This was a good idea, to have a World Lit forum, and to launch a reading challenge.   I can say that I have enjoyed all five of the books I've read thus far, and learned a LOT about certain African countries (Kenya, Ghana, and Togo), and about India in its recent past and present day.   One of the books gave me an idea for a category for future 'international' reading----books about people who emigrate from their homelands to other places around the world, or about those "first-generation in the "new" country people.

Quite a while ago (a few years), I read Oscar Handlin's book on immigrants (in the USA), entitled The Uprooted.  He was an eminent sociologist, and his study of "the uprooted" was empathetic and thorough-going.  Reading it and thinking about immigration in the present day, as reported in the newspapers and on television, made me realize that some things don't change.  Handlin could have written that book just last month, instead of many years ago!   If you take any particular interest in immigration, this book would be worth looking up, in my opinion.
 

I read recently an interesting item about the border between Mexico and the US. I did not know that this border is unique in the world. There is no other border that has such a wide disparity in economic and social conditions between the two sides.

Boychiks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground by Robert Eisenberg

just requested this book. haven't gotten it yet. I'm looking forward to getting it.

according to pbs--- Boychiks in the Hood is your passport to the Hasidic "underworld" -- a destination far different from popular expectations. Join Robert Eisenberg as he hangs out with an ex-Deadhead in Antwerp, makes a pilgrimage to the grave of the revered Rebbie Nachman in the Ukraine, munches mini-bagels with Rollerblading kosher butchers in Minnesota, discovers the last remaining religious Jews in Poland, talks sex with a karate-champion-turned-rabbi in Israel, and more.Simultaneously respectful and hilarious, Boychiks in the Hood is a surprising and unforgettable journey through the world's flourishing Hasidic communities that reveals this vibrant tradition as never before.