I turned 40 earlier this month. It’s big, but I always knew it was coming. Two years ago, I set myself on a reading challenge to see how globally I could read by my 40th birthday.
I have always been a diverse reader, but I know I can get stuck in location ruts, so I set out to see how many places I could read about in two years. This could be done through the setting in a fiction book, a location for a memoir or biography, or just learning about that location in a non-fiction book. Going in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do every country within the two-year deadline, so it was more about seeing how far I could travel when being intentional about my settings.
By being deliberate about finding new locations, I’ve read books I would never have picked up otherwise; I enjoyed some that I did not. By seeking new places, I found my literary horizons expanding not just globally but with new authors, new types of stories, and new understanding of cultures other than my own.
Where have I been able to travel read over the last two years? I have read books set in 33 of the 50 states (taking recommendations for the Dakotas and Idaho). And I have read books set in 47 countries, including El Salvador, Lebanon, Tanzania, and Croatia. I am working off of a list of 201 certified and named countries, so ending at around 25% isn’t bad, especially since I know that I read some countries more than once (default of a historical fiction junkie).
Just because my 40th birthday has now passed doesn’t mean that I am finished. Far from it, I’ve already got books set in far-off places waiting for me to dive into soon. I will continue to read with global intentionality, and now I want to see how long it takes for me to mark off every state and country from the list.
Do you have a favorite book set in a place where you don’t live? Drop the title so I can check it out!
