paulkaefer/read-the-world

Webpage/SVG generator for reading books from every country of the world.

Welcome to my read-the-world GitHub repository!

I would like to read at least one book from/about/taking place in every country in the world. Reading expands our horizons and builds empathy.

Ideally, the book is written by an author from the country, and at least partly takes place in the country. As the friend who inspired me to read the world suggests, the books that "everyone" reads during junior high or secondary school in a given country are great for this journey.

I welcome your reading suggestions* or ideas for improvement. Feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request. Bonus points for graphic novels and queer literature. I am also open to reading novellas and plays. I won't necessarily track short stories on the website, but I will track collections of short stories, as well as children's books.

*a disclaimer: my counting a book here does not mean it is the "best" book for that country; I welcome suggestions especially for books that are culturally important (for example, a great recommendation is the kind of book students in that country are encouraged/required to read)

Using and contributing

I released this under a Creative Commons license, so others can use my code and begin or begin tracking their own journeys. If you do use this, I welcome you to link back to this repo (or my website, linked below).

Note that not every country/territory/entity has GeoJSON; I welcome you to add it.

The map is available at paulkaefer.com/read-the-world.

Potential uses

• You may want to track books you've read. Or films you've watched, albums you've listened to, etc.
• You may want to learn the capitals or flags of each country, or how to say "hello" in the official language(s) of each country.
• You may simply want to track travels.
• Be creative! If you use the code in this repo at all, I'd welcome your feedback. For now, open an issue or submit a PR or something.

My todos

• generated .SVG as file output? esp. if a way to embed the text (books)
  • then, use that as og:image? or a .png version, if easy enough to do automatically?
  • how about as a function (call via JS console), so we don't repeatedly overwrite a file on the server...
• incorporate flag emoji somehow?
• see "Potential uses" above... might find a way to incorporate (i.e., link to) similar projects
• explore other map projections
• better visuals? (color scheme/hover)
• more information, such as links to the books?
• read countries_visited.csv and join, rather than having a column with duplication in the reading list
• add a content warning/trigger warning? perhaps, if there is interest
  • In the meantime, feel free to open a ticket if interested in general or for a specific book(s), or have suggestions of warnings

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Lauren DG for inspiring me to read more books from around the world, Ann Morgan for her fabulous TED talk and website, and to @micahstubbs for this D3 map code.

read-the-world's Issues

add function to export .png

Currently, I take a screenshot to generate images/map.png. Isn't there a way to have D3 export to a file, instead of writing to the webpage? Or is there a JavaScript function that will export the created SVG object as an .svg or PNG?

Laos

Possibilities include The Latehomecomer and Cooking From The Heart: The Hmong Kitchen In America (depending on how much story it contains).

Seen via this post from the Dakota Library.

+ explore When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone (Mainstream)

by James Piotr Montague

add Honorable Mentions table/visual

I read "How the World Forgot Darfur" which isn't really book-length.

I could debate including that specific title, since I would argue it's as valid to include as a children's picture book. However, a new table would be neat -- I could also track short stories I've read (like "Jambula Tree").

I could call this table "Shorter works" and provide context ("How the World Forgot Darfur" by the author of War is Boring and "Jambula Tree" as inspiration for the film Rafiki). Optionally, there could be a way to populate or include them in the map. Such as layers that can be toggled.

add notes column to "completed" table

I think they should still be interesting.

create a GitHub Pages version of this site?

Might be easier for others to replicate if they don't have a web server.

Uruguay

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

I believe it was recommended at work...

add a recommendations/ subfolder?

I have full-page screenshots of some webpages/threads like this one. A recommendations/ folder could be a good way to ensure these files are preserved for more folx than just me.

Sri Lanka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_from_Elephant_Pass_(novel)

add Finland recommendation(s)

This page lists several potential options.

Kenya

anything by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Ogola

Suriname

Carrousel by Marylin Simons (freely available online) -- in Dutch, but can try Google Translate or DeepL.

add running total of countries read/visited

Probably top right of map?

add two recommendations

Confessions of a Mask (Japan) and Hunger and/or The Growth of the Soil (Norway).

