Since I am spending the day making my way to the Philadelphia Metro Area in preparation for my Keynote Address to the Southeast Pennsylvania Library Association I thought I could put a traveling spin on the Monday Discussion.
So today, I will ask you where and when are your favorite places to arm chair travel through a book?
I’ll go first.
I have mentioned this many times before, but it really is my favorite time to read about: 1850-1899. Anything. Fiction, nonfiction, historical fantasy, horror, mysteries. I am not picky when it is set in this time period. I don’t even care where it is set if it is during this time. I love how this is the time when modernity was in its infancy. When scientific discoveries came fast and furious, and man was beginning to finally understand the natural world.
I like armchair travel to this time, more than to a specific place, but if I had to also pick a place, I would say I enjoy reading about the far east, in any time period. Again, I will read fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, etc... all comers.
Okay, now it is your turn.
Tell me about your favorite armchair travel reads.
For past Monday Discussions, click here.
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4 comments:
When reading non-fiction, I like to travel all over the Earth to read about indigenous peoples and their cultures, religions, customs, and ways of being.
But when, I read fiction, I like to travel even farther. When I read non-fiction, I want to learn about the world. Fiction teaches me more about myself. It serves as a mirror to help me examine and explore my own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. My favorite settings for that exploration are far-reaching and fantastical. The characters still have to feel real to me, but I like it best when the worlds are decidely unreal. I want wizards and dragons and enchanted glades and alien life forms.
And, I also like urban fantasy. It brings home the idea that sometimes both the magic and the monsters really are in your own backyard.
Wonderful post, Tara.
I love time travel fiction. My favorites are the iconic Jack Finnerty novels -- Time and Again and Time after Time. They're doubly engaging for me because they are great stories and because they are set in one of my favorite time periods, the Victorian era.
I also like the historical novels of Oliver Potsch, set in medieval Germany.
Where has my reading visited lately? I look at my reading list and see that my books included A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyami, Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy by Lisa See, The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan and there's an ARC of Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones on my desk. China - seen by many as the U.S.'s current greatest competitor with a long history and a culture far removed from our own - is shown in these books with the times and place are as much a character as the protagonists. I love these books because the ample differences depicted still give me an opportunity to see the commonality of human needs and dreams.
My two favorite places are Venice and Paris. The time period does not matter much although the Renaissance is probably my favorite. I recently read the memoir of Casanova and was amazed at how his descriptions of Venice were much the same as when I was there. Travel has the power to remind us that the past was real.
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