I recently got ticked off over a "Read the World" list that was still really centred on Western books.
Then I started thinking: what if there were a reading list of 100 books that reflected the actual demographics of the world population right now?
Behold:
19 books from China;
17 from India;
4 from the US;
3 from Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan;
2 from Nigeria, Bangladesh, Japan and Mexico, and
1 each from the Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Egypt, Germany, Iran, Turkey, DRC, Thailand, France, UK, Italy, Burma, South Africa, South Korea, Colombia, Spain, Ukraine, Tanzania, Kenya, Argentina, Algeria, Poland, Sudan, Uganda, Canada, Iraq, Morocco, Peru, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nepal, Afghanistan, Yemen, North Korea, Ghana, Mozambique, Australia and Taiwan.
50 are by men. 49 are by women. 1 is a work of divine revelation. Authors (roughly) reflect the ethnic makeup of their nations.
Because if you're gonna read the world, you might as well do it RIGHT.
