2023 Read Widely: Travel & Stories on Multiple Continents | Downers Grove Public Library

1) African samurai: the true story of Yasuke, a legendary black warrior in feudal Japan

Author

Lockley, Thomas

Description

Kidnapped as a child, Yasuke had ended up a servant and bodyguard to the head of the Jesuits in Asia, with whom he traversed India and China learning multiple languages as he went. His arrival in Kyoto, however, literally caused a riot. Most Japanese people had never seen an African man before, and many of them saw him as the embodiment of the black-skinned Buddha. Among those who were drawn to his presence was Lord Nobunaga, head of the most powerful...

2) Around the world in 50 years: my adventure to every country on earth

Author

Description

"This is the inspiring story of an ordinary guy who achieved two great goals that others had told him were impossible - first by setting a record for the longest automobile journey ever made around the world -- in the course of which he blasted his way out of minefields, survived a breakdown atop the Peak of Death, came within seconds of being lynched in Pakistan, and lost three of the five men who started with him, two to disease, one to the Vietcong....

3) Around the world in eighty days

Author

Verne, Jules, 1828-1905

Series

Voyages extraordinaires (English)
Oxford world's classics (Oxford University Press)
Penguin classics
More Series...

Description

"This new and completely original translation of Around the World in Eighty Daysrenders Jules Verne's classic novel in a style that is both more understandable and more faithful to the spirit of the original French text than the commonly reprinted older English editions. Many of these older translations were acceptable when they were first published 150 years ago, but were translated with a Victorian British audience in mind. Their style is now very...

4) The arsonists' city

Author

Alyan, Hala, 1986-

Description

"A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home"-- Provided by publisher.

5) At home in the world: reflections on belonging while wandering the globe : an adventure across 4 continents with 3 kids, 1 husband, and 5 backpacks

Author

Oxenreider, Tsh, 1977-

Description

"As Tsh Oxenreider, author of Notes From a Blue Bike, chronicles her family's adventure around the world--seeing, smelling, and tasting the widely varying cultures along the way--she discovers what it truly means to be at home. In her late thirties and as a mom to three kids under age ten, Tsh Oxenreider and her husband decided to spend a rather ordinary nine months in an extraordinary way: traveling the corners of the earth to see, together, the...

6) Atlas: the story of Pa Salt

Author

Riley, Lucinda, 1965-2021

Series

Seven sisters series volume 8
Seven sisters
Seven sisters volume 8

Description

"1928, Paris: A boy is found, moments from death, and taken in by a kindly family. Gentle, precocious, talented, he flourishes in his new home, and the family show him a life he hadn’t dreamed possible. But he refuses to speak a word about who is really is. As he grows into a young man, falling in love and taking classes at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris, he can almost forget the terrors of his past, or the promise he has vowed to keep....

7) The beekeeper of Aleppo: a novel

Author

Lefteri, Christy, 1980-

Series

Wheeler large print hardcover series

Description

"Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo - until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the...

8) black cake

This entry no longer exists in the catalog

9) The diamond eye: a novel

Author

Description

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history's deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story. In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle...

10) Eighty days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's history-making race around the world

Author

Goodman, Matthew

Description

On November 14, 1889, two young female journalists raced against one another, determined to outdo Jules Verne's fictional hero and circle the globe in less than 80 days. The dramatic race that ensued would span 28,000 miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors' lives forever.

11) The food explorer: the true adventures of the globe-trotting botanist who transformed what America eats

Author

Stone, Daniel (Daniel Evan), 1985-

Description

The true adventures of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes--and thousands more--to the American plate. "In the nineteenth century American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. Agriculture yielded stable, basic crops like soybeans, corn, and barley, and few growers considered variety or flavor. But as a new century approached, appetites...

12) The girl from Kathmandu: twelve dead men and a woman's quest for justice

Author

Description

A heart-rending narrative that moves from the Himalayas to the Middle East to Houston and culminates in an epic court battle, this is a story of death and life - of the war in Iraq, the killings of the twelve Nepalese, a journalist determined to uncover the truth, and a trio of human rights lawyers dedicated to finding justice. At its heart is one unforgettable young woman, Kamala Magar, who found the courage to face the influential men who sent her...

13) The girl who smiled beads: a story of war and what comes after

Author

Wamariya, Clemantine

Description

"Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. It was 1994, and in 100 days more than 800,000 people would be murdered in Rwanda and millions more displaced. Clemantine and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, ran and spent the next six years wandering through seven African countries searching for...

14) Great circle: a novel

Author

Shipstead, Maggie

Description

"After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There-after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes-Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons,...

15) Her name is knight

Author

Series

Nena Knight series volume 1

Description

"Stolen from her Ghanaian village as a child, Nena Knight has plenty of motives to kill. Now an elite assassin for a powerful business syndicate called the Tribe, she gets plenty of chances. But while on assignment in Miami, Nena ends up saving a life, not taking one. She emerges from the experience a changed woman, finally hopeful for a life beyond rage and revenge. Tasked with killing a man she's come to respect, Nena struggles to reconcile her...

Author

Shamsie, Kamila, 1973-

Description

"From an internationally acclaimed novelist, the suspenseful and heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart by secrets and driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences. Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, an invitation from a mentor in America has allowed her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong...

17) Kaleidoscope: a novel

Author

Description

A dazzling and heartfelt novel about the disorientation of grief, the hollowness of the American Dream, and the bravery of rebuilding one's identity, as the remaining daughter of a self-made Chinese-American dynasty sets off across the world to define herself in the wake of her beloved sister's death. From rags to riches, sleepy Oregon to haute New York, they are the biracial Chinese American family that built Kaleidoscope, a glittering, 'global bohemian'...

18) The kinship of secrets: a novel

Author

Kim, Eugenia (Eugenia SunHee)

Description

"From the author of The Calligrapher's Daughter comes the riveting story of two sisters, one raised in the United States, the other in South Korea, and the family that bound them together even as the Korean War kept them apart. In 1948 Najin and Calvin Cho, with their young daughter Miran, travel from South Korea to the United States in search of new opportunities. Wary of the challenges they know will face them, Najin and Calvin make the difficult...

19) A long petal of the sea: a novel

Author

Allende, Isabel

Description

"In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage...

20) Loot

Author

Description

"Abbas is just seventeen years old when he leaves his family to serve in the court of Tipu Sultan, a volatile and unpredictable ruler. An inspired woodcarver, Abbas is apprenticed to a master toy maker in order to build a massive tiger automaton, a gift to celebrate the return of the Sultan's sons from British captivity. Working alongside the legendary French clockmaker Monsieur du Leze, Abbas hones his craft and learns to read French and then meets...