Bosnia

possibly something by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selvedin_Avdi%C4%87

add "To read" on hover for countries not yet read

Should be pretty straightforward to still include books in that list.

restructure data: move duplicate columns out of read-the-world.csv

Country name can be primary key; move other identifiers out, and whether or not I've visited that country. Perhaps country_lookup.csv?

+ recommendation for Turkey/Syria/Iraq

Sarah Glidden also wrote Rolling Blackouts. Read it and determine which of the three (or all?) it falls under. If I mention it for all three countries, I should still read at least another book for each!

separate England, Scotland, and Wales on map?

All rolled-up under UK currently, but there are reads from each.

Might separate Northern Ireland, while I'm at it, since I'm sure there are reads.

See https://martinjc.github.io/UK-GeoJSON/ / https://github.com/martinjc/UK-GeoJSON

add recommendations from Librarianologist Facebook post

The post:

Hello everyone 😊 I had this idea of reading a novel from every country of the world. I am aware that it will take me sometime to do but I thought I would start. I posted here about this idea a few days ago and I received many suggestions. Now I finished the first part of the list, and wanted to share it with you. The rest will be shared before the end of the year (working on it). The books are mostly novels, except for one poetry book and a couple of memoirs. 
I am sure that this list is far from being perfect, but I thought I should start it anyways. I hope you enjoy it. Here it goes:
1- Afghanistan: Alas, Mullah Omar by Asef Soltanzadeh
2- Albania: Broken April by Ismail Kadare
3- Algeria: The Kingdom of the Butterfly by Waciny Laredj
4- Andorra: Bring Me His Dead Body by Albert Salvado
5- Angola: A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
6- Antigua and Barbuda: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid 
7- Argentina: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares 
8- Armenia: The Fool by Raffi
9- Australia: True History of Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
10- Austria: The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelink
11- Azerbaijan: Stone Dreams by Akram Aylisli 
12- Bahamas: Greenland by David Santos Donaldson
13- Bahrain: Yummah by Sarah A. Al Shafei
14- Bangladesh: The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
15- Barbados: No Man in the House by Cecil Foster
16- Belarus: Down Among the Fishes by Natalka Babina
17- Belgium: The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Claus 
18- Belize: Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell
19- Benin: Snares Without End by Olympe Bhely Quenum
20- Bhutan: Born in Jangbi by Damber S. Mongar 
21- Bolivia: Our Dead World by Liliana Colanzi
22- Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
23- Botswana: Maru by Bessie Head
24- Brazil: Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
25- Brunei: The Fisherman King by Kathrina Mohd Daud 
26- Bulgaria: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
27- Burkina Faso: The Parachute Drop by Norbert Zongo
28- Burundi: Small Country by Gael Faye
29- Cape Verde: The Last Will and Testament of Senhor da Silva Araujo by Germano Almeida
30- Cambodia: In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
31- Cameroon: Footprints of Destiny by Azanwi Nchami
32- Canada: Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
33- Central African Republic: Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza
34- Chad: Told by Starlight in Chad by Joseph Brahim Seid
35- Chile: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
36- China: Wild Swans by Jung Chang
37- Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
38- Comoros: A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir
39- Congo DR: No Place to Call Home by JJ Bola
40- Congo: The Antipeople by Sony Labou Tansi
41- Costa Rica: The Lonely Men's Island by José León Sánchez
42- Cote d’Ivoire: Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma
43- Croatia: Café Europa by Slavenka Drakulić
44- Cuba: Three Trapped Tigers by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
45- Cyprus: Ledra Street by Nora Nadjarian
46- Czech Republic: Too Loud a Solitude by  Bohumil Hrabal
47- Denmark: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg
48- Djibouti: Transit by Abdourahman A. Waberi
49- Dominica: The Orchid House by Phyllis Shand Allfrey
50- Dominican: In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
51- East Timor: The Crossing by Luís Cardoso
52- Ecuador:Don Goyo by Demetrio Aguilera Malta
53- Egypt:In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif 
54- El Salvador: Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya
55- Equatorial Guinea: Shadows of Your Black Memory by Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo
56- Eritrea: Silence Is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia
57- Estonia: The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk
58- Eswatini: When the Ground Is Hard by Malla Nunn
59- Ethiopia: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
60- Fiji: Kalyana by Rajni Mala Khelawan
61- Finland: The Egyptian by Mika Waltari
62- France: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
63- Gabon: The Fury and Cries of Women by Angele Rawiri
64- Gambia: The Sun Will Soon Shine by Sally Singhateh
65- Georgia: A Man Was Going Down the Road by Otar Chiladze
66- Germany: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
67- Ghana: This Earth, My Brother by Kofi Awoonor
68- Greece: Zorba, the Greek by  Nikos Kazantzakis
69- Grenada: The Colour of Forgetting by Merle Collins
70- Guatemala: The President by Miguel Ángel Asturias
71- Guinea: The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye
72- Guinea-Bissau: The Ultimate Tragedy by Abdulai Sila
73- Guyana: The Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris
74- Haiti: Dance On the Volcano by Marie Vieux-Chauvet
75- Honduras: The Difficult Days by Roberto Sosa
76- Hungary:The Door by Magda Szabó
77- Iceland: The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness
78- India: The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
79- Indonesia: Saman by Ayu Utami
80- Iran: Savushun by Simin Daneshvar
81- Iraq: The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon
82- Ireland: Ulysses by James Joyce
83- Israel: Judas by Amos Oz
84- Italy: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
85- Jamaica: Escape to Last Man Peak by Jean D'Costa
86- Japan: An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
87- Jordan: Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
88- Kazakhstan: The Silent Steppe: The Memoir of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov
89- Kenya: Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
90- Kiribati: Waa in Storms by Teweiariki Teaero
91- Korea, North: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
92- Korea, South: The Vegetarian by Han Kang
93- Kosovo: Bolla by Pajtim Statovci
94- Kuwait: The Old Woman and the River by Ismail Fahd Ismail
95- Kyrgyzstan: The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
96- Laos: Mother's Beloved: Stories from Laos by Outhine Bounyavong
97- Latvia: High Tide by Inga Ābele
98- Lebanon: Beirut Nightmares by Ghada Samman
99- Lesotho: Chaka by Thomas Mofolo
100- Liberia:She Would be King by Wayétu Moore
Stay tuned for part two.
Happy New Year ❤️😊🎄

