as a way of referring to people, yes.

"Orientalism" is a scholarly term (coined by Edward Said) that describes the European fascination with and imitation of Asian art, literature, and culture, often in an exoticizing way. It tends to be connected with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century attitudes of Western empires towards the East, so it's not necessarily a positive model of cultural exchange, but I'm guessing Mark's suggestion of using it as the name for the theme read was meant somewhat ironically.

>49 spiphany: Yes, I was alluding to the Said way of using the word, the scare-quotes were there because we would hope to include some of those writers in east and west who have tried to turn the idea round and use it in positive ways.

>48 spiralsheep: ...and “Megaphone” for countries where people speak very loudly; “Sousaphone” for speakers of early 20th century American; “Linguaphone” for those of us who speak seventeen languages all equally badly...

>50 thorold: ' “Megaphone” for countries where people speak very loudly; “Sousaphone” for speakers of early 20th century American; “Linguaphone” for those of us who speak seventeen languages all equally badly...'

Hee! Although it's a well known fact that Megaphones were actually a type of dinosaur.

There's a lot coming in! Updated summary of nominations to date, with the original nominating post; please tell me if I've got any of these wrong, or missed anyone. The poll's going to be complicated, but too many ideas is always better than not enough! In the worst case we can always have a second round of voting. Or hanging chads...

I've divided them into regional and thematic, but since we have far more of the latter than the former, I don't think we should insist on the usual pattern of two regional, two thematic.

Regional:
— Writing from small countries (>6 spiralsheep:)
— Writing from countries beginning with “B” (>6 spiralsheep:)
— The Lusophone world: writing from countries where Portuguese is or was an important language (from "Brazil" in >23 Settings:)
— reads from newly-independent countries (or countries that claimed themselves independent) (>42 Tess_W:)

Thematic:
— “Orientalism”: the classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes (>2 thorold:)
— Banned books around the world (>14 SassyLassy:)
— Books for or about children in different cultures around the world (from "kids' books" in >22 cindydavid4:)
— Books published or published in translation during 2020 or 2021 (>23 Settings:)
— Regionally Focused Publishers (>23 Settings:)
— Translation Prize Winners (>23 Settings:)
— Crime and Mysteries from around the world (>23 Settings:)
— Anthologies (>23 Settings:)
— Ancient Literature (BCE) (>23 Settings:)
— Writing based on Oral and Epic traditions (>23 Settings:)
— Fakes, forgeries, fictional manuscripts and factitious fictions (>30 spiphany:)
— 20th & 21st century Genocides (>42 Tess_W:)

Nominations remain open until early December (shall we say the 7th?)

>50 thorold: see this is why linguistics is so fun. Took a couple of classes in college, but my heart was in teaching. Still enjoy learning it Love Megaphone and Linguaphone, and didn't know that was where Lusitania came from.

>49 spiphany: Ok, thats what I thought, so it surprised me to see it used, so hopefuly we can find a positive spin to it, or another word. And yeah I didn't see use of the "quotations" so that makes it better.

>52 thorold: Should we choose to be Childhood? Or have both?

Totally off the topic of themes, but relating to several posts above, in Canada, " ...'Allophone' is an official term used by the federal government as well as the Commissioner of Official Languages". It refers to those whose first language in neither English or French, nor an indigenous language. About 22% of the population would be allophones. The top three of these other languages are Mandarin, Cantonese, and Punjabi.

Back on topic, a theme proposed before, but possibly considered too dark: prison writing. These could be fictional accounts, letters and diaries, critiques, philosophy, just about anything. It unfortunately covers most of the world.

>56 SassyLassy: Would "prison writing" fold into the banned writing theme? Maybe "Banned books, censorship, and samizdat" (or similar). Also much prison writing relies on non-physical publication, at least until after the author's release, and is almost a genre of oral tradition.

>52 thorold: Happy to remove the nomination for 'countries beginning with “B” ' as it deserves zero votes. ;-)

>53 cindydavid4: I actually rather like "Orientalism" as a characterization for the topic with all the historical messiness it brings with it (though we do kind of lose sight of Mark's original idea, which was Arabic writers engaging with their own classics!). Cultural exchange doesn't have to be exoticizing or exploitative, and I doubt even scholars of orientalism would argue that it is/was an exclusively negative phenomenon. I'm not downplaying the issues, but alongside and intertwined with stereotyped ideas about the "East", there have also always been genuine attempts to understand and engage with these foreign cultures. It's never all one or all the other.

It does occur to me that something like "Conversations in the Coffeehouse" might be a suitable alternative topic name -- as an iconic feature of the Arab world, a place of meeting and dialogue, and an example of a very successful export to the West.

>59 spiphany:

iconic feature of the Arab world, a place of meeting and dialogue, and an example of a very successful export to the West.

I think the Greek agora got there first, as far as meeting and dialogue go...

I feel the need to point out that these "coffeehouses" are wholly, rabidly misogynistic spaces, at least until the 20th century in Europe. Just an observation how even the framing excludes women from the get go--of course the proposed topic would do that no matter what, as male voices dominate those traditions so overwhelmingly.

>56 SassyLassy:

Oh, I like that--and preferably as its own theme. If anyone is counting votes, this is where mine goes.

ETA: "prison writing"

>58 spiralsheep: OK!

>56 SassyLassy: >60 LolaWalser: Yes, I hope we can get "prison writing" through this time. There must be a lot of good stuff out there. (I'm halfway through Sakhalin Island at the moment, you've caught me in the right mood...) Let's keep it separate for the time being and see what happens with the ballot, we can always combine if there's a near-tie between them.

>60 LolaWalser: We haven't had a "women writers..." theme since 2015 — if you've got an idea for a topic that might work, suggest something!

>61 thorold: "Women in translation"? That should cover a lot of ground without defaulting to the usual Western cannon when women writers are discussed...

Or "The women of the previous centuries" to get us out from the current writers.
Or "Women through time" (allowing for any interpretation - women writers or writing about women)... Or "Women and time"...

>57 spiralsheep: Not sure the prison writing theme fits exactly into banned books. While some is indeed banned, in other cases regimes change and what was prohibited before is now allowed, people write from exile, others have their writing smuggled out, some writing only appears after the author's death, and some is not banned.

