Ten books which inspired me to travel

It was World Book Day on Thursday, and when I went trawling through my blogs to find something appropriate to dig up for the day, I found this post from four years ago, on seven books that changed the way I see the world. Re-reading it, it struck me that several of the titles were there because they had sparked an interest in other parts of the world, and upon further thinking, I realised that many of my past and future travel plans have been influenced by fiction. So here are ten books which have inspired me to travel.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Jules Verne) and Journey to the Volcano (Rose Tremain)

Let’s start with one of my favourite topics; volcanoes! I’ve been fascinated by them since childhood, and these are two books I read quite early on which made me want to go and see them for myself. Verne’s classic features characters entering the bowels of the Earth via a European volcano, which fired up my imagination, whilst Tremain’s children’s book, which is out of print now, tells the story of a young British-Sicilian boy who is whisked off to his mother’s village on the slopes of Mount Etna, and finds himself and his family caught up in a devastating eruption. This is one of the two volcanoes I’ve managed to reach so far, and climbing it was an amazing experience.

Mount Etna

 Sister Carrie (Theodore Dreiser) and Brooklyn (Colm Tóibín)

Sister Carrie was on the syllabus of a fascinating module on 19^th century American Literature that I took in my first year of university, and paints a vivid picture of a young New York City growing up fast. Several years later I was browsing the ebooks from my local public library, and picked Brooklyn, which tells the story of an Irish immigrant making her way in the 1950s city. I was taken by the descriptions of the city in both books, and both contributed to my decision to take a trip to New York last year.

New York City

 The Bone People (Keri Hulme)

Another university find, from a module on postcolonial literature, this is a brilliantly-written book which completely pulled me into the cold, lonely, beautiful and mystical world of New Zealand’s South Island. I’ve played with the idea of looking for work in New Zealand since, and it’s definitely on my list of places to see.

Ghostwritten and Number9Dream (David Mitchell)                  

You’ve probably heard of and maybe read Cloud Atlas, but David Mitchell’s other work is just as intricate and magical. Mitchell lived in Japan for a while and both books feature this country, both the chaotic city and the more isolated islands, placing it firmly on my travel list.

Buxton Spice (Oonya Kempadoo) and Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)

We’re back to my university days – I was lucky enough to be on a degree course with some great options – when I took a module on Caribbean women writers. I could have selected most of the books I read during this time, but I’ve chosen just two of my favourites. Kempadoo’s novel tells the story of a teenage girl growing up in Guyana, whilst Rhys’ better-known text, set as a prequel to Jane Eyre, imagines the “mad wife in the attic” as a young woman, meeting Mr Rochester, in 19^th century Jamaica. Both books portrayed the sounds, smells, heat and culture of their countries in a way that brought them to life and prompted me to decide I need to travel around the Caribbean at some point.

The Chalet School (Elinor M. Brent Dyer)

This is a whole series of books, telling the story of a boarding school which starts off in Austria and ends up in Switzerland, via Guernsey, England and Wales, surviving various accidents, disasters and the Nazis. The school operated in English, French and German, and reading some of these books at a fairly young age, this was how I picked up my first words of a language that wasn’t English, sparking an interest in foreign languages and mainland Europe. I loved the descriptions of mountains, lakes and chalets, and it so happened that when my first opportunity to travel abroad arose, aged 11, it was to Switzerland, where I was delighted to see the landscapes of the Chalet School stories for myself.

Have any books inspired you to travel? Feel free to share yours in the comments.

Five literary spots to visit in the UK

This is re-posted from my other blog where I talk libraries, books and writing...as it's about travel too, I thought I'd share here too.

Yesterday I spotted a Buzzfeed article on “19 British Places all Book Lovers Must Visit”. It’s a great list, and I was slightly ashamed to have only made it to four of them, but it did miss out some of my personal favourites…so here are five UK literary spots I’d add to the list: 

The West Yorkshire Moors

Although they all left home at various points in their lives, the Bronte sisters were all very much attached to their home of Haworth (itself now a much-visited destination, featured in the Buzzfeed list) and the West Yorkshire Moors are a major feature of most of their novels, perhaps most famously in Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. You don’t even have to brave the elements to enjoy this literary setting; take the train from Leeds to Manchester and you’ll be certain you spotted the imposing Wuthering Heights up on a cliff amongst the breathtaking scenery.

St Peter’s Church, Bournemouth 

If you know me well, you’ll know that Mary Shelley was always going to feature in this list! She is buried in the graveyard here, along with her mother, the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, her father, the philosopher William Godwin, and the heart of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (he died in a storm at sea and his rotting body was recovered and cremated…it is said that his heart did not burn, and Mary took it and kept it in her desk drawer, where it was discovered by her adult children after she died). As a Mary Shelley fan, this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me. If you fancy a drink after a wander around the churchyard, there's a Wetherspoons called The Mary Shelley next door!

  

St Pancras Old Church, London

Just one more Mary Shelley one, I promise! She grew up in Somers town and her mother was originally buried in the graveyard here (first Mary’s remains were moved to Bournemouth after the second Mary’s death). Mary would often visit her mother’s grave to think and to write, and after she met Percy Bysshe Shelley, this is where they would meet in secret (he being married already). It was here that they admitted their love for each other and, it is suggested, erm…acted on this (well, they didn’t really have anywhere else to go!). There is still a memorial stone for Mary Wollstonecraft here but I have never been able to locate it; however I love walking round the churchyard, following in Mary’s footsteps.

  

Perrott’s Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks, Birmingham

I grew up in north Birmingham, and as a teenager I played trombone in a jazz band which met on the south side of the city every Monday night. I was a bit of a Lord of the Rings fan, reading the books around the time that the films came out, and one evening my Dad took us on a detour home, to see Perrott’s Folly, which is said to be one of two towers in Edgbaston (the second being Edgbaston Waterworks) which inspired Tolkien’s Two Towers. There’s no solid evidence that this is true, and there are many articles and blog posts out there arguing otherwise, but as someone with an active imagination, I loved standing there and thinking about how Tolkien may have pulled these ordinary industrial urban features into his fantasy land.  I’m no longer a LoTR fan but I’d still argue it’s a must-visit for those who are.

Newnham College, Cambridge

The poet Sylvia Plath first came to England on a scholarship to Cambridge University, studying at this women-only college. She wrote lots and published work in the student newspaper, and it was while she was here that she met and married Ted Hughes. I discovered Sylvia Plath, as many girls do, when I was about 17 years old, and around this time I went on a school trip where we stayed overnight at Newnham College, learning about life at the university. I was completely taken by the idea that I was wandering the same corridors that Sylvia Plath had, and that perhaps I or one of my friends were staying in her very room...