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Good morning,
And welcome to the Cultural Reads Newsletter with worldwide book, music, and movie recommendations.
In today’s newsletter: India’s Bandit Queen, Skip Schiphol Airport Line, Korean Spies, Best Brazilian Books, 10 Argentinian Movies, Somewhere Soul & Best Movie per Country.
I went on a work trip to Brazil last week. And what better way to know a culture than through its literature?
That’s why I’m sharing the ten best Brazilian books to read today!
Brazil is also the first complete country profile with posts about books, movies, and music, including a personally designed Spotify playlist.
One of my first posts in 2021 was about the best 5 Argentinian movies.
Three years later (and hopefully more experienced), I did a remake and turned it into a top 10.
Argentina has a vast movie scene, one of the best Latin actors in the world, and a fantastic list of great movies.
Check out the best Argentinian movies!
I randomly ran into I Phoolan Devi in a secondhand bookstore. Several Goodreads readers mentioned it as their all-time favorite book, so I decided to pick it up.
Phoolan Devi grew up in a poor rural Indian family and married a much older man at eleven. She was raped, abused, and almost died several times.
She eventually got kidnapped by a gang of bandits and ended up becoming their leader.
This unbelievable true story makes your blood boil with the injustice of the system and the amount of human suffering, but it is also incredibly adventurous and courageous.
It’s incredible how much women have suffered throughout history. If you’re interested in this theme, you should also consider reading Womaning in India, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape, Song of Kieu, Woman at Point Zero, and The Sex Lives of African Women.
What is the best movie per country? You can find out on this map.
Some options are a little strange, so I’m still determining the accuracy, but there are several interesting new names on there!
I recently discovered an Instagram account called Somewhere Soul that helps you find new music and upcoming artists.
The guy who set it up also has great Spotify playlists like Under the Radar Gems and Top 50 Jazz Albums of 2023.
If you ever travel through Schiphol Amsterdam Airport, use this website to skip the security line.
It’s fully free and by picking a timeslot you’re boarding process will be much faster.
If you like a good action thriller or Korean movies, Hunt should be on your watch list.
After an unsuccessful attempt to kill the Korean president in the United States, the two departments of the South Korean secret police are set up against each other to find a North Korean spy in their midst. The result is an intriguing emotional rollercoaster where everyone is a suspect.
It’s good to have some historical background to understand this movie better.
In Hunt, you can see the tensions between the two Koreas, the protests, the defection of North Korean pilot Lee Woong-pyung (1983), and the Aung San terrorist attack (1983).
