American Names and Their Native American Origins (10/13)
When reading Sherman Alexie's stories it's hard to not think about the ways that Native American language has been adapted and used by white settlers and contemporary multicultural America. Many American place names originated in Native American languages, though spelling, pronunciation, and other linguistic qualities have been adjusted ...
Marksville, Louisiana (09/13)
In Venice, Italy, where it is believed he was from, he was Marco Litche, a trader. In America, he became Marc Eliche. In 1794, a broken wagon wheel stranded him 62 miles north of Lafayette. But the environment was nice, and so were the Avoyels, a small Native American tribe that lived there; also he was a trader, so there was business to...
New Jersey's Demographic Shifts (09/13)
Junot Díaz's characters have a strong link back to their home country,
the Dominican Republic, as they make northern New Jersey (aka North Jersey) their new home. These Dominican-American communities have a strong presence in Díaz's writing, even if specific cities or neighborhoods are not always referred to by name. Due to the ...
Sikhism (08/13)
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion prevalent in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan where A Moment Comes takes place. One of the main characters in the book, Anupreet, is a Sikh.
Sikhism was founded in the 16th century by Guru Nanak. Nanak's family were Hindus, but he studied both Hinduism and Islam. This deep study, as well as ...
New Delhi, India (08/13)
India's national capital territory of Delhi, which includes the capital city of New Delhi, is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. It has over sixteen million people working in information technology, telecommunications, hotels, banking, media, and tourism, among other fields. It boasts globally renowned universities and ...
The Real Harry's (08/13)
BookBrowse's own Tamara Smith talks with Jo Knowles about her childhood experiences growing up in the restaurant business that inspired See You at Harry's.
Much of See You at Harry's centers around the family restaurant. Do you have experience with such a place?
Yes, my family owned a series of restaurants when I was a kid, ...
A Visit to Seville (07/13)
Located in the southern part of Spain, Seville is Andalusia's capital and its biggest city. The Guadalquivir River runs through the city, which is close to the Atlantic Ocean.
Iberians founded Seville, which was later the center of many conquests and settlements by the Romans, Vandals and Visigoths. The Moors conquered it in 712 AD...
Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) (07/13)
Chartered in 1962 under the John F. Kennedy administration, the
Institute of American Indian Arts is still educating young Native American artists in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The school boasts numerous notable Native professors, faculty, staff, visiting artists, scholars and alumni, including Joy Harjo, Dan Namingha, Fritz Scholder...
Parisian Highlights (06/13)
Around 250-300 BCE, the capital of what is now known as France (or, more formally, The Republic of France) was established on the River Seine.
It was inhabited by an Iron Age Gallic tribe, the Parisii. In 52 BCE, it became a Roman settlement, known as Lutetia Parisiorum, and by approximately 300 CE was known as civitas Parisiorum, the ...
A Novel Model for Mass Transit in Lagos, Nigeria (06/13)
Lagos' Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) provides the backdrop to 'My Smelling Mouth Problem', one of the stories in Igoni Barrett's collection Love is Power, or Something Like That.
In the past decade, the population of Nigeria has grown from around 100 million to about 180 million. If this growth continues, Nigeria will be home to ...
West Virginia Coal Mining (06/13)
In West Virginia, coal mining has a long and complex history.
The first reported discovery of coal occurred in 1742, more than a century before West Virginia became a state. The fossil fuel resource, present in all but two of West Virginia's 55 counties, began to thrive as a commercial industry in the late 19th century, when the ...
New York Locales in Tell the Wolves I'm Home (06/13)
The characters in
Tell the Wolves I'm Home visit numerous locations in New York City and Westchester County, New York, and the accuracy of Rifka Brunt's descriptions adds a rich flavor to the story. If you're the type of person who likes to travel to literary-inspired destinations, you might consider these three stops:
Welcome to Norvelt, PA (05/13)
'Our dear little Norvelt was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, who knew common people like us wanted equality...'
The town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, one of 99 subsistence homestead communities created during the Depression for unemployed workers, is a character in Jack Gantos's
Dead End in Norvelt. According to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,...
A Brief History of Ghana (05/13)
The modern country of Ghana is named after the kings of a medieval civilization in West Africa, the Wagadugu Empire. Later absorbed into the Mali Empire, they were a significant power in trans-Saharan trade, with their capital city on the southern edge of the desert being a major port-of-call for traders and political movers and shakers. ...
A History of Sanibel Island (04/13)
In Kathy Hepinstall's Civil War-era novel,
Blue Asylum, Iris Dunleavy is sent to live in the Sanibel Asylum for Lunatics on Sanibel Island, Florida for the 'act of defying [her] husband.' Though the area is now considered a mecca for lovers of sea shells (
SanibelHistory.org estimates that the resident population of about 6000 swells by ...
Tulsa, the "Oil Capital of the World" (04/13)
In A Map of Tulsa, the protagonist Jim Praley, can't ignore the city's relationship with oil. His girlfriend, Adrienne Booker, is born into a wealthy oil family and Jim remembers 'an issue of National Geographic my dad kept, from the '78 oil crisis. Tulsa was on the cover, an aerial photograph of the refineries, lit up like...
