Depending on your interview process, you may want to read EVERYTHING beforehand, or just the bare minimum first, and then more when you know you're actually relocating. These are in vague order of "before the interview" to "1 week before you board the plane" but obviously your needs may vary depending on prep time/where you're going.
Start with:
The Cia World factbook for background on your country. You should read this before your application/interview, actually. Also look at the Wikipedia entries for your country and the city you'd be working in for an overview, as well as the articles on education in/culture of the country.
Peace Corps Welcome manuals:
While Peace Corps volunteers serve in much more primitive conditions than librarians do, many foreign library jobs are in developing countries where Peace Corps also has programs, including China, Fiji, Kazakhstan, and Thailand. These country-specific manuals, given to volunteers upon receiving their assignment, have great information on cultural taboos, the place of women in the culture, conditions for vegetarian and LGBTQ volunteers, reliability of the postal system, etc. plus recommended books about the culture/history of the country. You can find links to PDFs of the 70 country Welcome Books here.
General books on living abroad/expat life:
There are lots of outdated and self-published guides of wildly-varying quality on amazon- read the customer reviews before you buy. Kate highly recommends the Survival Kit For Overseas Living: For Americans Planning to Live And Work Abroad. It has a great section on what to expect when it comes to homesickness.
Country specific culture/customs books:
UK publisher Kuperard has a series called "Culture Smart" for about 90 countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and China aimed at long-term travelers and expats.
Country specific online communities:
Don't forget that craigslist is international and has discussion forums within each country site. This can be a great way to get a feel for what daily issues residents are talking about, or to pose a question to people who live in the area you're researching. There are numerous Facebook groups specifically for expats in a country/region; "Suva expats" routinely has discussions on events, crime, weekend getaways, and where to buy various hard-to-find groceries. There are over 1000 Facebook groups with "expat" in the name, including sub-groups for parents, wives of expat workers, and buy/sell groups.
Country specific "armchair travel" books:
Lara loves the "Travelers' Tales" series for a look at what makes a city or region unique. These are not guidebooks- they're first person accounts by a variety of writers about travelling in a particular place.
Current titles as of May 2014 include: 30 Days in Italy, 30 Days in the South Pacific, Australia, Brazil, Central America, China, Encounters with the Middle East, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan , Mexico, Nepal, Paris, Prague and the Czech Republic, Provence, Spain, Thailand, Tibet, and Turkey.
There's also some anthologies on Women's Travel in this series that may have your new home in it (if there's not a stand-alone book on the place you're considering). The publisher of the Rough Guides did some similar anthologies in the 1990s; I read and enjoyed More women travel, but there's at least three others. These are out of print, but easily findable in libraries or via used book sellers.
South Pacific specific "armchair travel" books:
If you happen to be coming to the South Pacific, The Miss Tutti Frutti Contest: Travel Tales of the South Pacific by Graeme Lay is delightful. For a more pessimistic view, The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux is a classic of travel literature.
The first two books by J. Maarten Troost: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (about Kiribati) and Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu are about his time as an American expat living in those countries in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Both are extremely funny but rather cynical.
Which guidebook(s) should I use?
You'll want a guidebook (or two) for travels in your country/region on weekends and breaks. For most places, the choice is either Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, as these are best for cultural info beyond sightseeing and hotel listings. Here's an overview of other guides and their relative strengths, though this list is aimed at vacationers and not expats. Guidebooks (and books in general) can be expensive in most other counties compared to US bookstore prices, so unless you're purchasing e-books, you'll want to get these before you leave.
Start with:
The Cia World factbook for background on your country. You should read this before your application/interview, actually. Also look at the Wikipedia entries for your country and the city you'd be working in for an overview, as well as the articles on education in/culture of the country.
Peace Corps Welcome manuals:
While Peace Corps volunteers serve in much more primitive conditions than librarians do, many foreign library jobs are in developing countries where Peace Corps also has programs, including China, Fiji, Kazakhstan, and Thailand. These country-specific manuals, given to volunteers upon receiving their assignment, have great information on cultural taboos, the place of women in the culture, conditions for vegetarian and LGBTQ volunteers, reliability of the postal system, etc. plus recommended books about the culture/history of the country. You can find links to PDFs of the 70 country Welcome Books here.
General books on living abroad/expat life:
There are lots of outdated and self-published guides of wildly-varying quality on amazon- read the customer reviews before you buy. Kate highly recommends the Survival Kit For Overseas Living: For Americans Planning to Live And Work Abroad. It has a great section on what to expect when it comes to homesickness.
Country specific culture/customs books:
UK publisher Kuperard has a series called "Culture Smart" for about 90 countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE and China aimed at long-term travelers and expats.
Country specific online communities:
Don't forget that craigslist is international and has discussion forums within each country site. This can be a great way to get a feel for what daily issues residents are talking about, or to pose a question to people who live in the area you're researching. There are numerous Facebook groups specifically for expats in a country/region; "Suva expats" routinely has discussions on events, crime, weekend getaways, and where to buy various hard-to-find groceries. There are over 1000 Facebook groups with "expat" in the name, including sub-groups for parents, wives of expat workers, and buy/sell groups.
Country specific "armchair travel" books:
Lara loves the "Travelers' Tales" series for a look at what makes a city or region unique. These are not guidebooks- they're first person accounts by a variety of writers about travelling in a particular place.
Current titles as of May 2014 include: 30 Days in Italy, 30 Days in the South Pacific, Australia, Brazil, Central America, China, Encounters with the Middle East, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan , Mexico, Nepal, Paris, Prague and the Czech Republic, Provence, Spain, Thailand, Tibet, and Turkey.
There's also some anthologies on Women's Travel in this series that may have your new home in it (if there's not a stand-alone book on the place you're considering). The publisher of the Rough Guides did some similar anthologies in the 1990s; I read and enjoyed More women travel, but there's at least three others. These are out of print, but easily findable in libraries or via used book sellers.
South Pacific specific "armchair travel" books:
If you happen to be coming to the South Pacific, The Miss Tutti Frutti Contest: Travel Tales of the South Pacific by Graeme Lay is delightful. For a more pessimistic view, The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux is a classic of travel literature.
The first two books by J. Maarten Troost: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (about Kiribati) and Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu are about his time as an American expat living in those countries in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Both are extremely funny but rather cynical.
Which guidebook(s) should I use?
You'll want a guidebook (or two) for travels in your country/region on weekends and breaks. For most places, the choice is either Lonely Planet or Rough Guides, as these are best for cultural info beyond sightseeing and hotel listings. Here's an overview of other guides and their relative strengths, though this list is aimed at vacationers and not expats. Guidebooks (and books in general) can be expensive in most other counties compared to US bookstore prices, so unless you're purchasing e-books, you'll want to get these before you leave.
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