If you'd like to find out more about the places featured on beatenpaths, click on the place name below to take you to our contributors' suggestions for books, films and music to check out.

Bilbao - Bosnia - Botswana - Brazil - Jamaica - Japan - India - Mali - Mumbai - Poland - South Africa - Sudan - Zimbabwe

The links for the books take you through to our affiliate pages on the UK Amazon site, from which the site earns a tiny commission on sales. If this ever earns us more than our server host and url registration is costing us, we can start paying our contributors!

READ...
The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky
A history of the Basque land, people and culture, interspersed with traditional Basque recipes. Entertaining and accessible enough to keep you interested from the beginnings of Europe's oldest nation through to the 'Guggenheim effect'.

Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football by Phil Ball
Focuses on the rivalries that fuel the passion of La Liga, including a look at the history and philosophy of Athletic Bilbao.

LISTEN TO...
Bilbao 00.00h by Kepa Junkera
Probably the best-known Basque musician and master of the trikitixa, a type of accordian.

Ke No Falte
A reggae group from Bilbao.

WATCH...
Welcome to Sarajevo Based on the book Welcome to Sarajevo: Natasha's Story,a journalist tries to get an orphaned child out of Sarajevo to his family in the UK during the conflict.

READ...
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The first in the popular series charting the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, "Botswana's leading, and only, female private detective".

LISTEN TO...
beatenpaths contributor Tony Galvez's suggestions for lesser-known Brazilian musicians.

WATCH...
City Of God (Cidade De Deus)
Based on a true story, the film follows children growing up in a favela which gave the film it's name, as they either get caught up in the gangs fighting over the drug business, or try to escape them.

Central Station [1999]
Dora, a cold woman who earns a living writing letters for illiterate people in a train station in Rio de Janeiro, 'inherits' a small boy and ends up helping him in the his search for his father.

LISTEN TO...
Legend: Remastered by Bob Marley
The obvious starting point

Toots & the Maytals
Classic ska tracks like Pressure Drop, Monkey Man and Do the Reggae

Japan

READ...
Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in Japan's Underworld by Junichi Saga.
Based on the true confessions of a member of the notorious yakuza gang, this book provides a colorful impression of life in Japan during the first half of the 20th century.

Haruki Murakami
A Contemporary Japanese author who has reached international fame for his quirky and surrealist stories set in modern Japan. Personal favorites include A Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood.

WATCH...
Pom Poko
Studio Ghibli is unrivaled in Japan as the king of anime film. Many are famillar with Tottoro, or Spirited Away, but Pom Poko is an older creation celebrating the many superstions and kami that surround Shintoism, and how they still play a role in modern Japan.

READ...
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth by M.K. Gandhi
First published as The Story of My Experiments with Truth, the autobiography covers Gandhi's boyhood, marriage at a young age, his work as a lawyer in South Africa and the early phases of his part in India's fight for independence.

An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul
The award-winning author's reactions on visiting the land of his ancestors for the first time in the 1960s make for fascinating reading.

Mali

LISTEN TO...
Aman Iman: Water Is Life by Tinariwen
Probably the most accessible album from the Touareg band playing 'desert blues'.

Mali Music by Afel Bocoum & Damon Albarn
The fruits of the Blur front man's Oxfam-organised trip to Mali, attempting to create a musical travelogue of the country.

Mumbai

READ...
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta
A fast-moving portrait of the city with some fascinating writing on the relationship between organised crime and the police.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Novel based on the author's remarkable life in Mumbai after escaping from prison in Australia. A bit heavy on the philosophy and spirituality, but worth reading for the accounts of living in one of the city's slums and working with the mafia.

Rohinton Mistry
Born in Mumbai and now living in Canada, he has written several books based in the city including Tales from Firozsha Baag, a collection of short stories following the lives of the residents of a crumbling block of flats seen through the eyes of a young boy, and the excellent A Fine Balance (although Mumbai is not explicitly mentioned as the location) set during the State of Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi's government in the 1970s.

Beach Boy by Ardahir Vakil
The first novel from the Bombay-born author now living in London. Follows the exploits of an 8 year-old in 1970s Bombay.

Poland

READ...
Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football by Jonathan Wilson Whether you're a football fan or not, this book on life behind the old Iron Curtain since the fall of communism is definitely worth a read.

South Africa

READ...
My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan
The author, a descendent of South Africa's first nationalist Prime Minister and an architect of apartheid, returns to his homeland for the first time since moving to America eight years earlier. Gives you an insight into South Africa past and present, as the author comes to terms with his family's past.

Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter by Pamela Jooste
Follows the story of a young girl living through the resettlement of Cape Town's coloured community. Read this book and visit the District Six museum if you're in town.

WATCH...
Tsotsi
The South African City of God, although the soundtrack is not as good.

LISTEN TO...
The Best of Lucky Dube
South Africa's best-selling reggae artist over 25 years, Lucky Dube was killed in Johannesburg in 2007 (apparently by carjackers).

READ...
God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir by John Bul Dau
A refugee from the civil war tells the story of his escape from Sudan on a flight with 1,200 children and the culture shock of his arrival in the US.

READ...
House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-torn Zimbabwe by Christina Lamb
The author traces the history of the Rhodesian civil war, indpendence and the Mugabe years through the contrasting lives of a white farmer and his family's black nanny. Makes for a very sobering read as you follow Zimbabwe's almost unbelievable descent from one of Africa's most properous nations to its current desperate situation.

Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa by Peter Godwin
Memoirs of growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s. Peter Godwin was conscripted into the army as a boy and the returned to Zimbabwe as a reporter for the Sunday Times covering the bloody transition to majority black rule.

LISTEN TO...
Rise Up by Thomas Mapfumo
One of the most important musicians of the second chimurenga, the Zimbabwean war of independence.