ATW 1: Europe

This covers the first and last parts of my virtual journey Around the World in 80 Books: Trekker, following a challenge on goodnews.com.

“The object of the challenge is to read books that take place in 80 different countries of the world, starting with your home country, … visit(ing) … the following 8 regions: North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania/Australia. You are welcome to visit Antarctrica … but this is not required…”

“Trekker:
*Assuming that you are using the modes of transport available in Jules Verne’s time, you will travel in consecutive order to countries adjacent to each other or directly accessible over bodies of water.
* You may need to ‘travel’ to a given country more than one time … but it will only count once.”

country 1: England: Danny Dorling,  So You Think You Know about Britain?

While we are being bombarded with data about the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s refreshing to take a broader view of the problem of inequality, what can be learned from census data and historical and geographical comparisons. My brother Robin knew Danny Dorling as they were both involved in funding geographical research in the north of England.

I then “took a boat” (virtually) to Spain, perhaps the ferry to Santander.

country 2: Spain: Agustin Martinez, Village of the Lost Girls is a detective story set in a beautiful Pyrenean village with many troubled inhabitants. A complex plot with lots of action.

Still in the Pyrenees, I trekked over the border into Andorra.

country 3: Andorra: Clare Allcard et al.,  Andorra Revealed.
It’s an anthology by five women and one man who have travelled from four continents to make their homes in Andorra. The kind of travel book you’d read to whet your appetite or refresh your memories, interspersed with short stories and bad limericks.

Now, over the mountains to France …

country 4: France: Paul Shore, Uncorked: My year in Provence studying Pétanque, discovering Chagall, drinking Pastis, and mangling French.
The title says it all, about the author’s year living in the artists’ town St Paul de Vence while working in the Nice equivalent of Silicon Valley. I discovered this book while browsing on Kindle for Chagall, having visited the Chagall Museum in Nice in the real world, during a month and a half as locum chaplain in Menton. As light and refreshing as a chilled rose wine on a hot summer day.

country 5: Monaco
Might as well go to Monaco, while I’m here. It’s a cheap and easy bus ride from Nice.
However, the choice of book was difficult, as I have no interest in Princess Grace. In the end, I went for
John Andersen,  The Monaco Conspiracy: Book 3 of the Final Option Trilogy. Good on local scenery and the hobbies of the rich – Formula 1 motor racing, luxury yachts and extreme gliding. No real interest in the plot or characters.

Let’s see if I can cadge a lift on a luxury yacht to Corsica.

country 6: Corsica: Jerome Ferrari,  The Sermon on the Fall of Rome 
This seemed like a useful link between Europe and North Africa via St Augustine of Hippo. However, St Augustine’s sermon, paraphrased in the final chapter, has only tenuous connections with the main narrative of a Corsican family. It’s a breathtaking read, with very long sentences and proportionately longer paragraphs.

country 7: Sardinia: Niall and Graham Allsop, Keeping Up with Dh Lawrence: On the Trail of David and Frieda Lawrence in Sicily, Sea and Sardinia is a good introduction to the original Sea and Sardinia.
The Allsops followed the route of the Lawrences’ week-long visit to Sardinia 90 years before, in rather more comfort. They travelled in May rather than January, and had prebooked accommodation.

country 8: Italy: 
Since the Allsops, like the Lawrences, crossed from Sardinia to Portevecchio and took the train to Rome, I chose for Italy:
Francesca Bavonia, The Rogues Of Rome: The Painter’s Daughter Book I.
Set in the 16th century, it’s an exciting story of a girl who longed to paint frescoes in chapels as her father had done. Only on the last page did I realize that this was not a complete story: the heroine has a crucial decision to make, and I need Book 2 of the trilogy to discover what she chose.

This seems like a good reason to visit the two tiny countries enclosed on the Italian mainland, and use Books 2 and 3 after my visits.

country 9: Vatican: Robert Harris, Conclave is one of many books, some fact, some, like this one, fiction, about the election of a Pope. One leading candidate after another is discredited, and the result is totally unexpected.

Because the Vatican has no border with anywhere other than Italy, I zipped through The Rogues Of Rome: The Painter’s Escape Book II, which is less than half the length of Book I. The plot has become dependent on time travel through magical paintings.

country 10:
San Marino: Harry, Turtledove, The Gladiator, a science fantasy about travel between alternative universes, set mainly in one where the Soviet Union won the Cold War. Mostly in Milan. The Republic of San Marino makes a brief appearance which nevertheless is pivotal to the plot.

Returned to Italy with The Rogues Of Rome: The Painter’s Home Book III, the same length as Book II and even less enthralling.

The journey so far:
1 England
2 Spain
3 Andorra
4 France
5 Monaco
6 Corsica
7 Sardinia
8 Italy
9 Vatican
(Italy)
10 San Marino
(Italy)

country 11: Sicily: Andrea Camilleri,  The Shape of Water. In a world where corruption is rife, being a good cop may mean breaking the usual rules. The first of a long series of Inspector Montalbano books set in an imaginary small town. I wonder how the character develops, but am not sufficiently attracted to find out.

country 12: Malta:  Mary Rensten, Letters from Malta: A secret kept for 50 years. A well-crafted novel about a woman’s search for the truth about her biological father’s life and death. The author’s descriptions of Malta made me wish I had paid more attention on my one real-life visit to the island.