I wasn't suggesting a theme based solely on the few works that actually get published during a particular prison term, but rather any writings relating to prison and the idea of prison. Hope that helps to clarify the idea.

>63 SassyLassy: Prison writing: you explained it perfectly clearly the first time. My understanding was at fault, lol. My only excuse is that I've been re-reading Jack Mapanje so my thoughts tended in that direction.

>60 LolaWalser: Well yeah, I wasn't claiming that the coffeehouse had a monopoly on meeting and dialogue; I was looking for an alternative metaphor to express the idea of exchange within the Arab world and between the Arab world and the West. The agora, as a Greek institution, doesn't fit. (And it was hardly a woman-inclusive place, though probably somewhat more so than the Arabic coffeehouse.) Do you have a better suggestion that avoids the misogyny?

(Edit: The "export" I was thinking of was more coffee than the coffeehouse itself, in case that wasn't clear. I feel like foods and food cultures are a good example of the entire spectrum of complexity of cultural contact and exchange, since they involve all sorts of adaptation and assimilation that can't be reduced to just exploitation and appropriation.)

>65 spiphany: "Classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes" ?

Although I'll probably think of it as "Classical Arabic and Persian traditions, revisions, revisits, and reversions" in my head, lol.

>65 spiphany:

I mentioned the agora because of the claim that Arab coffeehouses introduced meeting & dialogue to the West, not as a counter-example re: misogyny.

I don't have anything creative to propose regarding the topic, sorry (been extremely rubbish in following a train of thought for weeks now, thus also being even more rubbish a contributor than usual... sigh)

And, tangentially, lest I confuse anyone--absolutely adore coffeehouses, would have one, would live in one, or join a Coffeehouse group, etc. My observation is not anti-coffeehouse!

>61 thorold:

Heh, people always think of political stuff in prisons, but (obligatory statement that Everything Is Political made) let's not forget oodles of all kind of literature were written in them, Cervantes, Sade, Cleland, Villon, Apollinaire--hell, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was conceived and started when Wittgenstein was a POW.

Wilde... Genet! wrote in prison...

ETA: a bit of autocritique, seeing my complaints above--WHERE ARE THE WOMEN IN PRISON--must investigate

>67 LolaWalser: "WHERE ARE THE WOMEN IN PRISON"

I was recently considering reading Ma Thanegi's prison diaries from Myanmar, and there's that other very famous Myanmar woman ex-prisoner.... I've encountered a few African women who wrote in prisons too, both colonial and post-colonial.

>68 spiralsheep:

Thanks.

Ooo, found a good one: Albertine Sarrazin

https://www.ndbooks.com/author/albertine-sarrazin/#/

Albertine Sarrazin (1937-1967) was a French-Algerian writer. At an early age she abandoned her studies and turned to a life of crime and prostitution. She wrote her first two novels in prison and died at twenty-nine.

Oops, this is getting off-topic big time--I can delete these posts once/if there's a proper place for them.

>68 spiralsheep: >69 LolaWalser:
https://www.librarything.com/tag/prison,+women

Plenty there that would be on-topic for RG, e.g. Nawal El Saadawi.
The anthology Wall Tappings: Women's Prison Writings, 200 A.D. to the Present sounds as though it would be a good starting-point, if we choose that topic. And even if we don't...

>70 thorold:

There's a lot of noise in that tagmash with women who went to prison but didn't necessarily write in it. Saadawi, for instance, wasn't allowed paper and pen, although she managed to make some notes and smuggle a few letters to the family out.

>70 thorold: Thank you for the suggestions. I usually find tagmashes too full of noise compared to the google panopticon.

> And, while we're dropping notes, anyone who wants a notable hot take on writing about being imprisoned might want to track down My Life and Faith by Ri In Mo a loyal North Korean who claims he was illegally imprisoned in South Korea for over 30 years.

Off topic: prison writing.

Randomly encountered this book from Bolivia (which is a rare country with more elected women in politics than men):

Jailhouse Blues: 192 Days in a Bolivian Women's Prison by Lupe Andrade ex-mayor of La Paz.

https://thisishell.com/interviews/851-lupe-andrade

OK, nominations close on Monday, you have about 48 hours left to add, merge or withdraw suggestions. What I have so far (update of the list in >52 thorold:):

Regional:
— Writing from small countries (>6 spiralsheep:)
— Writing from countries beginning with “B” (>6 spiralsheep:) (withdrawn >58 spiralsheep:)
— The Lusophone world: writing from countries where Portuguese is or was an important language (from "Brazil" in >23 Settings:)
— reads from newly-independent countries (or countries that claimed themselves independent) (>42 Tess_W:)

Thematic:
— “Orientalism”: the classical Arabic and Persian traditions and their modern echoes (>2 thorold:)
— Banned books around the world (>14 SassyLassy:)
— Childhood: Books for or about children in different cultures around the world (from "kids' books" in >22 cindydavid4:)
— Books published or published in translation during 2020 or 2021 (>23 Settings:)
— Regionally Focused Publishers (>23 Settings:)
— Translation Prize Winners (>23 Settings:)
— Crime and Mysteries from around the world (>23 Settings:)
— Anthologies (>23 Settings:)
— Ancient Literature (BCE) (>23 Settings:)
— Writing based on Oral and Epic traditions (>23 Settings:)
— Fakes, forgeries, fictional manuscripts and factitious fictions (>30 spiphany:)
— 20th & 21st century Genocides (>42 Tess_W:)
— Prison writing (>56 SassyLassy:)
— Women and time (or various alternatives >62 AnnieMod:)

I'd like to withdraw draw regionally focused publishers, translation prize winners, crime and mystery, and ancient literature - I wouldn't have suggested them if I didn't think they were interesting, but the arguments against two of those were convincing and I'm not seeing any interest in any of them (so they won't win anyway, but it should shorten the poll a bit).

I'm most interested in the classical Arabic/Persian traditions and the Lusophone world - hope both of those win.

>75 Settings: I’m definitely interested in Translation prize winners - I was just waiting for the polls to express my agreement...

>76 Dilara86:

Oh if someone is interested then don't retract it.

>74 thorold: Childhood:

can i indicate in some way that my preference are for books that are about children outside the white world (realizing that this label is frought with problems, but hoping someone or ones with better vocabulary can make it work)

Many thanks to all!

