Around the World in 80 Books

''Restlessly curious, insightful, and quirky, David Damrosch is the perfect guide to a round-the-world adventure in reading'' Stephen Greenblatt

A transporting and illuminating voyage around the globe, told through eighty classic and modern books

''It is always a pleasure to talk about books with David Damrosch, who has read all of them, and he is so eloquent and understanding about them all'' Orhan Pamuk

Inspired by Jules Verne''s hero Phileas Fogg, David Damrosch, chair of Harvard''s Department of Comparative Literature and founder of Harvard''s Institute for World Literature, set out to counter a pandemic''s restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books from around the globe. Following a literary itinerary from London to Venice, Tehran and points beyond, and via authors from Woolf and Dante to Nobel prizewinners Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mo Yan and Olga Tokarczuk, he explores how these works have shaped our idea of