Have you ever read a book and then started day dreaming about visiting the place where the characters are living?
Or imagined staying at the place or sit in a cafe where an author wrote a certain book?
I know I have.
On a recent trip to Madrid, I was hyped by the idea that I was able to sit and drink a beer in the same cafe that Hemingway once sat and wrote in. And that I could eat in the same restauarant (Cafe Botin) that was a favorite Hemmingway haunt and also the final meeting place of Jake and Brett in the last pages of The Sun Also Rises.
Being able to walk in the footsteps of authors and their characters is the focus of a new book published by National Geographic. Called Novel Destinations, it provides a guide to literary sites, festivals, and tours around the world. After all, not all places are as easily found or known about as Hemmingway’s Madrid.
Novel Destinations travels the world, focusing on classic writers such as the Bronte sisters, Steinbeck, Dostoevsky’s and the like. This is not a book for those looking for the Da Vinci Code.
The book has a companion website where you can find out more about the book and it’s authors.
You can also read an interview with the books authors over at Intelligent Travel.
I really like your article. I am living in Thailand and read about Thai history book, after reading I want to go to a historical place like Ayuddha ya .
You might want to also check out http://www.ncliterarytrails.org. Here is a brief intro about the site and the accompanying guidebook:
North Carolina Literary Trails link this state’s landscapes, urban and rural, to the defining voices of writers and map them into journeys the literary traveler will be eager to make. The Trails ultimately will extend from the mountains across the Piedmont to the coastal plain.
The Purpose of the Literary Trails Guide
Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains invites residents and out-of-state visitors to explore North Carolina from the perspective of writers who have lived here or spent time here. The book comprises a series of eighteen half-day and day-long tours in the western part of the state. It directs curious travelers to the places that have figured importantly in writers’ lives and work.
Sometimes your literary destination isn’t what you expected. I went to Bath looking to breathe some Jane Austen air since part of two of her books are set there. I found a smelly, noisy city. Now I know why she disliked the place so much!
For years after reading Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra, all I wanted to do was ride a horse across Andalusia – he made Granada so vivid I could smell and breathe the city before I ever made it there (not on horseback, I’m afraid).
You may also want to check out Roaring Forties Press titles. They are all dedicated to the connection between art and place. I’ve been fascinated by the way landscape and historical context shape poetry. Living in Amherst, Massachusetts, I’ve been thinking a lot about how Emily Dickinson’s Amherst inspired and shaped her (even from her bedroom window).