G’Day Bookworms!
It’s time for another edition of Top Ten Tuesday with The Broke and the Bookish! Today’s topic features books with a travel element. This should be fun. Shall we?
1.Where’d You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple. This book rocked for a number of reasons. Quippy sarcasm, ridiculous situations, clever forays into the seedy underbelly of suburbia. My absolute favorite part of this novel? The trip to Antarctica. What would you expect of a self professed penguin enthusiast?
2. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan. The Griswolds have got nothing on THIS vacation’s crazy turn of events. A group of American tourists tries to travel down the Burma Road and ends up being held captive by a local tribe led by child soldiers believed to have mystical powers. It’s a very cool book, but you may want to stay in your country of origin after reading this bad boy…
3. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Hemingway and his first wife Hadley move to Paris during the Jazz Age. Earnest is is search of inspiration, Hadley is in search of a pleasant life. Though they live in Paris, they’re able to do so cheaply thanks to the slow recovery of European economies after WWI. The Hemingways galavant all over Europe spending time in Spain for the bullfights and ski holidays in the Alps. For as “poor” as they’re supposed to be, their travel schedule reveals none of the supposed hardship.
4. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. The whole doggone series is travel-tastic. From Scotland to France to a rickety boat taking them to the Caribbean and the American colonies, Jamie, Claire, and the gang never stay in one place for long. Plus, TIME TRAVEL absolutely counts as traveling. YOU pass through a rock and head back two centuries and try to tell me it’s no big deal.
5. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris. Sedaris takes you along on his travel adventures in this hilarious essay collection. Mugged in Honolulu? Check. Suffering at the hands of a lost passport sticker? Check. Appreciate the sterile disinfectant style of Japan? Checkity check! All sorts of countries, all sorts of weirdness. David Sedaris is my kind of crazy.
6. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. A road trip out of Kentucky leads Taylor into a strange set of circumstances that land her with a toddler. Taylor and the child continue to travel and make their way to Arizona, where they establish a life for themselves. Life changing cross country road trips. They’re the stuff great books are made of!
7. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. Travel in the traditional sense? There’s some of that. But when Lyra and Will start ripping holes and traveling between dimensions? Awww yeah. Travel-saurus-rex.
8. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle. You don’t just travel in this book. You travel to OTHER PLANETS! Intergallactic!
9. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Chase the legend of Dracula from Amsterdam to Istanbul to Budapest to Romania to Bulgaria to… Epic crazy travel, vampire lore, and a side of spooky. It’s good times.
10. 11/22/63 by Stephen King. TIME TRAVEL! That is all.
What about you, my globetrotting Bookworms? What are some of your favorite travel tomes?
*If you haven’t done so already, there’s STILL TIME to enter the contest to NAME THAT BOOK CLUB!
Akilah
I’m currently reading Where’d You Go, Bernadette? So fun!
A Wrinkle in Time, yes.
Great list.
Words for Worms
Thanks! 🙂 Bernadette is fabulous.So much mockery and ridiculousness!
Words for Worms
Thanks! 🙂 Bernadette is fabulous.So much mockery and ridiculousness!
Andi (@estellasrevenge)
You picked such great books here! I have Saving Fish from Drowing on my TBR and it’s been there forever! I really need to hop to it. I rarely see it mentioned on blogs, so it was a nice surprise to run across it here!
Words for Worms
You’ll have to let me know if you like it! I read it a few years ago, but it was one of those crazy titles that sticks with you, you know?
Heather Christena Schmidt
LOVE The Paris Wife!
Words for Worms
I liked the Paris Wife, but it made me hate Hemingway more than I already did. What a douche.
Heather Christena Schmidt
I know. I LOVE pretty much everything he’s ever written; but he was SUCH AN ASSHOLE. Have you read Garden of Eden? It’s his fictionalized take on their marriage… you should read it, you’ll hate him even more.
kelley
Love reading books that take you somewhere! Nice List. kelley—the road goes ever ever on
Words for Worms
Thanks Kelley!
Stephanie Scott
I’d like to read The Paris Wife; I’ve seen it around everywhere but didn’t realize what it was about until recently. I’ve read Outlander and loved the historical detail. Not so much the punching wolves part, but whatever 🙂 haha
Words for Worms
The Paris Wife is quite good- you’ll have to let me know if you like it!
Daddio
Those little Michner short stories like Hawaii, or Alaska to be read shortly after visiting said area. Otherwise you probably couldn’t muster the fortitude to read the WHOLE thing!
