5 GREAT TRAVEL BOOKS
“I read; I become; I travel” – Derek Walcott
For those of you who love travel and literature, here are some recommendations of books ** that I have enjoyed reading recently:
Amy Tan: Saving Fish from Drowning
“On an ill-fated art expedition of the Southern Shan State in Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas morning tour – and disappear.” This is a fun novel and – a book that is “easy to read and hard to forget“- Newsweek. This an excellent book for those interested in traveling to Burma /Myanmar.
Zadie Smith: NW London
Zadie Smith’s latest novel has been highly praised and received many awards (National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, one of the “New York Times” Ten Best Books of the Year, and the Best Book of the Year for the “Wall Street Journal”…). “NW” is north-west London, a brilliant and tragicomic book about 4 Londoners and their city. The Guardian has published an extensive and exciting review of this remarkable novel.
J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace
Published in 1999, Disgrace won the Booker Prize, and J. M. Coetzee was also awarded the Nobel Prize four years after its publication. Disgrace is an excellent novel about Cape Town in post-apartheid. A must-read for any traveler interested in South Africa!
V.S. Naipaul: An area of Darkness. His discovery of India
This book is considered a classic of modern travel writing and probably one of the most inspirational books ever written about India. Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul’s discovery of India is a “profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India.”
Murakami: Norwegian Wood
I am passionate about Japanese literature, and Murakami is one of my favorite authors. Norwegian Wood is the story of an adult looking back on his time at Tokyo University (1969-1970). A dark, realistic, and complex novel about Tokyo!
** Please remember this section is for parents. For recommendations of travel books for children, please visit WorldKids- Inspiration.
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