7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books - Reading Challenge 2015

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The idea of this reading challenge is to explore the world by books from different continents and countries, and by visiting various world lists while planning the reads, to encounter the one or other unknown angle and fact about our world.

7 Continents Reading Challenge 2015
To join the challenge, select and read seven books, each belonging to one of the following categories - or, if this works better for you, simply pick one book from each continent:

A book from....
- the 7 countries with the most population

- the 7 highest countries in the world

- the 7 oldest countries of the world

- one of the 7 megacities of the world

- the 7 countries with the most immigrants

- a continent not visited yet

- and a book with a journey from one continent to another

There's more information about the categories included below, with links to country lists.

Why 7 Books? 
To keep it simple and playful, and leave space for extra reads that might be inspired by the lists. Also, with 7 continents, and the world population reaching 7 billions, the 7 seems to be the best number for this kind of challenge.

Challenge Guidelines: 

• This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2015 – Dec 31, 2015
• Books can be any format (novel, non-fiction, poetry or story collection, anthology, as well as any phyisal format: print, ebook, audio)
• The idea of the challenge is to read books from different cultures and continents - so if ithis works better for you, you can alternatively simply pick one book from each continent
• You are welcome to count these books towards any other challenges as well
• You can start wherever you want. 
• When picking a country, the idea is to also pick an author from that country. If that turns out to be difficult, try to find an expat author who lived in the country for a while.

Resources, lists, links: 
Here is more about the 7 country categories, with links to the global lists, and with the top 7 countries listed already. The lists mostly are wiki-lists, as those often offer addditional search options.

1) The starting point: 
A book from one of the 7 countries with the most population

• Link: List of countries by population
• Top 7: China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria 

2) From most populated to the mountains:
A book from one of the 7 highest countries in the world

• Link: List of countries by highest point
• Top 7: Nepal, China, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan

3) From high to old:
A book from one of the 7 oldest countries of the world

• It's an own challenge to create a definite ranking of the oldest countries of the world, some references: About/Geography and here: Wiki-answers.
• Some of the oldest countries: Japan, China, San Marino, Egypt + Iraq, Iran, Greece

4) From old to new:
 A book from one of the megacities of the world 

• Link: About Megacities + List of megacities 
• Top 7: Tokyo (Japan), Delhi (India), Seoul (South Korea), Shanghai (China), Mumbai (India), Mexico City, Sao Paulo (Brazil)

5) From megacity to migration:
 A book from one of the 7 countries with the most immigrants 

• Link: List of countries by foreign-born population
• Top 7: USA, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UK, France

6) From migration to continents
 A book from a continent you havn't visited yet in this challenge  

• The 7 continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia/Ozeania, North Pole 
• The listing is sorted by population, more about the 7 continents: Wiki/Continent

7) From continents to journey

• A book that includes a journey from one continent to another.  

1. Macdeath by Cindy Brown USA
5. Girl of the Book by Princila Murrell Saudi Arabia

6. Flamenco, Flan and Fatalities by Mary McHugh Europe- Spain