“On the elevated sections of the road they felt the cool, delicious breeze from the Pacific forty miles away; while from each little dip and hollow came warm breaths of autumn earth, spicy with sunburnt grass and fallen leaves and passing flowers.” ~Jack London, “The Valley of the Moon” (1913)

NONFICTION

A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth, and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma, Alan Deutschman, 2003 — An engaging look at the rivalry between the two valleys and their distinct atmospheres and controversies.

The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley, James Conaway, 2002 — A riveting account of how this agricultural paradise has been divided over issues of land use, conservation and status by a contributor to National Geographic and Food & Wine, who has studied the area for decades.

Food Lover’s Guide to the Napa Valley: Where to Eat, Cook, and Shop in the Wine Country, Plus 50 Irresistible Recipes, Lori Lyn Narlock, 2003 — This book by a food writer and former chef contains a forward by Thomas Keller, the famous chef from the French Laundry, and suggestions for dozens of great addresses for foodies.

Harvests of Joy: How the Good Life Became Great Business, Robert Mondavi, 1998 — The autobiography of America’s greatest winemaker and how he single-handedly changed the world view of California wines.

Napa: The Transformation of an American Town, Lauren Coodley, 2003 — A history of the town by a history professor at Napa Valery College from when Spanish explorers arrived and met the resident Wappo Indians to modern times.

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection, Michael Ruhlman, 2001 — One of the three parts of this book chronicles working in the kitchen of Thomas Keller’s French Laundry.

FICTION

Velocity, Dean Koontz, 2005 — Napa Valley bartender and wood sculptor Billy Wiles finds himself targeted by a fiendish killer in a nail-biter of a suspense novel.

Sharpshooter: A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery, Nadia Gordon, 2002 — Local color saturates the investigations of organic chef Sunny McCoskey, who must clear her friend’s name following the murder of a wine family heir.

“Whenever I come here (…) San Francisco strikes me as being at once the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful and the most tantalizing of all the great cities of the world.” ~Jan Morris

FICTION

The Golden Gate, Vikram Seth, 1986 — This brilliant early novel by the author of A Suitable Boy is written as a narrative poem about five contemporary San Francisco residents.

Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin, 1978 — Before Sex and the City, there were these tales of San Francisco set in a Russian Hill apartment house—vibrant, gay, sentimental and funny.

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett, 1930 — Tough but tender Sam Spade gumshoes his way across the city, helping a beautiful woman get her manicured paws on a golden bird.

NONFICTION

San Francisco Almanac: Everything You Want to Know about the City, Gladys Hansen, 1995 — An indispensable reference with inside info on everything from the 1906 earthquake to cable cars to famous locals.

The World of Herb Caen: San Francisco 1938–1997, Barnaby Conrad, 1999 — The newsprint voice of San Francisco for over half the 20th century, the late Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Caen is the consummate crusty insider driven by an insatiable curiosity for his home town.

Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture, James Brook, Chris Carlsson, and Nancy J. Peters, eds., 1998 — A sweeping, diverse essay collection that includes the perspectives of historians, writers, architects, geographers and artists.

“New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village—the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!” ~E.B. White

NONFICTION

1185 Park Avenue: A Memoir, Anne Roiphe, 1999 — Roiphe’s carefully observed memoir of growing up rich, Jewish and isolated on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is intense and powerful.

Manhattan, When I Was Young, Mary Cantwell, 1996 — Cantwell’s tale of arriving in Greenwich Village in the 1950s to work on a glossy is the pre-Sex and the City in the era of the two-martini lunch.

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, Luc Sante, 1991 — A pop culture classic chronicling the dives and lives of the Lower East Side, 1840 to 1920—well before the neighborhood became the home of the Gap and Starbucks.

Greenwich Village: A Guide to America’s Legendary Left Bank, Judith Stonehill, 2002 — Full of delightful illustrations, maps, quotations, walking tours and tales of such luminaries as Walt Whitman, Edward Hopper and Willa Cather.

FICTION

Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin, 1983 — Futuristic New York that takes its title from the Shakespeare play and shares a central character who disappears and returns many years later, a changed man.

The Alienist, Caleb Carr, 1994 — Carr’s best historical mystery follows a doctor pursuing a serial killer of boys through the well-etched streets of Victorian New York.

House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905 — Single artistic Lily Bart desperately seeks a rich husband in this Gilded Age tragedy.

POETRY

Poet in New York, Federico Garcia Lorca, 1940 — Poems written in and about New York between 1929-1930, when Lorca was a student at Columbia University.

FOR CHILDREN

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Bernard Waber, 1965 — The classic tale of a crocodile raised on 88th Street and his metropolitan adventures. For children up to 8.

Mishoo: Cosmopolitan Cat, Emily Fisher Landau, 2000 — Published by the Whitney Museum of Art, this illustrated tale features a cat who belongs to an art collector who lives between New York, Palm Beach and Santa Fe. It was written by well-known art collector and philanthropist Emily Fisher Landau and includes reproductions of Warhol and Georgia O’Keefe paintings.

Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City, Janet Schulman, 2008. The illustrated true story of the hawk couple that made a nest on Fifth Avenue apartment building. When the coop owners removed their home, protesters picketed and proved how the birds had captured the heart of New Yorkers.

New York State of Mind, Billy Joel, 2005 — The well-known singer wrote this ode to New York in 1976; almost thirty years later, the text (with accompanying illustrations) was published. For children up to 6.

The Old Pirate of Central Park, Robert Priest, 1999 — A sweet picture book about a cranky New York City pirate who brings his toy ship to the boat pond in Central Park. For children up to 8.

“…so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability . The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” ~ Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem

NONFICTION

Los Angeles: People, Places and the Castle on the Hill, A.M. Homes, 2002 — New York-based novelist, short-story writer and memoirest Homes checks into the star-larded Chateau Marmont (where James Belushi overdosed) to get an insider’s, bricks-and-mortar look into L.A. and its celebrity culture.

Where I was from, Joan Didion, 2004 — Didion is the nonfiction poet of California, and her piercing view of the state’s history in light of the 1993 Spur Posse sex scandal scours the state for meaning hidden and latent.

Black Dahlia Avenger: the True Story, Steve Hodel, with a foreword by James Ellroy, 2003 — Former detective Hodel traces the blood-trail of the murder of an innocent extra straight back to the doorstep of his kinky doctor father in this true-crime classic about one of the city’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

FICTION

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939 — Sure it’s one of the best mysteries of all time, but Chandler sings the rhythm of Los Angeles, the smell of “hard wet rain” on cement, the weight of bougainvillea on the portico of a decadent rich man’s house – and it’s a pleasure to read.

The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh, 1947 — Who knows California better than a detached Englishman? Novelist Waugh’s dead-on satire of Hollywood dissects how Los Angelenos revere their late pets at the “Happier Hunting Ground.”

Greetings from the Golden State, Leslie Brenner, 2001 — Food writer and debut novelist Brenner produces an off-beat Southern California family saga that spans the Kennedy Assassination to the Bush Administration.

Literacy and Longing in LA, Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack, 2006 — An amusing chic lit take on modern L.A. about a woman who is torn between two men and her love for reading.

NONFICTION

The Road from Coorain: Recollections of a Harsh and Beautiful into Adulthood, Jill Ker Conway, 1992 — An incredible memoir about growing up in the outback, coming of age in Sydney of the 1950s and coming into her own as a historian and educator. Ker Conway ultimately became Smith College’s first female president.

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1987 — This brilliant meditation on why men wander and tell stories by one of the best travel writers of the 20th century illuminates much more than just the aboriginal culture.

Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James, 1981 — The prolific, award-winning Australian author’s acerbic memories of growing up in suburban Sydney.

Sydney, Jan Morris, 1992 — The author of numerous travel books, Morris gives a historical and social look at Australia’s largest city, founded in 1788 as a run-off for British convicts…

FICTION

Bliss, Peter Carey, 1981 — A satiric and highly entertaining novel delves into a Sydney ad-exec’s spiritual crisis.

The Unknown Terrorist: A Novel, Richard Flanagan, 2007 —A page-turner about a Sydney pole-dancer whose one-night-stand puts her under suspicion for abetting a terrorist in the attempted bombing of Sydney’s Olympic stadium.

