The Traveler's Bookshelf...

What are some good books to read before you travel to a particular place? Do you have a favorite book that is set in a faraway place where you are anxious to visit? I started out writing a post about the best travel literature but I quickly realized that is a category so broad it would take me pages to cover it. Since before Homer wrote The Odyssey,  epic journeys have been a favorite topic for many writers.
The travel site World Hum came up with a list of the 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of all Time
by compiling lists found online from travel writers, bloggers and publications. I checked out the list and while I had read many of the books on the list (since reading is another of my passions), I discovered many more that I had not yet read.
Here is a short list, in no particular order,  of a few of my favorite books that are about traveling, both fiction and non-fiction. Some describe personal journeys, while others are beautiful written descriptions of their setting, but they all instill wanderlust. Read any of these and you will be ready to hop the next plane out of town!  (I apologize for the heavy emphasis on Hemingway, but in my opinion he was the greatest travel writer of all time).

  • A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway
  • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
  • A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway
  • Green Hills of Africa - Ernest Hemingway 
  • Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Out of Africa - Isak Dineson
  • The Quiet American - Graham Greene
  • A Passage to India - EM Forster
  • Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
  • The Alchemist - Paul Coelho
  • On the Road - Jack Kerouac
  • Life of Pi - Yann Martel
  • Under the Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes
  • My Life in France - Julia Child
  • Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
  • Investment Biker - Jim Rogers
  • The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
  • Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
  • The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
Happy Reading and Happy Travels!
PS...The above picture is by the  incredibly talented Jane Mount and a print of it can be ordered from the Ideal Bookshelf Shop.
UncategorizedSandy Grodskybooks, travel, Travel books2 Comments