Words for Worms
Well, Dad. You wanna fund my vacations to Alaska and Hawaii?
Rory
Saving Fish from Drowning sounds interesting!
And someday maybe I will finally get around to reading The Historian. Maybe. Though Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls is coming up sooner rather than later in my TBR stack. I’m excited!
Words for Worms
The Historian was good, but it’s a bit genre-y so if you can’t handle the vamps, skip it. David Sedaris goes with everything, in my opinion.
Rory
I do enjoy a good piece of vampire fiction. I find it odd when it’s romance-y, because who is attracted to something that is quite literally cold and dead – but to each their own, etc., etc.
Ashley F
I LOVED The Historian.
Words for Worms
I found it quite enjoyable!
Lyssapants
A Wrinkle in Time, was like, the BEST.
Words for Worms
I didn’t read it until I was a grown up. How lame is that?
Lyssapants
Lame, but very forgivable. So many books, so little time…
I’ve missed you over at my blog!
Turn the Page Reviews
Great list- I loved The Historian too.
Here is my TTT-
http://turnthepagereviews.com
Words for Worms
Thanks! 🙂
Maureen E
I love this topic! Everyone’s lists are so interesting. I wouldn’t have thought of putting The Historian there, but of course it makes perfect sense.
PinotNinja
I feel like Where’d You Go, Bernadette? would be on every top ten book list I could ever make on any subject. That’s how much I love that book.
The Paris Wife is fascinating, especially because Hadley’s grand-niece is in my book club and we got to hear all about how she lived out the end of her days (most happily, rather booziley, and definitely snarkily in central Florida).
Words for Worms
Holy Crap! You know Hadley’s grand-niece?!?!?! Crazy!!!!
heartjess
Okay now I really have to read Where’d You Go, Bernadette! Great choices 🙂
Mine’s over at http://suchanovelidea.wordpress.com
Words for Worms
It’s fantastic, you’ll love it!
Jolyse Barnett
Thanks for the list. I’ve heard about the Outlander series but never got around to reading it. Maybe now’s the right time? Wrinkle in Time…great suggestion to read aloud to my son this summer.
I adore the Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series. My favorites of them were Clan of the Cave Bear and the Mammoth Hunters, even though I enjoyed them all. Thanks to my mom for introducing me to them.
Words for Worms
Amazon is always trying to get me to read those Auel books, perhaps I should give them a shot?
Lindsay
I love The Paris Wife and Outlander! Both made my top ten list. I also enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time and The Historian. A few of your other picks are on my to-read list. Great choices!
Words for Worms
Thanks! If you read anything on the list, make sure you let me know if you like it! 🙂
Rhian
Taking your question literally, there is a travel book called Vroom with a View by Peter Moore who is an Australian guy who bought a Vespa and rode it from Milan to Rome. It is one of the most romantic books I’ve read.
Continuing to be literal, anything by Bill Bryson, (I particularly like A Walk in the Woods), and anything by Michael Palin. Can you tell I like travel narratives?
A couple of others from my library (I’ve excluded sci-fi titles that include space travel) that I’d add to the list are Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.
Words for Worms
Awesome! I love when you get literal. I’m going to have to check some of these out!
picturemereading
I love Outlander..sighhh..
Wayne
One that’s not on your list I want to read again is *Blue Highways” by William Least-Heat Moon. It’s non-fiction book about a guy who is part native american who decides to explore the blue highways of American. These are roads that are two lane roads that show you a part of America that most people never see. He meets some remarkable people on his travels like a friendly Trappist Monk and many others that help him on his journeys.
Words for Worms
Sounds intriguing! Thanks for the recommendation!
Milo
Any Discworld book with RIncewind in it…that guy has been everywhere including the moon, an upside down mountain and was witness to the creation of the universe (he dropped his sandwich into the pool of life, which should explain some things).
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and I’m suprised no one else has mentioned those yet.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxay because, well…Hitchiking across the Galaxy is kinda my dream job.
Gullivers Travels, Around the World in Eighty Days and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for sheer unending, classical readability.
Words for Worms
I couldn’t in good conscience include any Tolkien in a Top Ten since it’s not exactly my favorite… It’s been FOREVER since I read a Hitchhiker book- those are great fun!
Wayne
One other suggestion I offer is *The Mosquito Coast* which involves a father who sick of the consumerism in the USA drags his family to a remote rainforest in Belize. Due to his obsessiveness bad things start to happen where they have settled. Don’t see the movie; it truly sucks.