Lillian’s Story, Kate Grenville, 1986 —A poetic first novel that creates a fictional autobiography for Lil Sanger, a trouble Sydney homeless woman; the emotional survival story won the Austalian/Vogel award.

“[We] ran up the hills where, as you looked down toward the sea, the flooded rice fields lay shining in the sunlight like a broken mirror.” ~ Colin McPhee

NONFICTION

Eat, Pray, Love One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert, 2006 — The last third of the book, which covers “Love”, is set in Bali and wonderfully evokes the island and its residents.

A House in Bali, Colin McPhee, 1944 — A Canadian composer and musicologist and “ultra-modernist”, the author became interest in gamelan music, traveled to Bali in the 1930’s and wrote a classic memoir about the island, it’s people and it culture – and captured the “sensory overload” that still characterizes the island today.

Fragrant Rice: A Taste of Passion, Marriage and Food, Janet DeNeefe, 2004 — The Australian author lives with her Balinese husband and four children in Bali where her experience running a restaurant and other businesses inspired this recipe/lifestyle book.

FICTION

Painted Alphabet, Diana Darling, 1992 — The American sculptor and Bali resident re-imagines a classic local folktale about a Balinese witch as a fantasy novel.

Bali Behind the Seen: Recent Fiction from Bali, Various — A short story collection by contemporary Balinese fiction writers confronting the forces of tourism and modernization in paradise.

A Little Bit of One O’Clock, William Ingram, 1998 — A westerner’s warm, intuitive, witty novel about living with a local family, and their spiritual link to their community and ancestors.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. ~ Mao Zedong

NONFICTION

Foreign Babes in Beijing: A Portrait of the New China, Rachel DeWoskin, 2005 — An American ex-pat’s explores of modern China.

Wild Swans Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang, 1992 — The inspiring biography tells the story of three daughters their struggle and survival against Communism in China.

Mao The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, 2006 —The authors recast Mao’s ascent to power and subsequent grip on China in the context of global events.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Li Zhi-Sui, 1996 —The book reconstructs Dr. Li’s extraordinary time when he served as Chairman Mao’s personal physician.

One Billion Customers, James McGregor, 2005 — Considered by some to be the bible for anybody doing business in China, the book reveals indispensable, street-smart strategies, tactics, and lessons for succeeding in the world’s fastest growing consumer market.

FICTION

Mr. China, Tim Clissold, 2004 — Based on a true story, a British student of Chinese with a few years of experience at an accounting firm, teams up with an experienced Wall Street banker to invest in China in the early 1990s.

Peking: A novel of China’s Revolution 1921-1978, Anthony Grey, 1988 —Historical epic about the Long March of the Chinese Communists.

“The place is haunted by a sense of the hugeness and fertility and brute strength of Asia.” ~Jan Morris

NONFICTION

East and West, Christopher Patten, 1999 — The last British colonial governor relates the time up until the 1997 handover to China.

Hong Kong, Jan Morris, 1997 — Strong on colonial history and style but the British author falters on the street’s Cantonese beat.

Gweilo, Martin Booth, 2005 — The author recalls his experience of growing up as a blond-haired British lad in a Chinese community.

FICTION

The World of Suzie Wong, Richard Mason, 1958 — The original and best HK novel about the gold-hearted hooker.

Noble House, James Clavell, 1986 — HK-set rollercoaster yarn – and great airplane read – peopled by a tattooed triad – Four Finger Wu – a canny Brit trader, a smooth American capitalist, a slinky Chinese babe, and a Communist spy.

The Monkey King, Timothy Mo, 2000 — A hilariously funny novel of family dysfunction set in 1950’s Hong Kong.

“I have seen places that were, no doubt, as busy and as thickly populous as the Chinese city of Shanghai, but none that so overwhelmingly impressed me with its business and populousness. In no city, West or East, have I ever had such an impression of dense, rank, richly clotted life.” ~Aldous Huxley, 1927

NONFICTION

Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng, 1968 — A harrowing account of life during the Cultural Revolution.

Shanghai, Harriet Sergeant, 1998 — A portrait of the city in the 1920s and ’30s during its waning days of decadence.

Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, 1842-1949, Stella Dong, 2001 — Story of Old Shanghai with tales of drugs, prostitution, and gang warfare.

FICTION

When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005 — A Cambridge graduate whose parents disappeared in Shanghai, where they lived when he was a boy, travels east from England in the 1930’s as a detective to determine what really happened to his mother and father.

See also Library for Beijing

“One only has to be a few days in Prague before fully realizing the genius of Kafka. The air is impregnated with his spirit. Thirty years ago he wrote of everything that has happened here and is happening today. It is a town that is locked and has only the wrong keys, the keys that won’t fit the locks; things are not ruined and spoiled so much as banked.” ~Cecil Beaton, The Parting Years, 1964

NONFICTION

The Coasts of Bohemi: A Czech History, Derek Sayer, 1998 — A cultural and political history of the Czech people by a Canadian professor.

Exit into History: A Journey through the New Eastern Europe, Eva Hoffman, 1994 — Hoffman recounts her travels across Eastern Europe following the fall of communism.

The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, Timothy Garton Ash, 1993 — An account by a British journalist of the fall of communism, which he witnessed first hand: He was actually standing next to Vaclav Havel in Wencelas Square on the eve of his assuming power.

Nightfrost in Prague: the End of Humane Socialism, Zdenek Mlynar, 1980 — An account of Prague Spring by a close ally of Dubcek’s who was later transferred to Russia where he was closely monitored by the KGB.

Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka, Ernst Pawel, 1984 — A biography of Franz Kafka, Prague’s most famous literary figure.

Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990, Vaclav Havel, 1992 — A broad collection of writings by the former president of the Czech Republic, who turned from a playwright to a dissident and then an inspirational leader for Eastern Europe.

Prague Farewell, Heda Magolius Kovaly, 1988 — This memoir is no longer in print but well worth checking out of the library if you can. It tells the story of a woman who escaped a Nazi concentration camp, survived her husband’s execution in the 1950s and witnessed the Soviet tanks roll into Prague.

Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City, Peter Demetz, 1997 — A Prague native who left in 1949 and became a Yale literature professor returned to his birthplace after the Velvet Revolution, and researched this unsentimental portrait of the city.

Prague Pictures: A Portrait of the City, John Banville, 2003 — Recollection of the city’s past and present.

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948, Madeleine Albright, 2012 — the former U.S. Secretary of State discovers her Czech roots late in life.

The Spirit of Prague, Ivan Klima, 1998 — The essay collection explores totalitarianism’s inner logic and workings.

Kafka’s Prague: A Travel Reader. Ed. Klaus Wagenbach, 1996 — A walking tour of Prague built around places of importance to the city’s most famous native author.

FICTION

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel, Michael Chabon, 2000 — Part of this epic tail takes place in Prague and concerns itself with the story of the Golem.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera, 1999 — Milan Kundera’s sexy, innovative masterpiece about the disappearance and reappearance of Czechoslovakia.

The Cowards, Josef Skvorecky, 1972 — The story of an uncomplicated, talented youth caught up in momentous historic events who refuses to be bored to death by politics—or to lie down and die without a fight.

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, 1915 — Set in Prague, one of Kafka’s most important and surreal stories about a man who inexplicably turns into a beetle.

The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1924 — Also set in Prague, this disturbing tale follows a man accused of an unknown and unstated crime.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, 1984 — Set first in Czechoslovakia, then in Switzerland, Kundera’s story tells the sometimes laborious story of a womanizing Czech surgeon forced to flee the Russian invasion and take on menial roles.

Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light, Ivan Klima, 1994 — A novel about the Velvet Revolution

Utz, Bruce Chatwin, 1988 — A novel by one of the century’s best travel writers, this story is set in Prague about Kaspar Utz, a collector of Meissen porcelain, who hides his treasure through World War II and the Soviet era.

“By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.” ~ Samuel Johnson

NONFICTION

Life of Johnson, James Boswell, 1791 — Considered among the great biographies, this 18th century English-language classic is something every well-read soul should vow to read someday. Why not now, when you have the time to connect with this shrewd diarist whose own personality so greatly casts a shadow on his French-hating literary subject?