Nominations are now closed: the voting thread is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/327031

>75 Settings: >76 Dilara86: I've kept Translation prize winners and Crime and Mystery (because I was planning to vote for that one!)
>78 cindydavid4: I've adapted the wording in the voting thread, I hope that reflects what you meant.

>79 thorold: ya know, Im not comfortable with that, just take it out, and people can go for what they want. Thx

>80 cindydavid4: OK, done.

Just putting this here for possible future discussion (before I forget).

If the small countries theme goes through then I can volunteer to host it but I can only guarantee being available for the first quarter, Jan-March, although I can also get a post up within a few days as I already have lists of possible reads, so it would be posted before western libraries and shops shut for xmas and new year (and then possible post-gathering lockdowns).

Feel free to express strong dissent, but not until the voting is over, lol.

>82 spiralsheep: Thanks!

Obviously we can’t pre-empt the vote, but this is a good time for all of us to start thinking about which themes we might be willing to (co-)host. You don’t have to be an expert on the topic, just willing to start learning about it a week or two before everyone else!

(But whatever we pick for Q1, I, for one, am not going to start shopping for it until I know what Father Christmas is bringing me...)

Better not to count the chickens before the hatch... but what population cut-off were you thinking?

So I can plan what I'd want to read lol. Nothing I like better than making lists of books.

>84 Settings: My original proposal >6 spiralsheep: above was under 500,000 population. Under 1 million only gives about 12 more places. There are also various colonial overseas territories of New Zealand, UK, and US.

I have a surprisingly long list of available books in various languages, and a few online specials for otherwise unrepresented nations.

My original list from >6 spiralsheep:

"Population under 500,000 also gives an interesting group of 40+ which might sound research heavy until one realises it includes luminaries such as Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott (and various popes, lol): Gualdeloupe (Caribbean), Malta (Europe), Brunei (S-E Asia), Belize (Central America), Bahamas, Martinique, Iceland, Vanuatu (Melanesia/Oceania), Barbados, New Caledonia, French Guiana (South America), French Polynesia (Polynesia/Oceania), Mayotte (East African island), Sao Tome and Principe (Western Central African island), Western Samoa, Saint Lucia, Curacao, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Grenada, Tonga, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Aruba, Seychelles, Antigua and Barbuda, Andorra, Dominica, Marshall Islands (Micronesia/Oceania), Greenland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sint Maarten, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, ? Gibraltar (arguably UK) ?, Caribbean Netherlands, Palau, Tuvalu, Wallis and Fortuna, Nauru, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Vatican City, with multiple other arguable overseas territories of major anglophone powers.

Extending it to population under 1 million would add another 12+ options: Djibouti, Fiji, Reunion, Comoros, Guyana, Bhutan, Solomon Islands, arguably Macau, Montenegro, Luxembourg, arguably Western Sahara, Suriname, Cape Verde, and the Maldives."

>84 Settings: I also have some crossovers with other themes and members' pet subjects: prison writing, gay fiction, detective stories, and anthologies.

>86 spiralsheep:

Enthusiastic about it now. If it doesn't get a slot I'll be disappointed, haha.

>87 Settings: Well, don't say thorold and I didn't warn you! ;-)

TBH I liked and have reads for almost all the suggested themes. Even your withdrawn Ancient Lit theme reminded me that I've never got around to reading Travels with Herodotus by the inimitable Ryszard Kapuściński (and my library has a copy).

>88 spiralsheep: I would so love browsing through your library some day, just sayin. You have stuff I never knew existed and want it!

>89 cindydavid4: My local library system isn't much use to me for browsing offline as it's physically mostly small scattered branch libraries and mobile services (they do bookmobiles and care home etc), but they have unusually well curated stacks and now also share catalogues and membership with the small local university library. It's the organisation and co-operation of the librarians that makes it great.

>90 spiralsheep: no I meant your shelves at home! :)

>91 cindydavid4: Oh! Then you'd be extremely disappointed. I have a small bookcase full of poetry, and another small bookcase with anything I'm likely to re-read. Everything else was either borrowed, or read once and sent to a charity bookshop. All the important stuff is in my head! :D

I see small countries (+6), Lusophone world (+5), women and time (+3), prison writing (+2) are currently in the lead. Nice topics. :D

I also see that no one else is interested in anthologies, haha.

>93 Settings: Psst, refresh your browser for newer poll results.

I don't think it's that people aren't interested in reading anthologies. I suspect it's more that people pick subjects more likely to stimulate group discussion? I could be wrong though, obviously. :-)

>93 Settings:

I love anthologies but... unless we all read the same one(s), it won't really be a good discussion.

>93 Settings: The field seems to be spreading out a little bit as the week progresses.

It looks as though Prison Writing and Translation Prize winners are neck and neck for fourth place at the moment, but much could change by Monday. Turnout at the moment is still under 1% of eligible voters, so anyone with good canvassing skills could easily bring Anthologies and Genocide back into the running...

I'm proposing to take the four with the largest number of "Yes" votes, and to take the "No" votes into account only in the case that the cut-off between fourth and fifth place comes between two topics with equal numbers of "Yes" votes. Does that seem fair?

(A perverse approach would be to assume that the topics that most people vote against are the ones that arouse the strongest feelings and will therefore produce the most interesting discussion, but I don't think it would be wise to gamble on that. We're sensible people and most of us probably vote "No" for more prosaic reasons.)

>96 thorold: I'm mildly disappointed about the re-Arabic theme but I'm too lazy to set up half a dozen sockpuppets.... ;-)

I've no idea where else to go with this but as the "children's lit" theme seems to have a shadow of a chance... there's a shadow of a connection? :)

The Italian genius who mixed marxism and children's literature

The subject is, of course, Gianni Rodari--I'm betting far more Europeans are familiar with his works than might be thought given his apparent obscurity in Anglo-dom (coincidentally, I've just seen a thread where someone is posting about the "unknown" Saltykov-Shchedrin, a Russian classic fairly well represented in translation outside English... it's all relative, innit?)

I'm not surprised to hear Rodari was popular in the USSR but the extent is pretty jaw-dropping:

...Rodari acquired a huge following in the Soviet Union, where “Cipollino” was adapted into an animated film, a live-action film, and even a ballet. Its hero’s sweet, bland face adorned a Russian postage stamp, and when the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh discovered a new minor planet, between Mars and Jupiter, he named it 2703 Rodari.

