Booked for Adventure
Travelers' pre-trip literary tips
Consider some trip-related recreational reading. A book on the court of Louis XIV brings Versailles to life. Books such as James Michener's Poland or Iberia (for Spain and Portugal), Irving Stone's The Greek Treasure for Greece and Turkey, William Wordsworth's poems for England's Lake District, and Leon Uris' Trinity for Ireland are real trip bonuses. After reading Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy, you'll visit dear friends in Florence — who lived there 500 years ago. Personal accounts are fun and vivid, such as Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (on Britain), Peter Mayle's Provence books (on himself), and the Travelers' Tales series (on Ireland, France, Paris, Provence, Italy, Tuscany, Spain, Prague, Greece, and Turkey).
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| Reading while traveling makes your adventures come alive! |
Here's a distillation of trip-related recreational reading tips suggested by travelers at our Graffiti Wall:
To glimpse life in Italy, consider Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, Tim Parks' Italian Neighbors, Jan B. Kubik's Piazzas and Pizzas, or Christina Björk's Vendela in Venice (good for kids).
For the flavor of France, try M. F. K. Fisher's Two Towns in Provence, Polly Platt's diplomatic French or Foe? and Savoir-Flair, Thad Carhart's The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Sarah Turnbull's Almost French, Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, or Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon. To sample Spain, consider Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart.
Tony Hawks' Round Ireland with a Fridge affords a goofy look at the Irish, The Emperor's New Kilt by Jan-Andrew Henderson deconstructs the myths surrounding the tartan-clad Scots, and Susan Allen Toth's My Love Affair with England explores the country's charms and eccentricities.
For Germany, consider the travel memoir The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany, by Michael Gorra.
To get a sense of Greece, consider Patricia Storace's Dinner with Persephone or Gerald Malcolm Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. Travelers to Turkey might enjoy Alev Lytle Croutier's novel, Seven Houses.
If you're a mystery fan, try the detective series by Anne Perry (Victorian London) or Lindsey Davis (Ancient Rome); Alan Furst's WWII spy novels; or Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa historical mysteries. Dan Brown's popular thrillers, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, are set in modern times but deal with real historical figures.
History buffs recommend Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome (on how the stunning dome of Florence's cathedral was built) and his Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (the story behind the Sistine Chapel); Jan Morris' and H. V. Morton's books on Italy; Salley Vickers' Miss Garnet's Angel (Venice); Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series; Edward Rutherfurd's London, Sarum, The Forest, and Dublin; Nigel Tranter's trilogies (Scotland); and Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth (cathedral epic set in England).
The Diary of Anne Frank tells the story of a young Jewish girl hiding out from the Nazis in Amsterdam. And Corrie Ten Boom's autobiography, The Hiding Place, offers another angle with the story of a Christian family that is caught hiding Jews from the Nazis in Haarlem (near Amsterdam). For a harrowing account of survival in a Nazi concentration camp, consider the much-lauded Night by Elie Wiesel.
For literature lovers, there's Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, set in medieval Paris; Voltaire's 18th-century French satire Candide; Czech existentialist Franz Kafka's disturbing The Metamorphosis; James Joyce's Irish odyssey, Ulysses; and the British classics by Jane Austen, Henry James, the Brontë sisters, D. H. Lawrence, William Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, and so on.
Your hometown library has a lifetime of valuable reading on European culture. Dewey gave Europe the number 914. Take your travel partner on a date to the library and start your trip early.
Paging through coffee-table books on places you'll be visiting (e.g., Hill Towns of Tuscany, The French Café) can give you some great, often untouristy, sightseeing ideas. If travel partners divide up their studying, they can take turns being "guide" and do a better job. Your local travel bookstore stocks good travel literature as well as guidebooks.
Updated for 2008. For lots more tips, check out our best-selling Europe Through the Back Door travel skills guidebook.