No time or funds to travel? Armchair travel is a wonderful option--you can sit on your porch swing and lose yourself in some exotic locales. Do you have any favorite books that evoke a sense of place? Any favorite cities or countries you like to visit through books?
Australia. Breath by Tim Winston, takes place in a fictional coastal town of Western Australia, and follows a group of boys whose youthful urges to seek out the farthest limits of courage, endurance and sanity through surfing. Who can forget Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, the bestselling 1970's novel set in the outback. One of my favorite memoirs, The Road from Coorain, by Jill Ker Conway, remembers her early life on a remote sheep station, to her college days at Harvard.
Africa and South Africa. A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley, enjoys the exotic beauty of Botswana as Detective Kubu unravels a mystifying murder and uncovers a very tangled web of conspiracy. The popular No. 1 Ladies Detective series by Alexander McCall Smith is a somewhat gentler set of mysteries that also takes place in Botswana. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible takes you on a different kind of journey into the Belgian Congo with a missionary family in the 1960's. And Deon Meyer is an amazing South African author who takes you into his country with his exciting thrillers that are filled with action, excitement and intense tension.
Hong Kong. Janice Y. K. Lee's 2009 novel, The Piano Teacher, set in the 1940's and '50's, is a wonderful soap opera of a tale, with themes of love, betrayal, honor and secrets. Gail Tsukiyama's Night of Many Dreams also takes place during the 1940's, and years later, with memorable and multi-dimensional characters. Have you ever read any of the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries? Don't miss Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha, with an ominous plot involving drugs, smuggled diamonds, a famous cat burglar turned Interpol agent, a mysterious psychic, and, of course, murder.
Norway. Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson, set in the easternmost region of Norway, begins with an ending, and deals with a sixty-seven-year-old man who must come to terms with his past, specifically an incident that occurred when he was fifteen. Karin Fossum, a crime writer, is known as the Norwegian queen of crime, and her Inspector Sejer books have been translated in at least 25 languages and won several prestigious awards. In for a classic? A great historical epic, Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway and written by Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset, tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman.
No comments:
Post a Comment