While on the road, I'm trying to read, roughly, a book once a week that is pertinent to the region I'm visiting (though some are simply more general books on economics, political science or exploration). If you have suggestions based on my route, email me at kevincure@yahoo.com. To some level, this list is dictated by what I find in used book stores or am able to barter from other travelers; as such, only the books already read are listed, and the rest will be updated as I go along.
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (Europe)
Jose Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Port.)
Cervantes, Don Quixote (Spain)
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (France)
Voltaire, Candide (France)
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars (France/Spain)
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Flight to Arras (France)
Macchiavelli, The Prince (Italy)
Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (Balkans)
Ismail Kadare, Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Albania)
John Marshall, A Short History of Greek Philosophy (Greece)
Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memoir of a City (Turkey)
Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (Middle East)
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Middle East)
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Lebanon)
Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building (Egypt)
Jeffrey Tayler, Angry Wind (Islamic North Africa)
Lauren St. John, Rainbow's End (South Africa/Zimbabwe)
JM Coetzee, In the Heart of the Country (South Africa)
Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country (South Africa)
Alexandra Fuller, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (Zim/Mal)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Nigeria/Bantu Africa)
Richard Preston, The Hot Zone (Uganda)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, No One Writes to the Colonel (Colom.)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping (Colombia)
Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World (Brazil)
Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands (Brazil)
Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones (Argentina)
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (Japan)
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (Japan)
Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun (Japan)
Aung Sun Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope (Burma)
George Orwell, Burmese Days (Burma)
Alex Garland, The Beach (Thailand)
Loung Ung, First They Killed my Father (Cambodia)
David Chandler, Brother Number One: Pol Pot (Cambodia)
Jon Swain, River of Time (Cambodia/Vietnam)
Michael Sallah & Mitch Weiss, Tiger Force (Vietnam)
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (Vietnam)
Robert McNamara, In Retrospect (Laos/Vietnam)
Jung Chang, Wild Swans (China)
Ma Jian, The Noodle Maker (China)
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air (Nepal)
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (India)
Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (India)
William Dalrymple , City of Djinns (India)
(The following are all books of general interest):
Milton & Rose Friedman, Free to Choose
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty
Pico Iyer, The Global Soul
Nassim Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
Simon Singh, Fermat's Last Theorem
Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker
Andrew Smith, Moondust
Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow
Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy
John Updike, Rabbit at Rest
Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate
