50 Books of Summer
Yesterday I came across this wonderful list of “summer books” by National Geographic, compiled to enhance your summer holiday experience. But I also thought it a good list for armchair travellers such as myself this year. And so while I am in Málaga I shall also “travel” to Morocco and Lisbon.
I still haven’t managed to come across any of the books that were recommended to me over here, so I’ve just placed an Amazon order for In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah and Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago. Both are from the list and sound like they should make for perfect summer reading… fingers crossed that they arrive by August 2nd.
What interesting places have you travelled to by book?
casa azahar 
Being as collecting 18th and 19th century “ladies travel” literature is my particular hobby, I have gone lots of places, as well as traveled in time through books.
Particular favorites are the travels of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, the wife of the British Ambassador to Constantinople. Her letters are viewed as the first view of the “Orient” (the Middle East) by a Western woman. She is also credited with bringing back the the practice of variolation (introducing infected matter under the skin in order to induce a minor infection with the disease and boost immunity) for Smallpox from Turkey. Her friendship with the Queen, who had herself and her children variolated as an inducement to the populace to follow suit, was instrumental in the first use of preventative measures against Smallpox in the West.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mary_Wortley_Montagu
Margaret Fountaine’s diaries which were compiled into a book “Love Among the Butterflies” is a terrific read. Fountaine spent the better part of her life traveling around the world collecting butterflies and resisting men (with the exception of her “assistant” Khalil Neimy). She traveled across Europe on a bicycle in the 18980s, alone (an amusing story of how she was accosted by a man while riding on her bicycle through the Alps and escaped handily after knocking him off his bike with her umbrella).
Her massive collection of butterflies was given to the Museum of Norwich after her death, at the age of 78, while collecting butterflies in Trinidad.
“She was buried in an unmarked grave at Brookwood Cemetery on Trinidad. She had covered immense distances in her travels, by air, sea, rail, road, on horseback and by foot. She was a fearless air traveller, flying from Havana to Santiago in 1931, fortified by sips of brandy – an essential part of her travel gear. Her unquenchable spirit enabled her to enjoy the company of a gang of bandits on a Corsican mountainside or speeding along a road in Tenerife crammed into an ancient car with eight young Spaniards.”
I’d like to think I could have been her, in another life….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fountaine
“A Ride on Horseback Through Florence, France and Switzerland described in a series of letters by A Lady” (1842) is another favorite. Sometimes crabby, sometimes horrified, and sometimes scandalized descriptions of places and people encountered in a long and arduous journey makes for fun reading.
And, last but not least, “The Diary of an Invalid: Being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819″, (WHEW!) by Henry Matthews, who had been a judge in the Supreme Court in Celon –I just found a famous connection for Matthews. Apparently Percy Bysshe Shelley refused to “fag” (not what it sounds… it means to act as a sort of servant for) Matthews when at Eton…. Apparently, thought to be one of the reasons Shelly left Eton after 6 years. It just wasn’t done to refuse.–
Complaints about the weather, aside, and there are a lot, Matthews provides vivid and moving descriptions of his travels and encounters.
Matthews finally succumbed in 1828 to whatever the malady (probably Tuberculosis) that he set out in search of a cure for.
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I forgot to add the segue into non-ladies travel lit… I do have SOME other travel lit, including contemporary travel. I just don’t find it so interesting….
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Fascinating, Mudhooks. You’ve really travelled to some interesting places. Thanks for such a great comment.
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Gosh, I think I’ve been everywhere, including the North Pole and Antarctica in books. I’m afraid most of my travels have been that way.
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Yeah, I love books that make you feel like you are “really there” about a place.
Good news – Amazon dispatched my order on Friday, so it should be here by the end of this week. Just in time!
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Yay! Amazon order arrived today. Trying not to open books until I get to Málaga.
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