London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd, 2006 — Novelist/biographer Ackroyd’s encyclopedic, anecdotal – and weighty – take on the capital from pre-Roman history to the present.

Changing Stages: A View of British and American Theater, Richard Eyre, Nicholas Wright, 2001 — Ignore the American portion of the title and indulge in this fascinating, exhaustive, insider’s look at 20th century British theater, from London’s Royal National Theater’s Eyre and Wright.

FICTION

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens, 1850 — In the author’s most autobiographical work, the title character comes of age in 19th Century England – and survives to find a measure of marital happiness against many, many odds.

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847-48 — A satirical novel, which was first published in serial, about the opportunistic heroine Becky Sharp, whose steep rise in society comes at great cost.

Saturday, Ian McEwan, 2004 — One day in the life of McEwan’s well-to-do neurosurgeon who collides with a London thug reveals the shaky underpinning’s of London’s modern man in accessible, sophisticated fiction.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1986 — Give meaning to your stroll down Baker Street, and re-awaken your rational powers of observation, by reading this grand-daddy of all detection fiction that still reverberates today – even TV’s “House” is wordplay on our hero “Holmes.”

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene, 1951 — Greene’s heady spiritual romance (made into a movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore) follows the adulterous liaison between a novelist and a married woman, brought together by WWII, and separated by German bombs and God’s will.

FOR CHILDREN

This is London, Miroslav Sasek, 1959 — This children’s classic, which introduced a generation of children in the 1960s to London, was reissued in 2004. Its charming illustrations and text provide a wonderful tour of the city, its inhabitants and its monuments.

Madeleine in London, Ludwig Bemelmans — The escapades of the charming young French schoolgirl’s first visit to England.

“To know Paris is to know a great deal.” ~Henry Miller

NONFICTION

Hungry For Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City’s 102 Best Restaurants, Alexander Lobrano, 2008 — A thoroughly delightful guide to eating in the gastronomic capital.

Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann, David P. Jordan, 1995 — Few men have had such an enormous impact on an entire city’s landscape as the 19th century architect and urban planner, Baron Haussmann. This is an academic but very readable biography.

Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik, 2001 — The New Yorker writer, who lived in Paris for several years, muses on the city.

Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, Adam Gopnick, 2004 — A collection of writings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine to M.F.K. Fisher and Diana Vreeland.

Women of the Left Bank, Shari Benstock, 1987 — The interesting account profiles female artists living in Paris during the first decades of the 20th century.

A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood, Alex Karmel, 2002 — The history of the charming walk-up he and his French wife bought in Paris’s Marais district in 1982.

Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, A.J. Leibling, 1986 — A thoroughly delightful account of a gourmet’s progress in pre-war Paris.

Quiet Days in Clichy, Henry Miller, 1956 — The celebration of love, art, and the Bohemian life at a time when the world was simpler and slower, and the sexual pioneer Miller was an obscure, penniless young writer in Paris.

Travelers’ Tales: Paris, James O’Reilly, 2002 — The book captures the city’s romance through stories that entertain, inform, and touch the heart.

The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris, Edmund White, 2001 — Witty and thoughtful musings on Paris by a writer who lived in the city for many years.

Fragile Glory: A Portrait of France and the French, Richard Bernstein, 1989 — An incisive survey of contemporary France.

I’ll Always Have Paris: A Memoir, Art Buchwald, 1980 — Buchwald sums up the joie de vivre of Paris during the fifties.

A Traveller’s History of Paris, Robert Cole, 1997 — An excellent all-purpose history of the city.

Is Paris Burning?, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, 2000 — A gripping history of Paris during World War II.

Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, Noel Riley Fitch, 1983 — Fascinating account of literary life in Paris during the twenties and thirties.

Paris: The Collected Traveler, Barrie Kerper, 2000 — Good all-purpose read.

French or Foe? Getting the Most out of Visiting, Living and Working in Paris, Polly Platt, 2003 —Platt, an American in Paris, shares her knowledge of the intricacies of French etiquette and social life.

Love and Louis XIV, Antonia Fraser, 2006 — The best-selling British historian turns her keen eye and narrative gifts to examining the influence of the women in the Sun King’s life. Wonderful, engaging history.

My Life in France, Julia Child, 2006—A delightful memoir of the famous television chef about her first paces in the cuisine in Paris. A foodie must-read.

FICTION

City of Darkness, City of Light, Marge Piercy, 1997 — The story reveals three women and their prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution alongside their more famous male counterparts.

Perfume, Patrick Süskind, 1989 — A gripping, beautifully written mystery about an orphan with an incredible nose for scents set in medieval Paris.

Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky, 1941-42 — Extraordinary lost work of fiction about the German occupation of France from the perspective of a Jewish novelist embedded in a real story as gripping and complex as the invented one.

The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen, 1935 — A lesser-known but brilliant and influential jewel box of a novel that begins with two children meeting in the parlor of a narrow, teeny Parisian townhouse – and the slow revelation of the secrets it harbors.

Tropic of Cancer, Henry miller—Censored in the U.S. for many years, the novel tells of a young writer and his group during the Great Depression in Paris.

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, 2003 — The monster bestseller marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoterica culled from 2,000 years of Western history.

Le Divorce/Le Marriage, Diane Johnson, 1998/2000 — Twin novels set in contemporary Paris offer an astute social portrait of the city.

CLASSICS

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway —Hemingway’s love letter to the city.

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo—Familiar to most thanks to the popular musical, Hugo’s (hefty) novel about class struggle in Paris is set with the backdrop of the French revolution.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo—Another Hugo classic, this novel is a fascinating look at the fabled church and life in 15th-century Paris.

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens— The Dickens classic pans the period from the outbreak of the American Revolution to the storming of the Bastille.

Paris in the Twentieth Century, Jules Verne—Written in the late 19th century, Verne’s famous “lost novel,” which tells a futuristic tale of Paris in the 1960s Paris, was not rediscovered and published until 1994.

In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust—Proust’s semi-autobiographical novel, set in seven volumes, offers wonderful descriptions of 19th-century Paris, especially its high-society circles.

The Ambassadors, Henry James—The wonderfully named Louis Lambert Strether is another one of James’ Americans, who finds himself utterly seduced and charmed by Europe, in this case, Paris.

FOR CHILDREN

Madeline series, Ludwig Bemelmans, 1984 — These charmingly illustrated books are a great way to get children excited about going to Paris.

This is Paris, Miroslav Sasek, 1959 — This charming illustrated tour of the city was reissued a few years ago, and it’s a wonderful introduction to the city, its residents and monuments for young readers.

Nicholas, Rene Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959 — A series of illustrated chapter books about the misadventures of a French school boy that will make you and your children laugh out loud.

Chasing Degas, Eva Montanari, 2009 – This is the story of a young ballerina who mistakenly swaps satchels with painter Edgar Degas, leading to an imaginative and colorful introduction to the work of the French Impressionists.

Paris in the Spring with Picasso, Joan Yolleck, 2010 – Your child will feel as though they were invited to one of Gertrude Stein’s inspiring get-togethers with descriptions of her avant-garde circle of friends.

Babar series, Jean de Brunhoff and Laurent de Brunhoff, 1930s-present – Follow the king of elephants as he discovers his world of Paris and beyond. Your child is guaranteed to love them as much as you did.

Eloise in Paris, Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight, 1999 – Our favorite mischievous young New Yorker visits the city of light with Nanny and Skipperdee, wreaking havoc along the way.

“Berlin. I found it dazzling. The city had a jewel-like sparkle, especially at night, that didn’t exist in Paris. The vast cafés reminded me of ocean liners powered by the rhythms of their orchestras. There was music everywhere.” ~Josephine Baker, 1925

NONFICTION

Berlin, by David Clay Large : A wonderful historic overview through the prism of the city’s cultural scene. It’s a tome but actually quite a page-turner, especially the chapters about World War II and the building of the Berlin Wall.

The Last Jews in Berlin, Leonard Gross, 1988 — Describes the ordeals of several Jewish escapees who lived “underground” in wartime Berlin and managed to survive.

Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945, Marie Vassiltchikov, 1988 — The wartime diary of an émigré Russian princess who was secretary to Adam Von Trott, mastermind of the failed plot to assassinate Hitler.

A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, Anonymous, 2005 — The sobering diary of a woman who recorded the day-to-day hardships of the mostly female population of Berlin following the end of the war, when the city was under Russian occupation.

Stasiland, by Anna Funder: Australian journalist Anna Funder lived in Berlin in the early 1990s and, appalled by the general lack of interest in stories from the former East, set out to interview a variety of East Germans, including the victims and perpetrators of a regime that ceased to exist overnight. The deeply moving stories gathered in Stasiland paint a vivid portrait of the divided Germany. A must-read.

FICTION

The Good German, Joseph Kanon, 2002 — A fun-to-read romantic thriller set in post-World War II Berlin.

The Berlin Stories, Christopher Isherwood, 1963 — Two novels that are based on the authors experiences of living in Berlin from 1929 to 1933. The play and the film “Cabaret” are loosely based on the book.

The Innocent, Ian McEwan, 2005 — The British Booker Prize-winning author’s suspenseful thriller was published in 1990 and is set in Cold War Berlin.

The Tin Drum, Günther Grass, 1990 — Considered the voice—and conscience—of post-World War II Germany, Grass published his most acclaimed novel, set in the years leading up to the war on the German-Polish border, in 1959. It remains a literary masterpiece.

Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin: One of the most ground-breaking works of German literature when it was first published in 1929, this novel is told in myriad voices and takes place in the neighborhood around the Alexanderplatz, once the heart of Berlin nightlife.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner: One of Germany’s most prominent intellectuals, Erich Kästner is best-known for his children’s books, like Emil and the Detectives, which tells the story of a group of young boys who trail a bank robber through a very realistic 1920s Berlin.

SAINT-TROPEZ

“And we laughed, because it is good to laugh, and because one laughs easily in a climate where there is a real long, hot summer with soft breezes, and leisure to state with confidence: “Tomorrow, and the next day too, we’ll have days no different from this when the blue and golden moments glide by…merciful days where shadows come from a drawn curtain, a closed door, or leafy trees, and not from an overcast sky.”—Colette

NONFICTION

Break of Day, Colette, 1928 — Written in the artists’ colony of Saint-Tropez when the author was in her fifties, the mature work followed the collapse of her second marriage and reflects her desire to re-establish her independence, and repudiate romantic love, while celebrating the natural beauty of her surroundings.

Edith Wharton on the French Riviera, Philippe Collas, 2002 — A fascinating look at the Golden Age of the French Riviera between the wars during the time the American writer visited and found it both a writing paradise and socially shallow – with vintage photographs.

Queen Victoria and the Discovery of the Riviera, Michael Nelson, 2001 — A well-researched account of Queen Victoria’s love affair with the French Riviera.

Artists and their Museums on the Riviera, Barbara F. Freed, 1998 — See the region through the eyes of its most famous artists, like Paul Signac, Renoir, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso and Cocteau.

FICTION

Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan, 1955 — Seventeen-year-old Cecile pokes around in her widowed father’s affairs, with tragic results.

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1933 — Fitzgerald’s most ambitious novel about a glamorous couple coping with his frustrated career ambitions and her mental problems against the Riviera in the 1920’s.

Epitaph for a Spy, Eric Ambler, 1952 — A terrific spy novel about a man at the end of his Riviera vacation who drops his film off at the drugstore – and finds himself arrested and under suspicion when the photos that come back aren’t his.

BARCELONA

“The lamps along the Ramblas sketched an avenue of vapor that faded as the city to awake…The brightness of dawn filtered down from balconies and cornices in streaks of slanting light that dissolved before touching the ground.” — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

NONFICTION

Homage to Barcelona, Colm Toibin, 2001 — Histories and travel essays on Barcelona.

Catalan Cuisine; Europe’s Last Great Culinary Secret, Colman Andrews, 1999 — White beans, marinated salt cod, rabbit – a cookbook and so much more!

Barcelona, Robert Hughes, 1993 — The cultural history of the city, from its days as a Roman outpost to the present takes a comprehensive look at the architecture, art, religion and literature of the area.

Barcelona: The Great Enchantress, Robert Hughes, 2007. An ode to a favorite city by the famous art critic.

Antoni Gaudi, Ignasi de Sola Morales, 1992 — Spectacular color photographs and classic text join to make this examination of 16 of the architect’s works, from houses to cathedrals, richly accessible.

FICTION

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 2001 — Young Daniel Sempere is taken by his father to a place called the Cemetery of Lost Books where he is told to adopt a book to keep its memory alive.

Gaudi Afternoon: A Cassandra Reilly Mystery, Barbara Wilson, 1990 —Lesbian translator-turned-sleuth Reilly scours Barcelona seeking a missing person of “indeterminate gender” in a witty, feminist, fast-paced book.

Nada, Carmen Laforet, 2007 — The story of a young woman struggling to survive after the Civil War.

The Time of the Doves, Merce Rodoreda, 1986 — Gabriel Garcia Marquez called this book about one woman’s life during the Spanish Civil War and beyond: “The most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War.” High praise!

TRAVEL GUIDES

Cool Restaurants Barcelona, Cuito Aurora. Browse beautiful places to eat and get a sample of their menus so you don’t have to take chances on how attractive the surroundings are for your meals.

Cool Shops Barcelona, 2005. Heavy on the pictures and light on the text but when it comes to cool shops, the focus should be on style not substance anyway. Think of it as a black book with images.

Lonely Planet Barcelona, 2006. A great all-around guide to the city with maps and solid historical and factual information.

StyleCity: Barcelona, 2007. This large format paperback series focuses on the city’s high style spots with sections on shopping, eating, staying and seeing.

Time Out Barcelona. The guidebook to the city by the staff of Time Out with great tips on sights, shops and restaurants.

Wallpaper City Guide: Barcelona, 2006. A hip pocket guide to the city by the editors of Wallpaper magazine.

EAST AFRICA

“There’s no sky as big as this one anywhere else in the world. It hangs over you, like some kind of gigantic umbrella, and takes your breath away. You are flattened between the immensity of the air above you and the solid ground. It’s all around you, 360 degrees: sky and earth one the aerial reflection of the other.” —Francesca Marciano

NONFICTION

Africa in my Blood, Jane Goodall, 2000 — Autobiography of the author in Kenya.

Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir, Joyce Poole, 1996 — This fascinating account of an elephant specialist’s work in Kenya over more than a decade is also a very personal tale of a woman’s struggle with sexism, violence and the conservation crisis, particularly as it effects her beloved elephants.

Emma’s War: An Aid Worker, A Warlord, Radical Islam, and the Politics of Oil: A True Story of Love and Death in Sudan, Deborah Scroggins, 2002. — A fascinating account of an idealistic young British woman who went to the Sudan as a relief worker and married a rebel warlord before her tragic death.

Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway, 1935 — This novel includes wonderful evocations of safari days in Kenya and Tanzania, where the Nobel-prize winning author went on numerous shooting safaris in the 1930s.

Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari, Christopher Ondaatje, 2004 — The best-selling British biographer followed in Hemingway’s footsteps to trace the trail of two of his safaris through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to gain a deeper understanding of one of his literary heroes and his love of Africa.

I Dreamed of Africa, Kuki Gallmann, 1991 — The incredible memoir of an Italian woman who moved to Kenya where she fell so in love with the land and the wildlife that even after she tragically lost her husband and her son, she stayed on.

Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar, Emily Ruete, 1998 — This out-of-print memoir is hard to find but provides an interesting glimpse into life in the palace of a sultan in the 19th century by one of the princesses.

Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen, 1937 — Karen Blixen’s memoir about her life in the wilds of Kenya.

The Tree Where Man Was Born, Peter Matthiessen, 1972 — The New Yorker writer visited East Africa multiple times over the course of a decade to create this incredible portrait of the landscape and people and animals. The writing demonstrates why he is considered one of the best nature writers of the century, and what a perfect topic for him to mine.