A Short History of Chechnya (03/13)
It is during her reporting in Chechnya, during the separatist wars that ravaged the country, that journalist and author Masha Gessen got deeply involved in the larger political context of both the war and Russian President Vladimir Putin's handling of it.
Chechnya lies to the south of the Russian Republic and is bound by ...
The Afrikaans Language (03/13)
Afrikaans words or expressions are peppered throughout André Brink's novel, Philida. Brink started his career writing in Afrikaans, his native language, but switched to writing in English interspersed with Afrikaans which he uses to help maintain the authenticity of his characters. Many of the words can be puzzled out from the ...
Changing Bedouin Life as Exemplified by the Al-Maria Family (02/13)
Bedouin life has been slowly changing from a traditional nomadic existence to a more settled permanent one. Al-Maria's family effectively illustrates this transition.
Al-Maria adjusts to her Bedouin family's ancient way of life precisely at the same time that its members must adjust to modernity. The family had been experiencing what ...
How the Introduction of Oil and Capitalism Affected Saudi Arabian Culture (02/13)
In
In the Kingdom of Men, Gin McPhee finds herself plopped inside an
ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company) compound in the 1960s, an oasis that is neither wholly American nor Arabic but is somehow an incongruous mashup within a country still grappling with the culture shock wrought by 20th century capitalism. But what did that culture ...
The Abenaki People (02/13)
One of the main characters in Kieran Shield's The Truth of All Things, Perceval Grey, is of Abenaki descent, a key point in the novel. The Abenaki (ah-buh-nah-kee) tribe is one of the many distinct tribes that make up the larger Algonquian (al-GON-kee-un) Nation of North America. (It is important to note that the Algonquian Nation, should...
German Americans (02/13)
It might surprise you to learn that in the latest census, 51 million Americans
self-identified as having German ancestry (estimates suggest that about 1/3 of these are of German ancestry alone, the rest are of partial German ancestry). That's a whopping 17% of the population, more than any other heritage group - over 13 million more than...
Saskatchewan (01/13)
The vast prairies of Saskatchewan, where one can easily be 'unimaginably bored' are the perfect setting for Richard Ford's Canada. Bordering Montana and North Dakota, it is one of two Canadian provinces that is completely landlocked (Alberta is the other one) and has no geographical features distinguishing its boundaries. It is over 250,...
A Quick Guide to Egyptian Dynasties (01/13)
One of the most difficult things to keep straight about ancient Egypt is its dynastic chronologies, thirty-three families of rulers over thousands of years, full of contradictions, inaccuracies, and outright lies. To offer some assistance I have included an incomplete list of the important dynasties, with a few details about each period; ...
Tokyo's Trains (01/13)
Once known as Edo and renamed in the late 1860s, Tokyo - the capital of Japan - is a densely populated metropolis that has over 12 million inhabitants in the city proper and approximately 36 million people in the larger metropolitan prefecture. Located in the Kant? region, it is comprised of 23 wards, as well as 62 municipalities, which ...
Scottish Gypsies/Travellers (01/13)
One of the plot details in
Beneath the Abbey Wall involves a family of Travellers whose histories twine with the murder victim's – Jimmy McPhee, and his mother Jenny McPhee, a highly regarded storyteller.
In Scotland, the Traveller population is referred to by the government as Scottish Gypsies/Travellers (distinct from
...
Origins of the Israeli National Anthem (01/13)
Shortly before the Second World War ended and the horrors of the Holocaust slowly came to a close, Jews from all over Europe were housed in 'displaced persons' camps. These camps gave refuge to Jews who no longer had a place to call home - not Poland, not Austria, not Germany, and not even the new home state created for them, Israel.
...
Seoul, South Korea (01/13)
Located on the southern half of the Korean peninsula between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, South Korea (or, officially, The Republic of Korea) is a democratic country approximately the size of Indiana. It was created in 1948, after the second World War, following a lengthy period of annexation and occupation by the Japanese. South ...
Slave Healers in the Antebellum South (12/12)
Slave Healers in the Antebellum South
Polly Shine's arrival at the Satterfield's plantation is a remarkable sight to the slaves in Jonathan Odell's The Healing as she was a 'bought' slave, not bred on the plantation, and she was a costly purchase. Their astonishment continues when, soon after her arrival, she starts to give orders ...
The Ozarks (10/12)
The region known as 'The Ozarks' sprawls across southern Missouri as well as parts of northwestern and north central Arkansas, spilling over into Oklahoma and a small corner of Kansas. In area it's about the size of the state of Tennessee, in topography it's similar to the Appalachian region with rolling hills, plateaus (e.g. the ...
IG Farben Industries (09/12)
Auschwitz was a huge complex that covered 40 square kilometers (25 square miles) near the town of Oswiecim, Poland. It was comprised of three sections: Auschwitz I, the base camp and central office; Auschwitz II, aka Birkenau, a concentration camp and crematorium; and Auschwitz III, aka Monowitz or Monowitz-Buna, a labor camp adjacent to...
