2022 European Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

Well, another year of Rose City Reader’s European Reading Challenge has come to a close. Each year I try to read as many books as possible set in, or about different European countries, or by different European authors. With one country per book and each book by a different author, I found myself moving from book to book across Europe, like some post-modern armchair version of a Bella Époque grand tour of the Continent.

Last year I read and reviewed  just 10 books. This year I’m happy to report I doubled my output with 20. Just like in past years, there’s a variety of countries represented, ranging from large counties like Russia and Germany to tiny ones like Vatican City. 

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Sweden) 
2. True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy by Kati Marton (Hungary) 
3. Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island by Lawrence Durrell (Cyprus) 
4. The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine (Greece) 
5. The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel (Portugal) 
6. The Sacrament by Ólafur Ólafsson (Iceland) 
7. The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples by David Gilmour (Italy) 
8. Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 by Adam Hochschild (Spain) 
9. Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of World War II by Frank Blaichman (Poland) 
10. Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi (Albania) 
11. I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys (Romania) 
12. God and the Fascists: The Vatican Alliance with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Pavelic by Karlheinz Deschner (Vatican City) 
13. The Son and Heir by Alexander Münninghoff (The Netherlands)
14. The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach (Belarus) 
15. A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen (Russia) 
16. Dancing Fish and Ammonites by Penelope Lively (United Kingdom) 
17. On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe (Belgium) 
18. A Hero of France by Alan Furst (France) 
19. Here in Berlin by Cristina García (Germany) 
20. Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches From Kiev by Andrey Kurkov (Ukraine) 

Just like last year it was a 50-50 mix of fiction and nonfiction. Five of these are translated works. Two were originally published in Dutch, and one each from German, Russian and Swedish. A number of these books also made my 2022 Favorite Nonfiction or 2022 Favorite Fiction lists. 

As you can guess, I’m a huge fan of this challenge. I encourage all you book bloggers to sign up and read your way across Europe. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.