Stamps! Planetoids!

(Le avventure di Cipollino was one of my fave books as a kid--and it stood up fabulously when I reread it a few years ago. Closely followed by what I'd HOPE would be published in English as "Pie in the sky"--La torta in cielo--but, honestly, can't think of a work of his I didn't love.)

Acocella's article can't convey much about Rodari's presence in Italian culture; just as a hint, consider the tribute that was, among other, Bruno Munari's design for his books (scroll for pictures):

https://www.artribune.com/professioni-e-professionisti/didattica/2017/04/bruno-m...

>98 LolaWalser: Thank for the rec. Looks interesting.

In exchange I offer you Lyudmila Karachkina and the list of names she gave the many minor planets she discovered (130 officially):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Karachkina

>98 LolaWalser:

This brought up happy memories. I grew up with him - it was not just USSR, he was (and still is in the generation that grew up with him) very popular in most of the Eastern blocк. It is hard to find a child from my generation that had not read Cipollino and Favole al telefono in elementary school... And that did not stop when USSR collapsed - not immediately anyway. I even had one of the postmarks somewhere (a pen friend used it when sending -- part of the whole thing was using the most beautiful and interesting postmarks when you sent your letter...) :)

One of the things that surprised me when I started reading in English was how different the standard children and YA literature was in the anglophone world compared to the Slavic world. Before I got into prep class and started seriously working on English, most of the children I had met were from the Eastern block (summer camps, pen-friends and so on) and we had a shared understanding of TV and books. As it turned out, once you went West, the authors were either unknown or not that popular (the Czech and Russian children TV programs, Rodari and Karl May being some of the obvious examples).

>98 LolaWalser: Nice! I didn't know about Rodari, although now I see that article I'm making connections with references my Italian friends have made to Cipollino...

>100 AnnieMod: Karl May was very popular in West Germany in my childhood (60s/70s), there were plenty of books and TV adaptations around. My cousins all had a shelf of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. I don't know if kids still read him now.

The American Ulsterman Mayne Reid seems to have been an odd 19th-century example of the same phenomenon: people like Nabokov and Isaiah Berlin go on about him at some length, as an essential part of their Russian childhood, but he doesn't seem to have left much footprint in the English-speaking world.

>100 AnnieMod: I have Krtek / Mole advent calendar sent to me by a Finnish friend. I believe many northern Europeans of a certain age loved the Mole.

>99 spiralsheep:

So cool!

(((((6766 Kharms)))))

>100 AnnieMod:

Interesting. From what I've seen there is somewhat of a difference between what Brits vs. Continental Europe consumed, and then also between Brits vs. (North) Americans. For instance, Brit friends of similar age report watching some Czech and Polish cartoons--"Pat & Mike", "Lolek & Bolek" (not sure about the original titles), and Czech and East German fairy tale movies, whereas North Americans seem to have had no contact with anything produced in Europe, let alone the socialist part. Oh, right--the one apparent exception being the MSSTK skewering of Father Frost...

Latin America is very different in this regard (contrast with the USA).

>101 thorold:

It's interesting that almost simultaneously with May, therefore already in the 19th century, the myth/dream of the Wild West, America as a land of adventure, was huge in Russia too--you don't see that discussed much...

argh why is this happening--sorry, double post AGAIN

>103 LolaWalser: I can confirm occasional showings of art film, fairy tale animations from Eastern Europe when I was younger.

We also had "British" children's programmes influenced and even made by animators from eastern Europe, e.g. Ludwig by Mirek Lang (born in Poland, 1918) and his son Peter Lang, and written with actress Susan Kodicek. I don't have a full filmography for Lang but he also worked with famous British children's star Tony Hart on Clocks, and on a short film with John Cleese and Ronnie Corbett.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_(cartoon)

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6d787404

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b836d08a5

ETA: sorry, broken link for Ludwig but c&p will work.

ETA2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kodicek

>101 thorold: Well, he was German after all so I am not that surprised but he is not that popular in the English speaking world. :) And Mayne Reid is another one from the western(ish) writers popular as YA literature when I was growing up. So was Emilio Salgari.

>103 LolaWalser: You are absolutely right about the USA/UK/Continental Europe difference - there were some that seemed to be universal but especially in the non- English world, they had their own as well. And UK/USA baffled me for years until I learned a lot more about the history of the whole thing. :)

I wonder if the differences are as deep these days - I see a lot of translated children literature back home so it seems like the cannons are getting much more similar than they used to be. There always will be the local and regional of course but still.

Back to business...

Voting is now closed, and we seem to have a clear result, fortunately! A few "undecided" votes were changed into "yes" or "no" in the last 24 hours or so, which probably helped.

Y=Yes, N=No, U=Undecided



So we have four clear winners:

— The Lusophone world (11 votes)
— Translation prize winners (10 votes)
— Writing from small countries (9 votes)
— Childhood (9 votes)

...which incidentally turns out to be our traditional two "regional" and two "thematic" topics!

As we already have a volunteer to do "Writing from small countries" in Q1, (>82 spiralsheep:) that works out rather neatly. Does the offer still stand?

Any volunteers for the other themes? Feel free to message me privately if you are unsure.

>107 thorold: I'm loving that very clear graph!

Yes, my offer to host small populations in Q1 is still open. As is my offer to post an epic recs list before the midwinter shut down so people can ask Santa, reserve books at libraries, or buy beforehand.

I'm also looking forward to Lusophone and Childhood, and hoping Settings will have an epic recs list for Prize Winners. :-)

>108 spiralsheep: Great, thanks!
Go ahead and create a thread when your list is ready to go, I’ll put a link on the group page.

Unfortunately, any influence I might have had with Santa was used up over the last couple of weeks, and there’s already a little pile of “do not open until Christmas” parcels building up...

I’m really glad the decision-making process created so much interest this year, even though the result was that a couple of the topics I was especially interested in didn’t make it. Whatever else 2021 brings, it should be an interesting year for global reading.

>109 thorold: I hope people remember and resubmit categories for next year because I think several more would have resulted in interesting discussions.