West With the Night, Beryl Markham, 1942 — Compared favorably to Out of Africa, the controversial but acclaimed memoir(some attribute the writing to her publicist husband)is a passionate aviator-and-equestrienne’s poetic account of flight and discovery in Kenya, where she moved when she was three.

Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures, Richard Leakey and Virginia Morell, 2001 — A memoir by the famous paleontologist about the years he spent as director of the Kenyan Wildlife Department from 1989 to 1994, witnessing first-hand the difficulty the country faces to save African wildlife.

FICTION

Rules of the Wild, Francesca Marciano, 1998 — Literary chick lit of the best kind, this novel is set in Kenya in the 1990s and is people with expat relief workers, journalists and artists looking for love against the backdrop of Africa’s wilderness and modern Nairobi.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Listening for Lions, Gloria Whelan, 2007 — A coming-of-age story set in East Africa about a young girl who is forced to leave the plains of her tribe.

Going Solo, Roald Dahl, 1999 — The author of James and the Giant PEach revisits his days as a young Army officer stationed in Dar es Saleem before World War II and then his tour of duty in Egypt and Greece. Full of humor and history.

SOUTH AFRICA

“’The story,” the Bushman prisoner said, “is like the wind. It comes from a far-of place and we feel it.” ~Laurens van der Post

NONFICTION

Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela, 1994 — From political activist to prisoner, then president and Nobel Prize winner, Mandela’s story is a journey of modern Africa. Here, it is in his own words.

Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa’s Negotiated Revolution, Alistair Sparks, 1995 — As a journalist at South Africa’s preeminent newspaper, Sparks bore witness to the end of Apartheid and wrote this fascinating account of the government’s dealings with Nelson Mandela. It reads like a spy novel but is based entirely on real events.

Country of My Skull, Antjie Krog, 1998 — Krog’s riveting book describes the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with hearing the wrenching testimony of the victims of apartheid, as well as of the perpetrators.

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village, Sarah Erdman, 2003 — A moving memoir by a Peace Corps. Volunteer who was sent to a small village in the Cote d’Ivoire. In observing everything from the ancient rituals of sorcerers to AIDs affliction, she reveals the tensions and problems of modern Africa.

My Traitor’s Heart, Riad Malan, 2000 — After eight years away, Riad Malan returned to his home country of South Africa and witnessed the impact of apartheid.

Beyond the Miracle, Alistair Sparks, 2009 — Respected South African journalist Alistair Sparks looks at the modern South Africa’s politics.

FICTION

Blood Kin, Ceridwen Dovey, 2008 — Dovey, a current graduate student in social anthropology at New York University, had originally wanted to film a documentary on South African president Thabo Mbeki through the lens of his chef, barber and portraitist. Instead, she wrote a fable about an overthrown president whose chef, barber and portraitist are held hostage by the new ruler.

Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton, 1948 — This classic novel about racial injustice in South Africa is as moving today as when it was first published and instantly became a best-seller.

Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee, 1999 — This novel, which won the 1999 Booker Prize, is a subtle exploration of South Africa post-Apartheid and all of its new complexities by the Cape Town born Nobel Prize winner now living in Australia.

The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay, 1990 — The story of Peekay, a young boy growing up in 1930’s and 1940’s South Africa. Peekay’s courage inspires and through his eyes, readers can see the beginning of apartheid unfolding.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Akimbo and the Elephants, Alexander McCall Smith, 2007 — The well-known author has written a series of novels for young readers on African adventures. This one follows the son of a game warden who is trying to thwart elephant poachers.

The Field Guide to Safari Animals, Paul Beck, 2008 — A mysterious faux journal for children that follows adventurer Rebecca Mayhew on safari in 1924.

Waiting for Rain, Sheila Gordon, 1987 — This coming-of-age story follows the bond of friendship between two boys, Tengo and Frikkie, as they grow up under the pressures of apartheid in South Africa.

ZIMBABWE

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller 2001 — An incredibly moving memoir about growing up in Rhodesia in the 1970s.

EGYPT

“We are like a woman with a difficult pregnancy. We have to rebuild the social classes in Egypt, and we must change the way things were.” —Naguib Mahfouz

NONFICTION

Cairo: The City Victorious, Max Rodenbeck, 1999 — The fascinating history of the city from ancient times, through the Middle Ages to modern days by a Cairo-based correspondent for the Economist.

Echoes of an Autobiography, Naguib Mahfouz, 1994 — A slim volume of meditations and memories by the Nobel-prize winning Egyptian novelist with a foreward by Nadine Gordimer.

A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam, Mary Anne Weaver, 1999 — A chilling look at Egypt by the astute New Yorker writer who predicts that Islamic fundamentalists will defeat the secular state with a profound impact on the Middle East.

Flaubert in Egypt, Gustave Flaubert, 1996 — The French author visited Egypt in the 19 century and letters and journal entries show how much the place inspired him when he visited in 1849. A year later he wrote Madame Bovary.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Cairo to the New World, Lucette Lagnado, 2007 — In tracing her family history, the author vividly conjures Cairo between the Second World War and Nasser’s rise to power.

Out of Egypt, A Memoir, Andre Aciman, 2006 — A wonderful, multi-generational memoir, beautifully written, of a Jewish family in Cairo.

Out of Place, Edward Said, 2000 — In this autobiography by the renowned Columbia University professor, there are vivid accounts of his childhood, which included some years in Egypt.

FICTION

A Cafe on the Nile, Bartle Bull, 1999 — An amusing tale of spies and intrigue that is set in Egypt and East Africa, this novel draws on history but emphasizes the spirit of adventurous explorers and a flair for suspense.

The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell, 1957-1960 — A series of four novels that relay four different character’s view on the same events that occurred in Alexandria around World War II. The works were heralded as instant classics when they were published and remain riveting.

The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz, 1957 — Born in Cairo in 1911, the first and only Arab Nobel Prize winner (who was stabbed in the neck in an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Islamic extremists) authored this splendid trilogy chronicling three generations of a Muslim family during the British occupation of Egypt in the early 20th century.

Cairo Modern, Naguib Mahfouz, 1945 — Mahfouz brilliant novel first published in the 1940s appeared in English for the first time in 2008.

City of Love and Ashes, Yusuf Idris, 2002 — Politics and romance are woven together in this story of young idealists falling in love.

In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar, 2008 — A finalist for the Booker prize, this slim novel set in the late 1960s revolves around mid-East politics and nostalgic memories of growing up in Cairo.

The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif, 2000 – This story of a British widow’s Egyptian love affair was Soueif’s first novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively, 1987 — An absolutely beautifully written novel, which won the Booker Prize, about a love affair that unfolded in Cairo during the Second World War.

FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG READERS

Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie. — The classic mystery set on a Nile Cruise with Hercule Poiret on the case.

MARRAKECH

“If you have one day to spend in Morocco, spend it in Marrakech… it’s the most lovely spot in the world.” ~ Winston Churchill

NONFICTION

A Year in Marrakech, Peter Mayne, 2003 — Mayne spent much of his life in India and Pakistan before moving to Marrakech. Here he describes everyday life in the city.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, Fatima Mernissi, 1994 — Mernissi was born in a harem in 1940 in Fex and her story and that of the women she grew up around reveals a rich and confounding culture.

Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud, 1992 — Freud travelled to Morocco in the Sixties at the age of five with her hippy mother and this evocative book covers her travels.

Cooking at the Kasbah, Kitty Morse, 1998 — The basic techniques of Moroccan cooking and Moroccan eating rituals.

Good Food from Morocco, Paula Wolfert, 1990 — Having lived in Morocco for two years Wolfert brings together traditional Moroccan recipes.

A House in Fez, Suzanna Clark, 2008— Clarke pens a poignant account of a year spent restoring an ancient riad in Fes. Read a QA with the author

In Morocco, Edith Wharton, 1919—The acclaimed writer’s muses on her travels in the country just after World War II.

Lords of the Atlas, Gavin Maxwell, 2004—A fascinating historical account of two warlord brothers and the rise and fall of the House of Glaoua.

DESIGN/STYLE

Living in Morocco, Lisl & Landt Dennis, 2001—This gorgeous book about Moroccan design focuses on the country’s distinctive arts, style and culture.