Azerbaijan

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

It was mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_(TV_series), episode 1

track % complete and/or # of remaining countries

0. Tricky since I'll want an authoritative list of "total countries in the world" (unsure if current .json is perfect). But I could:
1. fill-in recommendations (based on Ann Morgan's list)
2. get unique count completed & unique count from "to read" of countries not in the completed list already.

Kiribati

There might be a few recommendations on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati.

Kazakhstan

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40398699-dark-shadows

comic book: https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstans-comic-book-heroes-battle-for-the-marketplace

and keep an eye on https://qazaqtv.com/en/news/society/5825-series-of-national-comic-strips-published-in-kazakhstan

see also/links to other projects?

Maybe create a "others who are doing this" link set? Here's one I found when casually perusing about the Falkland Islands.

Italy

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Camillo_and_Peppone

add recommendations from reddit thread

See this comment in particular; the full thread may be worth linking.

misc -- parse these later

https://old.reddit.com/r/gaybrosbookclub/comments/r3fahl/the_passenger_gay_guy_stuck_on_a_failing_cruise

South Africa

maybe something by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Gevers

a few recommendations from a reddit thread

https://old.reddit.com/r/gaybrosbookclub/comments/hoicoe/recommendations/

Lesotho

I don't have a recommendation yet, just want to make sure it's not forgotten!

Tanzania / [East] Africa

https://www.holbrooktravel.com/blog/traveler-resources/books-read-you-travel-tanzania

are any of these translated? https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/show/swahili/swahili-collection-at-ku/novel

India

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

add dark mode

At the very least, change colors of fonts and add something like:

body {background-color: black;}

Will this change the background of the SVG object?

Could add a toggle button to the top corner of the page. Use a lightbulb icon/emoji?

I will likely have to change https://paulkaefer.com/stylesheet.css, too.

automatically add "...and more" if 8-10+ titles?

currently longest list is for the US of A, so I could hard-code such a note for them...

add way to deal with former countries?

Yugoslavia: Fatherland, by Nina Bunjevac (haven't read yet)

Wales

Spurious Scrapper, which I got for free on Kindle 2023-01-16.

São Tomé and Príncipe

The country was mentioned in The High Mountains of Portugal.

See São Tomé and Príncipe § Literature for some ideas.