I also wondered, then decided it's a bad idea, then wondered again, if we should copy some of the Category Challenges and have a year-long low-pressure thread running alongside the others, e.g. some sort of ongoing yearly TBR Road. On the whole I think not but others who've been around longer might have a better related idea? (I know there's also a general chat thread mooted for Club Read but that seems more suited to a com with many personal threads... or ?)

>106 AnnieMod: its hard to make the comparison between Europe and US books when Europe has always been a group of close nations, with various borders, wars, refugees and general moving around to make it much easier for books to be more available than the might go for the US ( tho certainly it is changing esp the last decade or so) This is also the case with learning languages; its not uncommon for a European citizen to speak several languages other than his own. In the US we have trouble with regional dialects, let alone spanish or french

Tho you are right, South American countries seen to have a closer connection with European culture, as well as

If I am generalizing or making an over obvious comment, feel free to educate me. Its something tho that goes through my head when they discuss culture or language between countries

>107 thorold: love the new graph as well (and love how really apparent what people really didn't want to read!) Tell me whats involed in hosting. I could do the children's book but Im not sure what exactly is involved aside from setting up intro thread.

>109 thorold: We've tried ongoing themes once or twice before, and it hasn't created a lot of interest. People forget they are there. But a background "travelling the TBR" thread wouldn't cost anything to set up, we could try it!

>112 cindydavid4: It's essentially just setting up an introduction with a bit of background and some starting points for reading, and maybe intervening every now and then later on to give the discussion a prod if things are falling flat. For the intro posts it's as much (or little) work as you feel will be useful. Some people go overboard and do lots of research, most don't! We've done themes with joint hosts in the past as well, if someone else were interested you could divide the subject between you (say "for kids" and "about kids").

>113 thorold: Maybe making sure the intro blurb widens the TBR Road topic out to anything covered by previous threads and people's ongoing personal projects, so long-distance readers like Settings' 1001 books challenge are explicitly included. Might attract a few more drive-bys from GeoKIT or personal challenges that way.

markon has been doing sterling work promoting Reading Globally recs posts on the GeoKIT threads.

>111 cindydavid4:

Nah, my comment on being surprised was because of the "one language, many very distinct cultures" thing. Where I grew up, a language and a culture match (with some regional variants and what's not but close enough). Russian was kinda the exception but it was the gateway language and most people I met had another first language. So USA/UK being so very different was... surprising :)

Pre-internet, country just coming out from behind the Iron Curtain - there were assumptions that were interesting to figure out :)

>114 spiralsheep: Yes, I’ll give that some thought.

The trouble with RG at the moment is that we have a lot of overlapping “legacy” threads from old quarterly themes and the “Classics in their own countries” as well as what are meant to be the permanent regional threads, so if people want to avoid multiple cross-posting, they have to pick arbitrarily between the five or six relevant places where they could talk about a given book.

I would say we ought to clean up the Group page a bit further, but I don’t know if anyone ever looks at it. I gave it a spring-clean a few weeks ago, so at least the links should be consistent now, but there’s probably too much stuff on it.

>107 thorold: What an interesting looking graph. For those who chose undecided it shows what a difference votes make, so if there are any upcoming elections in your part of the world, get out and vote!

I'm happy with these selections which seem well balanced. Looking forward to it all.

>116 thorold: I use the Group page to find both ongoing topics and threads when I am looking for a particular topic, or even inspiration. I can see that it is somewhat unwieldy, but I suspect it arises from many of the regional threads in the master list being narrowed down in later more specific threads, which is a natural evolution. I still use both the master lists and the later threads. Not sure how this could be resolved, if it needs it.

Maybe an interim suggestion would be to have new threads provide links to connected threads in the introduction, so to pick an easy example, The Lusophone World could have links to The Iberian Peninsula, Sub-Saharan Africa, South American Literature and others.

Thanks for keeping the Group page "readable" It does look cleaner.

>107 thorold: I don't want to step on anyone's toes, especially since I didn't suggest it, but I would be willing to lead The Lusophone World theme, especially if I could do so in the third or fourth quarter. If all goes as planned I'll spend the month of June in Lisbon, take a course in Intensive Portuguese, and meet up with two LT friends who live there. I'm giving serious thought to retiring to Portugal later this decade, so I have a particular interest in the country and its former colonies. I may also be able to find books by lusophone authors there that are unfamiliar to most of us, as I know from my last visit two years ago that the works of many authors that are popular there are not translated into English, or at least not widely so.

>118 kidzdoc: Thanks, I was hoping you’d say that, Darryl, but I didn’t want to push you! I know you have a special interest there.

If someone else has their eye on it as well (it was first proposed in >23 Settings:, together with another poll-winner, Translation Prize Winners) then you could maybe work together.

Any preference between Q3 and Q4?

>117 SassyLassy: Yes linking to related earlier threads at the top of new threads seems like a good idea. I think I’ve sometimes remembered to do that when starting new topics...

>119 thorold: You're welcome, Mark. I mentioned that possibility on my Club Read thread a few days ago, and I figured you noticed my comments there, in addition to my special interest in Portugal.

I would be happy to work with Settings or anyone else on that theme.

I would have a slight preference for Q3. if my plans for June work out I'll be in Lisbon and off from work at the end of Q2. Q4 would be fine if someone else strongly prefers Q3, though.

>120 kidzdoc:

Thank you greatly for volunteering - this is a small group so I'm sure people help lead multiple topics but I did one back in 2015 and don't want to lead another.

If noone else wants "Translation Prize Winners", I can lead that one :)

As I grew up reading in translation (when you are coming from a small language, you kinda end up doing it), translations are near and dear to my heart - and awards are always a good way to find new titles and writers. May even end up reading some of the books I have around the house. :)

put me down for childrens books, but I prefer second quarter if possible as I am doing the january theme in Reading Through Time (Shakespear's Children). If thats not possible,d put me anywhere.

Wow! Volunteers popping up from all directions, and I don’t even need to step in this time!

Does this work for everyone?

Q1 — Writing from small countries spiralsheep
Q2 — Childhood cindydavid4
Q3 — The Lusophone world kidzdoc
Q4 — Translation prize winners AnnieMod

>121 Settings: You're welcome. I can also steal some of the information I used for The Iberian Peninsula theme that I led several years ago.

>124 thorold: That's perfect.