Marrakesh by Design, Maryam Montague, 2012—The stylish ex-pat captures the city’s famous sense of style in images and essays. Read a QA with the author.

Shopping in Marrakech, Susan Simon, 2009—This great shopping guide provides colorful maps and plots walks to help you organize a jaunt.

FICTION

The Spider House, Paul Bowles, 2006 — Bowles spent many years traveling before settling in Tangiers in the late 1940’s. The Spider House, set in Fes is probably his best Moroccan book.

Larabi’s Ox: Stories of Morocco, Tony Ardizzone, 1992—These interwoven short stories focus on three Americans visiting Morocco for the first time.

Lulu in Marrakech, Diane Johnson, 2008 —The author of Le Divorce sends another of her American ingénue characters into a foreign culture.

The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles, 1949 —Alienated Americans travel to Africa to escape despair but find it follows them wherever they travel.

ITALY: GENERAL

NONFICTION

An Italian Education, Tim Park, 1995 — A portrait of Italian family life, at school, at home, in church, and in the countryside by a British-born writer, married to an Italian wife and living outside Verona.

Desiring Italy, edited by Susan Cahill, 1997 — Twenty-eight women writers’ anthology (such as Kate Simon, Elizabeth Spencer, Shirley Hazzard, etc.) about their stories in Italy, and what makes the country so seductive to women. The stories (some are fiction, others memoirs, and others essays) are organized geographically –from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south.

D. H. Lawrence and Italy, D. H. Lawrence, 1932 — Three travel books: Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia, and Etruscan Places.

Italian Journey, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1786-1788 — The famed German writer’s letters and journals from his 37th year, spent in Italy, a period abroad that saw him writing about literature and art and turning town classicism in his own artistic development.

The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, 1869 — A satiric look at a citizen of the New World encountering the old, this travel journal — originally published as newspaper dispatches — documents Twain’s cruise on the Quaker City to Europe and the Holy Land among religious pilgrims.

Italian Hours, Henry James, 1909 — Spanning nearly forty years, these charming, appreciative, insightful collected essays contain the noted author’s views on Italy, with two new essays and an introduction added for this anthology.

Italian Days, Barbara Grizutti Harrison, 1985 — Divided into 8 chapters, covering Milan to Sicily, the essayist’s critical, detailed, richly observed travel book is comprehensive, revealing and lyrical.

The Italians, Luigi Barzini, 1964 — Called an “invaluable and astringent guidebook,” by The New Yorker, this book by the bestselling Italian author, publisher and politician tries to get a handle on the national character and dissect the myths of Italian charm and living la dolce vita.

La Bella Figure: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind, Beppe Severgnini, 2006 — The Italian newspaper columnist presents an episodic, often hilarious, look at his fellow countrymen – including a chapter on entire chapter on car sex in Naples!

QUICK FIXES

Both Traveler’s Tales Italy: True Stories, edited by Anne Calgagno and Italy in Mind: An Anthology, by Alice Leccese Powers, 1997, contain choice excerpts.

Special Guidebooks: Architect Robert Kahn’s City Secrets Rome and City Secrets Florence, Venice and the Towns of Italy.

FICTION

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway, 1929 — The bracing, semi-autobiographical novel is about a young ambulance driver in WWI, Lt. Frederic Henry, who falls in love with a British voluntary aid, with tragic consequences.

A Room with a View. E.M. Forster, 1908 — A repressed Edwardian young pianist, Lucy Honeychurch, unlaces her corset once she travels to Florence chaperoned by her cousin and falls in love with George Emerson, with whom she elopes.

A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin, 1990 — The intense moral fable charts the turbulent life and times of fictional Roman scion Alessandro Giuliani, whose life was irrevocably altered by WWI.

Casa Rossa, Francesca Marciano, 2002 — A tumble-down Puglia family farmhouse is the site for sexual intrigue and betrayal of three generations of Italian women in this lush, believable and complex page-turner.

Daisy Miller, Henry James, 1878 — The vivacious American abroad meets a tragic end – she catches Roman fever—in this early James novella.

The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales, Elizabeth Spencer, 1960 — The Mississippi-born author writes beguiling, enigmatic stories about intense Southern women visiting Italy who manipulate their situation with charm as they struggle to control their own fates – and sexuality – in the repressive 1950’s. The title novella inspired the Tony-Award-winning play.

Portrait of a Lady, Henry James, 1881 — New York heiress Isabel Arches travels to Italy, and succumbs to a plot by a pair of Machiavellian ex-pats.

Capri

Capri and No Longer Capri, Raffaele La Capria, 1991 — A frank look at the tourist isle’s underbelly, including its reputation as a sybaritic retreat.

Greene on Capri: A Memoir, Shirley Hazzard, 2000 — The author met Graham Greene on Capri when he sat down at the next table and their friendship grew and ultimately inspired Hazzard’s book, a portrait of a literary legend and a beautiful backdrop for their encounter.

Florence and Tuscany

“It was pleasant to wake up in Florence…It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.” ~ E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

NONFICTION

Bella Tuscany, Frances Mayes, 2000 — California poet does the Tuscan fixer-upper narrative with great charm and grace – and tucks in to such repasts as pasta with wild boar sauce—in her follow-up to Under the Tuscan Sun.

Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, Ross King, 2000 — Exceeding London’s St. Paul’s and Rome’s St. Peter’s, Brunelleschi’s dome with its 140 feet span at the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori is an architectural achievement, and the story of its 15th century creation is equally fascinating.

Oriana Fallaci: The Woman and the Myth, Santo L’Arico, 1998 — A biography of the famed anti-fascist Florentine journalist.

The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 — The essential political treatise by Florence’s native son—and early international pundit – which he wrote after Lorenzo de’ Medici fired him from government service.

The Stones of Florence, Mary McCarthy, 1954 — American prose stylist McCarthy’s affectionate tribute to one of her favorite cities includes descriptions of art, famous locals from Dante to Donatello and historical background.

Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes, 1996 — A woman’s enchanting account of her love affair with Italy and the home that changes her life.

FICTION

The Birth of Venus, Sarah Dunant, 2003 — Dunant’s intoxicating historical novel of 15th century Florence captures the sweep of the Medici’s decadent rule, and the individual coming-of-age of a fourteen-year-old girl, Alessandra Cecchi.

Death of an Englishman: A Marshall Guarnaccia Investigation, Magdalen Nabb, 2001 — An elegant, stylish, character-driven police procedural from the series that makes the city of Florence come alive with Nabb’s description; a Tuscan Maigret.

Milan

“The Alps make you feel all starched and clean as you fly into Milan—they punctuate the long transatlantic sleep of a nighttime flight; groaning bodies stir and strengthen and come to morning life as the mountains exert their rosy magnetic pull that won’t allow you not to pay them compliment of being crisply awake.” Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Italian Days, 1985

FICTION

Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco, 1997 — Conspiracy novel set in Milan. As events progress, the book becomes a study in how fiction can influence reality.

The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni, 1984 — Story of star-crossed lovers in 17th-century Lombardy. It remains hugely popular in Italy, where it has been made into several films and even a stage musical. Better known as “I Promessi Sposi” in its original Italian.

Rome, Umbria and Calabria

“O Rome! my country! city of the soul!” ~Lord Byron

NONFICTION

A Valley in Italy: The Many Seasons of a Villa in Umbria, Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, 1994 — Valley provides yet another vivid narrative of an English writer renovating her dream house – in this case the decrepit Umbrian Villa Orsola – and getting her groove, and walnut liqueur, along the way. How do you say money pit in Italian?

The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone, 1961 — Fantastically readable biography of Michelangelo that renders the Medici era into a veritable soap opera.

City of the Soul, William Murray, 2002 — Informal and personal reflection on Rome: the places, the people who live there, the attractions, etc.

The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Boromini and the Rivalry that Transformed Rome, Jake Morrissey, 2005 — Two of the greatest architects of the Renaissance, who together shaped Rome’s most significant buildings, were archrivals. This is the gripping story of their enmity and how it fueled their works.

The Seasons of Rome: A Journal, Paul Hoffman, 1997 — Points of daily life in Rome.

Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria, Mark Rotella, 2003 — The boot’s toe – drought-ridden, cracked by earthquakes, plundered by royals, riddled by the Mafia – is a lively central character in this funny, romantic and affectionate travelogue.

FICTION

The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1860 — Old and new world collide in a symbol-laden romantic tragedy set among ex-pats in Italy, which includes Hawthorne’s notes on classic sites that still stand today.

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, 1955 — Tom Ripley, an amoral American social climber, assumes the identity of a rich college friend to live the high life in Italy in this deft psychological mystery.

Sicily

On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal, Mary Taylor Simeti, 1986 — Radcliffe College grad Simeti hit Sicily in 1962, fell in love and married a local. This book tells the story of her 42nd year, 1983, and the life she struggles to make work in Palermo and remote Eastern Sicily, where she manages her husband’s farm, with the image of the goddess Persephone standing as a symbol of the author’s split between two worlds.

The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, 1957 — On the eve of Italian unification, Sicilian prince Don Fabrizio confronts change and constancy in his native land, a lonely, sensual observer.

See also Library for Venice

See also Italy General Library

“I saw it as I imagine most people do: as a museum full of tourists, a dead city. But as Venetians well know, it is much more than that. In Venice the past has remained alive in a vivid, disorienting way. It is with you all the time. It blends with the present.” — Andrea di Robilant

NONFICTION

Venice is a Fish, Tiziano Scarpa, 2008 Written by a native Venetian poet and novelist, this love letter to the city is evocative, funny and deeply personal, making you want to discover Scarpa’s insider Venice.

The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt, 2005 — The author does for Venice what he did in his bestselling nonfiction examination of Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Paradise of Cities: Venice in the 19th Century, John Julius Norwich, 2003 — The author of the acclaimed A History of Venice turns his attention to a particularly fascinating period in the city’s history, drawing heavily on the writings of the writers and artists who visited then such as Browning, Byron and Ruskin.

The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin, 1853 — The eminent English Victorian discusses the art and architecture of the city to highlight principles addressed in his earlier work.

Venetian Life, William Dean Howells, 1866 —The American author, critic, and American consul to Venice (a reward for his favorable biography of Abraham Lincoln?) wrote a 2-volume examination of the city.

“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” —Truman Capote

FICTION

Don’t Look Now, Daphne Du Maurier, 1970 — First published in 1970, Don’t Look Now is the story of a British couple who escape to Venice in the wake their young daughter’s death. A psychologically chilling tale- made into a film with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie- it remains one of Du Maurier’s best-loved works.

A Venetian Affair, Andrea di Robilati, 2003 — Compared to Les Liasons Dangereuse when it came out, this beautifully evoked love story is written by the descendant of one of the 18th-century Venetian lovers. Di Robilati researched the affair after discovering love letters and brings to life a golden era in the city through a very intimate story.

Death in Venice, Thomas Mann, 1912 —Mann’s tragic novella about a middle-aged author’s trip to Lido and his subsequent fatal obsession with a young boy during a cholera epidemic.

Doctored Evidence, Donna Leon, 2004 — This and the addictive series of urbane Comissario Guido Brunetti mysteries are unusual in that even when the criminal is uncovered, justice often gets tangled in the local corruption and red tape.

The Floating Book: A Novel of Venice, Michelle Lovric, 2004 — Seductive and erudite story which takes place at the time of the Venetian Renaissance.

The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare, 1594-97 — In this “problem play,” sometimes known as a comedy, a merchant becomes indebted to the Jewish moneylender Shylock at the cost of a pound of flesh for nonpayment, coining famous expressions in the English language – and giving rise to charges of anti-Semitism.

FOR YOUNGER READERS

The Thief Lord, Cornelia Funke, 2002 — The New York Times Book Review compared this to a Harry Potter set in Venice. Two orphans, Prosper and Bo, learn the secrets of the city of canals and the ways of a magical “thief lord.”

Daughter of Venice, Donna Jo Napoli, 2002 — The setting is 16th century Venice and the protagonist is a young girl, born to a noble family. She wishes for nothing more than freedom and one day escapes her palazzo and explores her city.

AUSTRALIA: GENERAL

“I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding plains.” ~Dorothea Mackellar, Core of My Heart

NONFICTION

The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes, 1987 — The definitive chronicle of the country’s convict beginnings by one of the world’s most esteemed art critics, who grew up in Sydney.

In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson, 2000 — An irreverent overview of the country that is jam-packed with factual information and hilarious anecdotes.

The Road from Coorain: Recollections of a Harsh and Beautiful into Adulthood, Jill Ker Conway, 1992 — An incredible memoir about growing up in the outback, coming of age in Sydney of the 1950s and coming into her own as a historian and educator. Ker Conway ultimately became Smith College’s first female president.

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1987 — This brilliant meditation on why men wander and tell stories by one of the best travel writers of the 20th century illuminates much more than just the aboriginal culture.

Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James, 1981 — The prolific, award-winning Australian author’s acerbic memories of growing up in suburban Sydney.

FICTION

Bliss, Peter Carey, 1981 — A satiric and highly entertaining novel delves into a Sydney ad-exec’s spiritual crisis.

The Unknown Terrorist: A Novel, Richard Flanagan, 2007 — A page-turner about a Sydney pole-dancer whose one-night-stand puts her under suspicion for abetting a terrorist in the attempted bombing of Sydney’s Olympic stadium.

Lillian’s Story, Kate Grenville, 1986 — A poetic first novel that creates a fictional autobiography for Lil Sanger, a trouble Sydney homeless woman; the emotional survival story won the Austalian/Vogel award.

Sydney

“Most Sydney people seem immensely proud of their city, immensely proud to be its citizens, and this happy confidence is contagious; it makes the outsider, too, feel proud to be there.” ~Jan Morris

NONFICTION

Sydney, Jan Morris, 1992 — The author of numerous travel books, Morris gives a historical and social look at Australia’s largest city, founded in 1788 as a run-off for British convicts.

Thirty Days in Sydney, Peter Carey, 2001 — A slim and amusing volume by a native who muses on the modern metropolis.

CHILDREN/TEENS

My Girragundji, Meme McDonald, 1998 — A heartwarming children’s tale of a young boy torn between his traditional aboriginal family and the modern world who finds friendship with a tree frog.

This is Australia, M Sasek, 1970 —Part of M. Sasek’s beloved travel series, this book takes children on a tour of the people, sights and animals of Australia.

ISTANBUL

“If western travelers embroider Istanbul with illusions, fantasies about the East, there is in the end no harm done to Istanbul….” —Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul, 2004

FICTION

My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk, 2001 — A mystery wrapped in a love story that is set in 16th century Ottoman Empire, this is a fascinating melding of history, religion, philosophy and setting.

Snow, Orhan Pamuk, 2004 — A Turkish poet who spent twelve years as a political exile in Germany witnesses firsthand the clash between radical Islam and Western ideals.

The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak — A novel that focuses on Turkish national identity through the story of two families, one in Istanbul and the other in America.

Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières — A fictional account of the founding of the Turkish republic as seen through a small village and its eccentric citizens.

One for Sorrow, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer — A murder mystery set in sixth-century Constantinople.

NONFICTION

Istanbul: Memories and the City, Orhan Pamuk — The Nobel Prize–winning author’s love song to his hometown.

A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat, Jeremy Seal — An amusing account of one man’s journey to fez factories ends up being a voyage through Turkish culture and history.

Istanbul: The Imperial City, John Freely, 1996 — A well-researched, if slightly dry, history of the city from Byzantium times to the Turkish republic, with extensive notes on monuments and sights—sort of like a much in-depth Blue Guide.

Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation, John Balfour Kinross — The definitive biography of the father of modern Turkey.

Crescent & Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, Stephen Kinzer, 2001 — A former Istanbul bureau chief for the New York Times examines modern Turkey in vivid anecdotes combined with thoughtful analysis.

Lord of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire, Jason Goodwin, 1998 — An extremely readable history of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, Nicole and Hugh Pope, 1997 — In the ten years since this was written, Turkey and its place as a bridge between east and west has become even more significant. This is a very thoughtful examination by a husband-and-wife team of reporters.

