Books and movies to check out before you relocate overseas, and after you arrive. Expert advice or just plain funny; for expats, ambassadors, parents and travelers. Chosen by GSGI writers.
Diplomatic and Expat Adventures
Antrobus Complete by Lawrence Durrell - Fall-out-of-bed, tears-running-down-your-face, don't-read-on-tube-or-you-
Parenting and Third Culture Kids
Raising Global Nomads: Parenting Abroad in an On-Demand World
by Robin Pascoe
The author examines the challenges of parenting abroad, shares hard lessons learned, and recounts--with honesty and her trademark humour--what worked for her family.
Wives Abroad: Now and Through History
Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives
by Katie Hickman
300 years of untold stories of women in the British diplomatic corps - sisters, wives, daughters - whose letters and journals weren't usually considered worthy of official archiving. Yet they were the ones who hauled entire households across the world, at their own expense, to set up the mission at each new post. They braved disease, war, leaving children behind never to be seen again, sometimes not seeing another woman who spoke their language for years at a time; in fact sometimes not seeing people outside their homes for years except through items handed through a fire in the front hall so as to avoid the Bubonic plague outside. A must-read for all expatriates anywhere.
Off the Beaten Path by Laura Stoddard
Diplomatic Baggage: Adventures of a Trailing Spouse
Packing Up: Further Adventures of a Trailing Spouse
Full Marks for Trying: An Unlikely Journey From the Raj to the Rag Trade
The three above books are all by Brigid Keenan. Mostly hilarious, always, honest, very insightful, occaisionally sad and once in a while appalling (the content, not the writing), she's a career ambassador's wife who was born in India (father in British army) and writes in Full Marks for Trying all about the good and bad (snakes) of growing up in India, which she loved. Left when she was 8 when the British left. Her adjustments and humour in move after move, with children at various stages and domestic help of various ability, are very funny; her father's letters back to her mother when he was in the border patrol (briefly) during the horrors of Hindus and Muslims trading places and resettling in new homelands after Pakistan was partitioned off are some of the most vivid and appalling accounts this editor has ever seen of that catastrophe.
Reading (or Watching!) Your Way to...
Africa
Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Botswana
Far and Beyon' by Unity Dow
The Heavens May Fall by Unity Dow
A Marriage of Inconvenience by Michael Dutfield
Maru by Bessie Head
Memoirs of an African Democrat by Quett Ketumile Masire and Stephen R. Lewis, Jr.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Seretse and Ruth by Wilf and Trish Mbanga
Seretse Khama 1921-1980 by Neil Parsons, Willie Henderson, and Thomas Tlou
When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head
China
The White Swan
Egypt
Living in the Sun (1967) by Souafief
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsim Hamid
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (also available on DVD)
France
Etre Avoir (film)
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Hong Kong
Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood by Martin Booth
Mao by Jung Change and John Halliday
India
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Jordan
Art of Jordan by Piotr Bienkowski (editor)
The old Fodors Guide by Eugene Fodor
Insight Guide to Jordan by Dorothy Stannard (editor), APA Publications
Jordan by Ken Mizuuchi
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
Films:
The Battle for Haditha
The Holy Family (GSGI Writer Edwina Issa is in it!)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Lawrence of Arabia
Mission to Mars
The Mummy Returns
Passion in the Desert
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Redacted
Sinbad and the Dark Nights/Eye of the Tiger (for children)
Shanghai
The Good Women of China by Xinran
My Favourite Wife by Tony Parsons
Shanghai Baby by Zhou Wei Hui
Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken
Time Out Shanghai by Time Out Guides Ltd.