Perfect! Now a little help needed - how do I find links? I scrolled through the RG themes and see nothing that is just connected with children. I have some books in mind but if something similar with is found it would make my task easier

>124 thorold:

Perfect :) And now I even have an official excuse to keep an eye on the awards next year ;)

>126 cindydavid4:
I don't recall any theme reads that would overlap with the topic of "childhood", though you could try looking at the "classics in their own country" thread to see if there were any discussions of classic children's literature.

I don't know that your responsibility is necessarily to provide a comprehensive list of relevant titles. I think the main idea is to provide some topics to think about, and maybe some categories of books that fit the theme and a few examples of each. It's up to you. Some of us are very thorough, others keep the introductions short and sweet.

I've found that googling relevant phrases (so "international literature about childhood" or some such) often turns up interesting articles that either suggest titles or help me crystalize my thoughts.

Also, as a general note, I've sometimes found it faster and simpler to use LT's list function to gradually collect relevant titles rather than writing posts and touchstoning everything and later going back and editing because I inevitably forgot something or found something else to add.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/translation/search/index.html

Push this database because I love it even though this is an international multilingual group - but selecting "children's" under genre then searching returns a massive number of children's books translated into English for publication in the USA.

>126 cindydavid4: >128 spiphany: I’ve started a list here. We can add things as we come across them: https://www.librarything.com/list/42764/all/Childhood-Books-for-or-about-childre...

Tagmashes seem to bring up a few useful things: e.g. https://www.librarything.com/tag/Africa,+childhood is more interesting than https://www.librarything.com/tag/Africa,+children — the second one mostly brings up western children’s books set in Africa.

>126 cindydavid4: I've noticed several African autobiographies that only really cover people until they achieve adulthood. If I remember specific titles then I'll add them to thorold's list in >130 thorold: .

ETA: and I hate to be a downer but there are also many child-soldier novels.

>126 cindydavid4: There are two groups in LT:
Children's Literature: https://www.librarything.com/groups/childrensliterature
and Children's Fiction: https://www.librarything.com/groups/childrensfiction
where you might get some suggestions. I don't belong to either, so I'm not familiar with them, but you might find some suggestions there.

>129 Settings: Yes!!!! thanks

>128 spiphany: your comments make a lot of sense. I do tend to go overboard and have been practicing making my posts less like a research paper, and just more fun. Thanks for that reminder

one question tho, where do I find LT Lists?

thanks to both of you

>133 cindydavid4: It’s not obvious: via the “Lists” option in the left menu on your Home page.

The list I set up for the Q2 theme planning is here: https://www.librarything.com/list/42764/all/Childhood-Books-for-or-about-childre...

Quite a few people have already been busy adding to it!

>134 thorold: And several of the books aren't technically eligible for Reading Globally afaik.

>135 spiralsheep: Oops. I removed the ineligible books I posted. I forgot about the distinction between Reading Globally and Reading Globally II.

>136 kidzdoc: They were all excellent books, and certainly better than thorold trolling us with Kim, lol. Our glorious leader setting a bad example, kmt. :D

>137 spiralsheep: 😂

FYI it's possible to remove books from a list if there are no votes (up or down) by any members.

Given that the other Reading Globally group isn't particularly active, and also given that not everyone here is from an Anglo-American country**, I don't personally object to a few British or American books on the list (others are welcome to disagree with me), as long as they don't dominate it. The English-speaking world isn't homogeneous either, and children's literature in particular doesn't always cross national or cultural borders.

** (Or living in an Anglophone context. At this point I'm probably considerably more up-to-date on contemporary literature in German than in my native English, simply for reasons of geography and availability, so I'm not inclined to complain about suggestions for interesting English-language titles that go beyond the standard canon of children's classics most people will have heard of.)

>139 spiphany: "as long as they don't dominate it"

And how do you propose this works? (Genuine, non-rhetorical, practical question).

Also, if people wanted RGII to be more active then it would be. This is my practical suggestion: someone could easily host a thread over there, beginning in April, themed around Childhood and even asking participants to emphasise non-mainstream authors with a recs list of examples to encourage people.

>141 spiralsheep:
People seem to be good at adhering to the spirit of the group, which I interpret broadly as exploring other cultures and ways of seeing the world. Multicultural and non-white perspectives from the US/UK seem to me to fit this. I wouldn't anticipate it being the sort of issue that needs to be actively policed. I could be wrong.

If cindydavid4 has preferences about how she wants to interpret this theme and what should be included or excluded, I'm happy to respect that. It isn't clear to me, for example, whether we should try to avoid Western writers generally, not just Anglophone ones, or how far "childhood" extends into the teen years.

>142 spiphany: The older pre-split recs threads have many books by mainstream anglophone authors. If RG attracts more people from this year's GeoKIT then the newcomers might have differing internalised boundaries. One of our regulars in the Jan-Mar 2021 thread is proposing reading a book about Iceland by an Australian author. Two more regulars have added, accidentally and otherwise, technically ineligible books to the Childhood recs list. I suggest that it's already a potential issue even before any re-combination of RG and RGII.

>137 spiralsheep: Sorry, yes, slight trolling! But my feeling was we should treat the list as a brainstorming zone and then decide what we actually want to read about and discuss when we start reading, in the light of whichever way the host of the theme decides it would be interesting to slant it. At this point “relevant” is probably a more useful concept than “eligible”.

>143 spiralsheep:
So what? I honestly don't see a handful of titles in a much longer list as a major issue. People can decide what they consider eligible -- those who wish to follow stricter criteria are free to do so and can ignore whatever they don't feel fits.

To be clear: I absolutely am in favor of reading "own voices" and I think this is what, as a group, we should be collectively striving for.

But I also think it's counterproductive to get caught up in an obsession with "authenticity". Everyone is coming at the topic from a different place and with different backgrounds, and for some readers, a well-researched book written by someone from the US or UK about some other part of the world may be a more accessible point of initial access to a cultural and historical setting that is very foreign. I'm guessing most of us read at least partly for pleasure and entertainment -- this isn't a university class in world literature -- and no author, regardless of how anchored they are in a particular culture, is going to offer a definitive picture of that society. Judging people on their reading choices (other than possibly gently pointing out that there are other options) doesn't seem to me like it really furthers the quest for intercultural insight that the group is trying to foster.

>144 thorold: >145 spiphany: Ok, Rudyard Kipling is eligible for Reading Globally and I've misunderstood the purpose of this group.