Norwich, England (08/12)
In John Boyne's The Absolutist, twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich, England to deliver a package of letters to Will Bancroft's sister. Norwich, a city located along the River Wensum in eastern England, is the county seat of Norfolk and was once one of the largest, most populated towns in England, ...
Le Grand Hémorragie (08/12)
Although some elements of Vandal Love seem mystical or even supernatural in their origins, one significant theme of the novel is very much rooted in history. Early in the story, Hervé - Jude and François's father - expresses disgust with the mass migration of Québécois away from the country of their birth, a journey of...
The Panama Canal (08/12)
Juan Gabriel Vásquez's novel, The Secret History of Costagauna, centers on the making of the Panama Canal. Constructed between 1904 and 1914, the Panama Canal is a vital shipping route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Though it only took ten years to construct the current canal, the idea for a waterway connecting ...
The Gabra People (07/12)
The Names of Things is set in the Chalbi, a desert in northern Kenya near the border with Ethiopia (marked 'A' on the map below).
The Chalbi, which means 'bare and salty' in the local language, was once part of Lake Turkana, the largest permanent desert lake in the world. It is an immense flat expanse of clay and white salt stretching ...
Bengaluru (Bangalore), India (06/12)
Situated on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern Indian state of
Karnataka (aka Mysore), of which it is the capital, Bengaluru sits approximately 940 meters above sea level, and is one of India's largest and fastest growing cities.
Legend suggests that Bengaluru was named after King Veera Ballala of the Vijayanagara Kingdom (...
The Persecution of the Hazara People (06/12)
The Hazara people - a long-persecuted and long-suffering population - are an Iranian ethnic group living in central Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. First mention of the Hazara is believed to have occurred in the late 16th century when the term was used to describe the people of the geographic location bordered by Kabul, Ghor, and ...
The Mansions of Newport, Rhode Island (03/12)
During the
Gilded Age (1865-1914), America experienced a boom in railroad tycoons and oil barons, and a great deal of wealth was concentrated in the real estate of Newport, Rhode Island. Wealthy families like the
Vanderbilts and
Astors flocked to Newport each summer, and as their appreciation for the New England coast grew, they built ...
The Gila National Forest (03/12)
As a fire lookout, Philip Connors called New Mexico's Gila National Forest home. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1924 this nationally protected area was established (at the advocacy of conservationist Aldo Leopold) as 'the first designated wilderness in the country.'
This means that 'there are no ...
Akademgorodok (03/12)
One of the most fascinating byproducts of the Russian planned economy is the academic town of Akademgorodok (Ah-kah-DYEM-gor-oh-dok) in Siberia. It is approximately 30 kilometers south of the larger Siberian city of Novosibirsk (No-VO-see-beersk), and is the setting for some of Red Plenty's most riviting stories, featuring a genetics and ...
Coney Island (02/12)
As a budding magician in Haley Tanner's novel
Vaclav & Lena, young Vaclav dreams of performing for the crowds on Coney Island. Synonymous with roller coasters and
Nathan's hot dogs, Coney Island is a unique piece of the New York City metropolitan area (located in the southernmost region of Brooklyn) and has a fascinating
Construction ...
The Gaza Strip (02/12)
The Gaza Strip is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories (the West Bank being the larger). It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the east, and by Egypt in the southwest, with Israel surrounding it on all other sides. It is just 25 miles long and 7.5 miles across at its widest (
map). This narrow strip of land is home to ...
Fort Hood (01/12)
If you've never been on a military base, you might be surprised, upon reading You Know When the Men Are Gone, at just how extensive Fort Hood, Texas, is. It's a small city unto itself, complete with all the services and conveniences that mean its residents never really have to leave if they don't want to. As Siobhan Fallon illustrates...
Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (01/12)
The well-known tourist attraction and wax museum, Madame Tussauds, had its start in the streets of Paris just before the French Revolution.
Dr. Philippe Curtius, Madame Tussaud's mentor, opened his first
cabinet de cire (wax exhibition) in Paris in 1770. It proved so popular that he was forced to move to larger accommodations twice and ...
Next Generation Nepal (01/12)
According to
Next Generation Nepal's website, the 1996-2006 Nepalese civil war between government forces and the insurgent Communist Party of Nepal claimed 12,000 lives and devastated the economy; and, in remote areas of the country, the Maoist rebels used intimidation and even murder to control villages and abduct children into their ...
The Yoshiwara: Edo's 19th Century Red Light District (01/12)
Katherine Govier's
The Printmaker's Daughter is historical fiction based on the real-life Japanese printmaker,
Hokusai - best known for his
ukiyo-e* series
entitled
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji - and his daughter, Ei.
The character Ei spends much of her early life in the Yoshiwara, or red light district, of Edo (...
Religion in China (11/11)
Religion in China is a hard topic to pin down. The country has been officially atheist since 1949 - a policy that was rigorously enforced through the early years of the People's Republic of China but was relaxed in the 1970s.
Since 1978 the Constitution of the People's Republic of China has guaranteed 'freedom of religion' and the ...
