A project to read a book from each country in Europe

Reading a book of maps and flags with my son was a great (re)introduction to Europe and all the things I did not know about it. I’ve been reading about 50 books per year, and thought it would be fun to introduce a loose theme for discovering and prioritising new books.

I hope that this project will be a good way to learn about the culture of a country, and a different perspective on life. Immediately I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of secondary dimensions you could use to explore a country; religion, time, gender, race, class, politics, geography, history, etc. There’s no way to cover all of them in a single book, but I think recognising and accepting that is an important part of the process.

I’ve been a regional and international migrant for a long time so would be reluctant to write off a book based on an authors migration status. I do not have any good answers at the moment about what it means for a book to be of a country. I’m deliberately leaving this undefined, I’m curious to see what patterns emerge as I make choices.

Constraints:

If you’ve got any recommendations for books that would be good to read or think I’ve messed up something in defining the list, please let me know.
My to-read list is online at Hardcover, suggestions to 📭[email protected]

This is a list of countries that either are part of the European continent or commonly considered to be part of Europe:

References: