Travel Inspo
From Greece to Africa or closer to home, beautiful settings in books can spark wanderlust in us all.
Whether you want the warm, sunny climes of Peter Mayle’s A Year In Provence, the classic architecture of Florence and Rome in Henry James’ The Portrait Of A Lady or to explore different cultures and climates, a handful of good reads could provide the inspiration for a bucket load of travel.
Get ready to map out your wish list of locations with these top reads…
GREECE
History buffs with a penchant for island-hopping will be glued to Victoria Hislop’s stories, transporting you to a Greece full of colour, beginning with her 2005 debut novel The Island which gives a vivid description of Cretan life, weaving in the story of Greece’s leper colony on Spinalonga. It has sold more than two million copies worldwide to date and was made into a hit Greek TV series (both Victoria and her husband, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, had walk-on parts) The sequel, One August Night reveals what happened when the leper colony closed and how its inhabitants fared when they returned to the mainland.
For some sun-soaked escapism, bag Mandy Baggot’s light-hearted romcom Staying Out For Summer, which sees a young nurse’s holiday in Corfu throw up some romantic possibilities with the village doctor.
FRANCE
Fancy a city break to Paris? Debut Amanda Bestor-Siegal’s The Caretakers focuses on several dynamic women in a wealthy suburb of Paris and an event that changes their lives, told through six women who are living very different city existences. Film rights have been snapped up by Emma Stone’s production company. Peter Mayle’s witty classic memoir A Year In Provence in which he charts his funny and sometimes fraught experiences of moving into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in Southern France, will bring a huge ray of sunshine to travellers and non-travellers alike.
ITALY
As a former travel guide in Rome who lived in Italy for many years, Donna Leon has an insider’s eye for detail. Her new novel Give Unto Others in which she examines the corruption within an Italian charitable organisation, weaves in the magnificent architecture of Venice, the constant, mouth-watering presence of food, the loving and loyal Brunetti family, and the sense of menace which lurks around the corner.
Timeless classic novels which will have you salivating over Italy include A Room With A View by E M Forster, where a young woman’s repressed, rigid upbringing is thrown o balance when she visits Florence, a city which offers a wealth of romantic opportunities; and The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James, featuring beautiful descriptions of both Florence and Rome.
CARIBBEAN
It’s not all fly and flop in the Caribbean, as readers discover in What A Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You by Sharma Taylor. It’s a novel set in Kingston, Jamaica, about a woman who is reunited with her son, 18 years after giving him up as a baby to the rich couple she worked for before they left . A story of belonging and identity, it brings together a chorus of voices to evoke Jamaica’s dance halls and criminal underworld, at the heart of which is a mother’s love for her son.
AFRICA
Anyone planning a safari should pick up a copy of The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony, a South African conservationist who accepted a herd of ‘rogue’ elephants to his Thula Thula game reserve. Risking his life to bond with the elephants, he assumes a hugely special relationship with the herd, the wise matriarch Nana and her warrior sister Frankie. This ultimately heart-warming recollection sheds light on the emotional intelligence of these majestic animals.
Norway
Even though Dune is a sci-fi book, Stadlandet in Norway comes into the frame in the latest fi lm adaptation to let the imagination take readers to Caladan, the stark, inhospitable, windswept planet 20 light years from Earth, first created by author Frank Herbert in 1965. The film has boosted tourism to the region, but as well as reimagining the book’s dramatic setting, visitors may also want to follow the winding road of the Atlantic Ocean Road, as another film icon James Bond does in No Time To Die.
India
A land full of colour, culture and fascinating history, many writers have been drawn to the storyboard of India. Arundhati Roy won the prestigious Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel The God Of Small Things, a story about Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother’s factory, amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala.
And who can resist Salman Rushdie’s acclaimed Booker Prizewinning second novel, Midnight’s Children? This much-loved historical fantasy reflects on the issues India faced post independence, including culture, language and religion.