Around the World in 80 Books - The Asian Leg!

I have been slacking on my reading for a really long time now (over six months!) and this has left me all the more agitated. Having my hands full isn't really an excuse, since I do nothing except watch South Park in my spare hours (Yes Ladies and Gents, I watch a cartoon!) . In order to rid myself of this nasty habit, I have decided to resume reading and that too with a new challenge. I may not have any of the daredevilry or ingenuity of Phileas Fogg, yet I presume that I can read my way around the world in a year. So, here is the list of books I shall take up for this challenge, in the first leg:

S.No.	Book	Author	Country
1.	The Patience Stone	Atiq Rahimi	Afghanistan
2.	Bullets and Trains	Adeerus Ghayan	Pakistan
3.	Pax Indica: India and the World in the 21st Century	Shashi Tharoor	India
4.	The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and opinions on Nepal	Manjushree Thapa	Nepal
5.	Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew	Shehan Karunatilaka	Sri Lanka
6.	The Rainbow Troops: A Novel	Andrea Hirata	Indonesia
7.	The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam	Bao Ninh	Vietnam
8.	Waiting	Ha Jin	China
9.	Kafka On the Shore	Haruki Murakami	Japan
10.	The Railway	Hamid Ismailov	Uzbekistan
11.	When My Name Was Keoko	Linda Sue Park	South Korea
12.	Throwing Sparks	Abdo Khal	Saudi Arabia
13.	My Name is Red	Orhan Pamuk	Turkey

The two criteria that I used to make the selection were the nationality of the author and the subject matter of the book. Coincidence of both these criteria allowed me to select the above books from my to-read list.

My literary sojourn spanning thirteen countries (in the first phase) starts tomorrow. So, when do you begin yours?


Happy Reading!