Books to Read

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all its ardours and paradoxes—than our travels.

— Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

Here is a select list of books that will get you in the mood to travel:

General Interest

• Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel
• Nancy Pearl, Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers
• Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
• Alice Steinbach, Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
• Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad and A Tramp Abroad

England

Travelogues

• Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road
• Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island
• Anna Quindlen, Imagined London: A Tour of the World’s Greatest Fictional City

Non-Fiction

• Bill Bryson, Shakespeare
• Helen Simpson, The London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea: The Art & Pleasures of Taking Tea

Novels

• Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel
• Ian McEwan, Atonement
• Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Jane Austen, Persuasion
• Charles Dickens, David Copperfield and Great Expectations

France

Memoirs

• Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
• Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence
• Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy and Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy

Non-Fiction

• David McCullough, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
• Ross King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolution Decade the Gave the World Impressionism
• Jill Jonnes, Eiffel’s Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris’s Beloved Monument
• Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey

Italy

Travelogues

• Henry James, Italian Hours
• Mary McCarthy, The Stones of Florence
• Mary McCarthy, Venice Observed
• Beppe Severgnini, La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind

Non-Fiction

• Ilaria Dagnini Brey, The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers who Saved Italy’s Art during World War II
• Ross King, Brunelleschi’s Dome
• Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

Novels

• Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins
• E.M. Forster, A Room with A View
• Henry James, The Wings of the Dove and The Aspern Papers and Other Stories

Germany

Memoirs

• Elie Weisel, Night

Non-Fiction

• Lynn H. Nichols, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War

Novels

• Markus Zusak, The Book Thief