Read Around North America Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in North America.
Best books from North America (2024)
1981.
Barrel Fever : Stories and Essays by David Sedaris EN
Country: North America / 
United States of America
United States of America
Description:
In David Sedaris's world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. Sedaris's collection of essays and stories is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern... continue
1982.
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book. If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.... continue
1983.
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk : A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
An original collection of humorous fables features animals with unmistakably human failings, including a cynical cat struggling to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings, and a pair of lovers separated by prejudiced family members.
1984.
A Carnival of Snackery : Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Picking up where his previous volume of diaries, Theft by Finding, left off, David Sedaris chronicles the years 2003-2020.
1985.
The Lost Continent : Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Bill Bryson drove 14,000 miles in search of the mythical small town of his youth. Instead he found a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger joints; a continent lost to itself through greed, pollution and television, and lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country. A funny and serious view of smalltown America.
1986.
The Lemon Tree : An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Describes how a simple act of faith and the relationship between two families--one Israeli, one Palestinian--represents a personal microcosm of decades of Israeli-Palestinian history and symbolizes the hope for peace in the Middle East. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.
1987.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
"Amongst the Top 50 Horror Books of All Time" - Cosmopolitan Three dark and disturbing horror stories from an astonishing new voice, including the viral-sensation tale of obsession, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. For fans of Kathe Koja, Clive Barker and Stephen Graham Jones. Winner of the Splatterpunk Award for Best Novella. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. A couple ... continue
1988.
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Walls's "The Glass Castle" was nothing short of spectacular ("Entertainment Weekly"). Now Walls presents this magnificent, true-life novel based on her no-nonsense, resourceful, hardworking, and spectacularly compelling grandmother.
1989.
The Glass Castle : A Memoir by Jeannette Walls EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Now a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts. MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics... continue
1990.
Chasing the Sea : Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia by Tom Bissell EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
In 1996, Tom Bissell went to Uzbekistan as a na•ve Peace Corps volunteer. Though he lasted only a few months before illness and personal crisis forced him home, Bissell found himself entranced by this remote land. Five years later he returned to explore the shrinking Aral Sea, destroyed by Soviet irrigation policies. Joining up with an exuberant translator named Rustam, Bissell slips more than once through the clutches of the Uzbek police as he makes his often wild way to the devastated sea. In Chasing the Sea, Bissell combines the story of his travels with a beguiling chronicle of Uzbekistan’... continue