Now I am leaving Europe for Africa: a new bookshelf, and a new page.

Ten weeks and fiftyseven books later, I cross the Dardanelles to Istanbul, Turkey, and am back in Europe, with the intention of heading for home up the Danube.

ASIA/MIDDLE EAST/EUROPE
69: Turkey
*** Barbara Nadel, Incorruptible. The twentieth book of a series about police officers in Istanbul. I think I read one or two of the earlier ones in the old days when I borrowed thrillers from my public library. An ingenious plot and some interesting characters. Like many of the books I have read recently, it highlights the ethnic and religious diversity of the setting.

NOW BACK IN EUROPE
70: Bulgaria
*** Dora Ilieva, The Master. One of a series of three books, Across the Ocean, with central characters who, like the author, have travelled between Bulgaria and Canada. This one has a framing plot involving a neo-Nazi conspiracy based in Antarctica, whose leader demands the capture of a medieval heretical treatise – two genres with which I am uncomfortable.

71: Romania
*** H J Campbell, When Beech Trees Bear Apples. A historical novel about the Ceausescu regime and its downfall in 1989. One of the main characters is the Protestant pastor Laszlo Tokes. I remember reading a book by Tokes and was interested to learn more of his story – BUT – where does history end and fiction take over? Just after I finished this, I heard a repeat broadcast of Hilary Mantel’s Reith lecture. I was disappointed that Campbell did not include a bibliography.

72: Hungary
**** Elizabeth Edmondson, Fencing With Death.I had read several of Elizabeth Edmondson’s novels set in various countries, and found this one a bit different. Part One took me back to the generation of Angry Young Men with the life of a young unsuccessful Marxist poet in London, frequenting Joe’s Club (named after Stalin), and is very funny. Ignoring advice to the contrary, Larry heads off to Budapest to teach English, and gets drawn into a world of outrageous spies.

73: Slovakia
*** Stephanie Mylchreest, Death City. A quick read about four young people on holiday in Slovakia who get caught up in a pandemic which ravages the country, causing instant death. One dies; the others, heading for the quarantine station on the Czech border, get caught by a gang of villains. But to find out what happened, one would have to read the rest of the tetralogy.

74: Austria
**** Julia Drosten, The Girl with the Golden Scissors: A Novel. An orphan fails to settle into work as a servant but finds her true vocation. Historical novel set mainly in Vienna, covering 1890-1920, with bibliography.

75: Liechtenstein
**** Charlie Connelly, Stamping Grounds. A cheeky thought, to devote time and money to following Liechtenstein’s international football team through a succession of defeats in the World Cup qualifying round. He had a lot of fun, got to know many of the players and officials, and learned how the losing side may be the one cheered off the field while the winners go home grumpy.

76: Switzerland
**** Theodor Kung, The Winter Wilds. A nature journalist is commissioned to search for bears in the Swiss Alps. Instead, he finds a book of folk stories, a ghost, and much more… The story got out of control towards the end.

77: Germany
Having found the book I intended to use was more a novella than a novel, I took down a paperback and reread:
***** Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. Following the so-called “lockdown”, it was interesting to read how Bonhoeffer coped with his own imprisonment and the hope, frustrated over and over again, of an early release. Always cheerful and reassuring to his parents, he opened up about his darker moods, as well as his theological reflections, to his friend Eberhard Bethge, who edited the book.

78: Luxembourg
**** Daniel Pembrey, The Candidate. Set in Luxembourg, by a Luxembourg author, the story brought back memories of streets I have explored. A quick read, with plenty of action and a mystery not entirely explained – but a good shape to the story. I would have preferred a full-length book but there is not much choice in Luxembourg – I think Pembrey’s full-length crime novels are based in Amsterdam.

79: Belgium
*** Sarah Meuleman, Find Me Gone. We follow the life of the central character as a 30-year-old whose life in New York is disintegrating, and her twelve-year-old self in a small Belgian village. Not a pleasant read. I really struggled with this one.

80: Netherlands
**** Valerie Poore, Watery Ways. Seeking a more relaxing read for the last of my ATW80, I chose this memoir about the author’s life on a barge moored in Rotterdam harbour. Peaceful faring (the word she uses for her travels) along quiet rural canals, interspersed with work on the maintenance and renovation of the barge, and the nail-biting excitement of riding a gale on the high seas on the way to a historic barges festival in Lille.

I posted a Visited Countries Map on my goodreads discussion thread.

Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

My complete list of 80 countries etc. included the following islands not on the available list for mapping: Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Zanzibar.

One mistake in the map in my last post: I should have picked “Democratic Republic of the Congo” not “Republic of the Congo.”

All nine regions were visited in Trekker mode, but not all countries would qualify for Globetrotter (author native or resident for at least one year in the country). I’m thinking of doing a Globetrotter Upgrade challenge.