>132 SassyLassy: thanks, they are not very active and seem to be more people searching specific books, but I'll check them out now and again

>134 thorold: perfect, thanks!!! How do I get to be a member of that group, and how do I star it?

>136 kidzdoc: why is there a difference? I think I need some background here....(if nothing else, this experience is going to get me much more familiar with LT!) :)

>137 spiralsheep: ??? edit Oh never mind I totally miss read that as a persons name rather than a book , duh carry on

>139 spiphany: I don't personally object to a few British or American books on the list (others are welcome to disagree with me), as long as they don't dominate it. The English-speaking world isn't homogeneous either, and children's literature in particular doesn't always cross national or cultural borders.

I agree here; but I am much more interested in the non Anglophone communities. Don't know how I would separate them anyway, what about an author from a non english speaking country writing in English?

>142 spiphany: If cindydavid4 has preferences about how she wants to interpret this theme and what should be included or excluded, I'm happy to respect that. It isn't clear to me, for example, whether we should try to avoid Western writers generally, not just Anglophone ones, or how far "childhood" extends into the teen years.

good questions, all. as I said above, I don't nec want to exclude Anglophone or Western writers, but I am more interested in other books written by non Anglophne and non Western writers.

re childhood - for me that means birth-18 however I could make a case for birth -12
In other words, I don't know

Have I just opened up a huge can of worms here Not that there is a problem with that the discussion is going to be very interesting for the next three months before we even start talking about the books!!

>144 thorold: that makes a lot of sense

>146 spiralsheep:
I'm by no means trying to claim that my interpretation of the group's purpose is the only one, or even the majority. I just find it more productive to err on the side of more inclusive, with the recognition that different people will find different things in it.

If it helps to understand why I've been a bit insistent about this, I'm coming to this from experience with activist circles (social justice and environmentalism), where I've seen discussions degenerate into people tearing each other apart because every utterance and action is measured in terms of some unattainable standard of correctness, rather than recognizing that we're all imperfect and all on different stages of our journeys and we could all use a bit of help when we stumble or aren't sure of our next steps.

So, to take Kipling, for example -- from today's perspective he's absolutely problematic in a lot of ways, and I don't think anyone should feel obliged to read his work. But I also think that a book like "Kim" is a document of its time, of what it meant to be a British child in colonial India. And there may be reasons to read it -- critically -- as such, ideally alongside other, Indian voices. Because it's hard to understand the postcolonial struggles without understanding what came before it, the colonial attitudes towards the world and what this did to both colonizers and colonized.

*steps off soapbox*

>149 spiphany: Thanks! That's what was going through my mind when I (perhaps unwisely) brought Kipling into the discussion.

>149 spiphany: where I've seen discussions degenerate into people tearing each other apart because every utterance and action is measured in terms of some unattainable standard of correctness, rather than recognizing that we're all imperfect and all on different stages of our journeys and we could all use a bit of help when we stumble or aren't sure of our next steps.

Heh, like the woman's group I was very briefly a part of in the 80s who were arguing whether to use the term disseminate, since the root word is semen. Decided that I needed to be elsewhere. Can we say more important issues?

>149 spiphany: But I also think that a book like "Kim" is a document of its time, of what it meant to be a British child in colonial India. And there may be reasons to read it -- critically -- as such, ideally alongside other, Indian voices. Because it's hard to understand the postcolonial struggles without understanding what came before it, the colonial attitudes towards the world and what this did to both colonizers and colonized.

I picked up my sisters copy of Kim off her shelves when I was about 14. Had no idea who wrote it or what it was about. What I did know was that I was hypnotized by the language, and the colors and sounds of a culture I'd never seen or heard about. It was a long time later when I learned about what the Great Game meant and how this related to Indias war of independence. I reread it not long ago and even knowning what I know, its still magical to me. Thats not to say include it, just saying that even these books can speak to others about that world

I think we should note the distinction between listing children's classics (for example) here, where none of us are children, and actually recommending something TO children. Kipling for instance fits my own approach to the theme, because as an older person with no interest in kids as kids I incline to selecting children's classics, AND I'm interested in how these books shaped culture. However, for my own purposes Kipling would be "depreciated" on the TBR because even if I managed more than a few titles--theoretically, say, covering the entire globe--mostly I've already read him.

It's a good discussion to have, though, as it occurred to me that a few of the books I'd add to the list (which by the way I understood as merely a grab-bag of suggestions), although not Anglo, are more or less objectionable on the same grounds. Sienkiewicz's In desert and wilderness and Verne's Un capitaine de quinze ans, both great childhood faves (of mine but not just!), can both be seen as progressive-in-their-time and deplorably racist/sexist etc. in ours.

Yet both are also definitely "children's classics" in their countries--at least, they were that, and for a long time. And both are probably less familiar to the majority demographic here than (e.g.) Kipling is to non-Anglos. For someone interested in colonialist attitudes outside the Anglo-dom, or just plain interested in Polish or French children's classics, they might be just the ticket. But as children's literature today, or for someone looking specifically for progressive reads today, they won't do.

So, I'd say explanations of our approaches would be useful in helping those who look at the list make their choices.

>147 cindydavid4: why is there a difference? I think I need some background here....(if nothing else, this experience is going to get me much more familiar with LT!) :)

I originally posted roughly a dozen books about children that I had read and enjoyed (at 3 am!), without regard to the author's country of origin. Those books included Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle, and Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. When I read spiralsheep's post in >135 spiralsheep: I realized that I had forgotten about the distinction between Reading Globally (non-Anglophone countries) and Reading Globally II (Anglophone countries), as the latter group is so inactive I didn't take it into consideration. I removed the Anglophone books, and left the ones written by non-Anglophone authors.

Books are always a product of their time. If someone is unwilling to read them because they want to distance themselves from the times, that is their choice.

I love "Kim" and Kipling. Yes -he is problematic but so is a lot of the fiction of the time. And I refuse to just ignore a generation (or 4) of good authors because they happened to be born in a place and time that had proven to be... idiotic and did not have the foresight to think/behave differently. Especially now when I am (supposedly) a grownup and I can appreciate a piece of art without agreeing with its author :)

And especially for someone like me who grew up outside of the Anglophone and Western canons, not reading the classic children books is not a good thing - there are allusions and direct references to them in later literature. Like it or not, they are part of the collective consciousness and the authors after them who grew up with them are influenced by them. Which does not mean I would necessarily recommend them to someone growing up now but they are part of the world children literature and as such are the basis of a lot of more mature works.

Part of the charm of RG had always been the inclusivity - we are all different and what makes these threads interesting sometimes is exactly the fact that we draw lines in different places and have our own life experiences to draw on.

can both be seen as progressive-in-their-time and deplorably racist/sexist etc. in ours.

See I don't have problems with those, as long as the readers realize this and are reading it to capture a moment in time. I can probably go to any childrens classic and find something objectionalble (one of my fav books, Heide, portrays a person with disabilities in very stereotypic ways, yet still love the book) In the end once everyone picks them apart the story is gone.

And the more I think about this the more I realize what I am after. Childrens books written for or about children to give a picture of children growing up in a particular culture, written preferably from someone in that culture tho not mandatory. These books are ways for children to lesran about diversity. Does that make sense or have i just upended this?

>150 thorold:
I think Kipling's also a case where labels ("British") can conceal the complexity of experience. He spent the first years of his life in India and was raised mostly by an Indian nanny. For Kipling, like many other British children who grew up in the colonies, England probably felt like a very foreign country when he was sent off to boarding school.

There are actually a number of other British children's authors who touch on this one way or another -- Rumer Godden, Frances Hodgsen Burnett, and from Trinidad, Alice Dalgliesh.

Another author that comes to mind here is Stefanie Zweig, who spent much of her childhood in Kenya (though for rather different reasons) and found it difficult to feel at home in Germany when her family returned after WWII.

>156 cindydavid4: Childrens books written for or about children to give a picture of children growing up in a particular culture, written preferably from someone in that culture tho not mandatory.

Does that exclude the speculative genres (science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales and the border genres around them)? And what about Le avventure di Cipollino for example - does it fit your category - despite its allegories and allusions, it does not really give a picture of the children in the culture (well... it does in a way)? I am just curious. :)

See, that's exactly what I meant above -- everyone will have their own spin on the topic and when combined, we will get a full kaleidoscope :)

>158 AnnieMod: no of course not none of that is excluded. But if a child is reading a sci fi or fairy tale from a particular country chances are they will learn something about it. Maybe, at least I did.

But I do get y our point, I agree totally.

>159 cindydavid4:

Ah, okey :) That's why I asked - I was reading it differently :)

>160 AnnieMod: Thats actually what I was thinking when I started this, but a querey from someone above about my interpretation got me thinking. I still stand by my comment above, but I very much plan to step back and let the band play so to speak. And now, I get to go falling down the rabbit hole of lists....oh please don't toss me in the briar patch.... :)

I've just added a couple more titles to the list (both of which happen to be about childhood rather than children's literature) and noticed some of the entries on the bottom are without the names of who added them or any explanations--are they all on topic? Just wondering, because even clicking on some for descriptions it's not clear.

Dear Mark, spiphany, markon, please don't take it personally; I too thumbed down Kim so spiralsheep wouldn't feel lonely :)... I do see the arguments on both sides and agree with both, actually, because it's only the question of what sort of conversation one wants to have, i.e. about WHAT. But in the grand scheme of things regarding the theme I think it's no great harm to send Kim down the list because there is so much more available that is less well known and from various angles more appropriate and/or interesting.

>162 LolaWalser:, >163 LolaWalser:
My experience is that people down-vote books in lists for lots of reasons: because it doesn't fit the list, because they don't recommend it, because they're not interested in reading it, etc.

I tend to add books to lists as a very general way of keeping track of titles that sound interesting (not always titles I've read!). I generally don't use numbering because it's not about ranking them for me.

I have added a few relevant titles without "claiming" them, because I came across them in my wanderings through LT but they're not something I'm particularly interested in reading at the moment.

I would be curious about the rationale for whoever added "We the Drowned" -- it's a lovely book which does feature some child characters, but I feel like it's more a multi-generational saga than a book about childhood.

>164 spiphany:

Yeah, I see it as a casual reference too. And the list is dynamic anyway so there's nothing "final" about thumbing up or down. Just didn't want anyone to think there's a tussle going on. :) I'm not hung up on scores either, for one thing, I barely get how they are made... so for me it's just a place to hang some titles on.

The no-name + no explanation recs got me wondering because for some at least it appeared as if they might be meant for another list?... but one can only guess.

>162 LolaWalser: I added We, the Drowned and October, Eight O'Clock. When I added them, my name did show, but I see it doesn't now - perhaps because I didn't add them to "My List" The other unattributed books were added by others.

>164 spiphany: One of the things I really liked about We, the Drowned was how it showed life in the village from a child's perspective, what was expected of them, and how the world of the children changed over time. You are right that it covers multiple generations, but I had not thought of it as a multigenerational saga and that wasn't the perspective from which I read it.

As for the October, Eight O'Clock book, it is not a happy book, it is semi-autobiographical, and it is the story of a child in WWII Romania, then in Stalinist Romania as a Soviet Pioneer, then later into Middle Age. Obviously it is not everyone's cup of tea, but it does give another look at childhood.

I have to add that I too am a huge fan of Kim, but agree that there are other far more unknown books that would work for this quarter, though I am also happy to reread it once again.

>166 SassyLassy:

Yeah, it's weird but your name's not showing in the participant list.

As I understand it, "no name" books were either added with the "add to my list" option unselected (as in >166 SassyLassy:) or someone added them to their list and then subsequently changed their mind. Or they were added automatically using a tag — which I didn't try in this case.

And completely agree that it is more interesting to focus on things we don't know rather than on things we all read and loved many years ago.

I was part of education lit class many years ago and we had to compile the Cinderella story from about 20 different countries. We were able to obtain the books and contrast and compare. That was very interesting. Sadly, this was BC (before computers) and I no longer have that document. However, here is a link with most of said books:

https://www.imnotthenanny.com/2020/03/cinderella-stories-from-around-world.html

Just browsing, getting ideas for 2nd quarte and forgot to respond. I did a master's project on comparing similar themes in fairy tales around the world. Surprised how many places had a cinderella story or a three little pig/billy goat stories, how often the younger son beats al comers...Yeah I don't have mine either. Thats for that list, very interesting!