Strolling Through Istanbul, Hillary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely — 2003 A great walking guide to Istanbul that can be hard to track down but is considered by many to be one of the best companions with which to explore the city. The late Sumner-Boyd was a professor of humanities in Istanbul and adored her adopted home.

Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire, Bernard Lewis, 1989 — A great portrait of the city’s pivotal period when Constantinople was overcome by the Ottomans and a brief and readable primer on the city’s history.

Harem, The World Behind the Veil, Alev Lytle Croutier, 1991 — A wonderful examination of the history and culture of the Harem, including those at Istanbul’s Topkapi palace. The author draws on her own background and extensive interviews. Lovely illustrations.

ROME

“I have seen the ruins of Rome, the Vatican, St. Peter’s, and all the miracles of ancient and modern art contained in that majestic city. The impression of it exceeds anything I have ever experienced in my travels…” ~Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by R. Ingppen, London, 1909.

NONFICTION

The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Boromini and the Rivalry that Transformed Rome, Jake Morrissey, 2005. Two of the greatest architects of the Renaissance, who together shaped Rome’s most significant buildings, were archrivals. This is the gripping story of their enmity and how it fueled their works.

City of the Soul, William Murray, 2002. Informal and personal reflection on Rome: the places, the people who live there, the attractions, etc.

Whispering City, Modern Rome and its Histories, R. J. B. Bosworth, 2011. A look at Rome’s most important historical figures and monuments.

The Smiles of Rome, A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers, Susan Cahill, 2005. Passages from 29 sources, written throughout history, ranging from Ovid to John Updike.

Rome and Environs, An Archaeological Guide, Filippo Coarelli, 2008. A guide that leads visitors around Rome’s myriad archaeological sites with easy-to-read maps.

Four Seasons in Rome, Anthony Doerr, 2008. A memoir about the author’s experience as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, Andrew Graham-Dixon, 2010. A no-holds-barred biography on the brilliant but deeply troubled artist.

Rome, Robert Hughes, 2011. A memoir and guide to the city by one of the world’s most respected art historians.

City Secrets Rome, Robert Kahn, 2011. A guide to Rome’s most magical sights—both the well known and relatively unknown—sourced from a range of specialists, from architects and designers to professors.

A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities, Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire, J. C. McKeown, 2010. Fantastic miscellany from all of Rome’s eras.

City of the Soul, A Walk in Rome, William Murray, 2003. From a writer for The New Yorker, a memoir about childhood growing up in Rome.

FICTION

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, 1955. Tom Ripley, an amoral American social climber, assumes the identity of a rich college friend to live the high life in Italy in this deft psychological mystery.

Pompeii, Robert Harris, 2003. A fictionalized account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, in the first century AD

Italian Hours, Henry James, 1909. A compilation of the author’s essays on Italy, including many on Rome, from 1872 to 1909.

Masters of Rome, Colleen McCullough, 1990-2007. From the Australian author of The Thorn Birds, comes a fictional series set in Rome’s late republic.

The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman, 2010. A story about an English-language newspaper based in Rome, and the incredible cast of characters that run it.

The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone, 1961. This fictional story is based on the real struggles Michelangelo faced as he painted the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

This is Rome, Miroslav Sasek, 1960. A child-friendly tour of the city’s landmarks.

Rome Antics, David Macaulay, 1997. Led by a city pigeon, readers fly through Rome.

You Wouldn’t Want to be a Roman Gladiator! John Malam and David Antram, 2001. A look at a day in the life of a Roman gladiator.

See Italy General library for additional suggestions.

“I must hurry back to my house and my flowers in Monaco.” ~Lillie Langtry

NONFICTION

True Grace: The Life and Times of an American Princess, Wendy Leigh, 2007 — This most recent biography of Grace Kelly takes a well-researched look behind the glamour, depicting the actress-turned-princess as an unhappy, lonely and sexually aggressive woman who transformed the tiny principality into a playground for the rich and famous.

The Grimaldis of Monaco: The Centuries of Scandal, The Years of Grace, Anne Edwards, 1992 — An illustrated history of the royal family.

Bridesmaids: Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, and Six Intimate Friends, Judy Quine, 1989 — A fascinating portrait of a generation of glamorous women touched by Kelly’s royal wedding, written by one of the inner circle.

FICTION

Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, Stefan Zwieg — A middle-aged English widow travels through Europe to escape loneliness and falls in love with a young Polish aristocrat, an obsessive gambler at the Monte-Carlo casino.

The Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Jazz Age book’s hero plunges from reckless gaiety and glamour into the depths of despair on the Riviera and in Monte-Carlo.

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton — Heroine Lily Bart observes her more privileged compatriots disporting themselves in Monte-Carlo and experiences the cruelty of their high-society world.

The Innocent Libertine, Colette — Set in 19th-century Parisian bourgeois society, this early Colette classic recounts how the rebellious Minnie strays from her husband but ultimately finds true love and passion while on holiday in Monte-Carlo.

Loser Takes All, Graham Greene — An unambitious accountant who spends his wedding and honeymoon in Monte-Carlo on board the private yacht of his boss visits the casino and, inevitably, loses. But it’s when his system starts working that he gets into real trouble.

Enlarge Photo

A Review with Excerpts

Spaniards are not accustomed to silence. “Catch a taxi anywhere in Spain,” Giles Tremlett notes in the introduction to his recently released nonfiction book, Ghosts of Spain, “and you may find yourself sharing it with a handful of tertulianos [people hired to participate in Spain’s widely popular televised debates] vociferating on the radio. Your taxi driver—if he is not one of those immaculate, austere, proud taxistas who are too dignified and serious to sink to this level—may join in. If you have had a bad day, or feel strongly about the issue at hand, you are free to let yourself rip.” As for propriety: “A generous use of swear words is something we anglosajones [Anglo Saxons] share with Spaniards.” Until recently, there was one topic, however, that was strictly off-limits, a sort of cultural taboo not broached by even the most sacrilegious of city cabbies: the Spanish Civil War and its bloody outcome—thirty years of dictatorship under General Francisco Franco.

The recent exhumation of mass graves throughout the country has placed Franco—previously Spain’s only cultural F word—back on the table for discussion. In Ghosts of Spain, Tremlett, Madrid correspondent for The Guardian, sets out to better understand Spain’s troubled past and how it has, inevitably, molded the present. It’s a journey that covers both historical and contemporary as well as autobiographical terrain (Tremlett, after all, has lived in the country for twenty years). Its starting point is la Transición, the period after Franco’s death, in 1975. During that era many former Francoists jumped on the democratic bandwagon to become Spain’s new government officials, in the process creating a “world record in jacket-changing.” Tremlett explains how the left’s main tactic then was reticence, engaging in a sort of collective memory loss of all past sins committed by their present leaders: “If silence about the past was the price to be paid for the successful self-dissolution of Francoism, the opposition was prepared to sign on to it. Franco’s henchmen, in other words, would not have to pay for their crimes.” Only now, thirty years after la Transición, are Spaniards finally beginning to speak out and put their history on trial. From this Francoist point of departure, Tremlett quickly segues into more modern territory, exploring topics such as health care, education, Spain’s well-documented football mania, the coastal tourist towns “in all their garish glory” and the colors and sounds of flamenco culture. He also takes his readers down the less-trodden, darker alleys of Spanish life, shedding light on the country’s roadside brothels (businesses that have grown increasingly successful and sophisticated over the years), the dirty-money connections between Madrid football team owners and real-estate bigwigs and the neglected gypsy ghettos surrounding Seville—enclaves rife with both crime and incredible musical talent. Along the way, road signs (literally) switch from Spanish to Catalan to Basque to Galician as he visits the country’s autonomous communities, each with its own ethos, running the gamut from the quiet contentedness of the Galicians to the extreme separatism of the Basque ETA. Unusual stopovers include a neo-Franco rally where Tremlett is in the rather uncomfortable situation of being the only one not chanting or saluting the former Caudillo; a coffin parade in Galicia; a handicapped-friendly roadside brothel; and a national flamenco contest for inmates. While his starting point is historical, it is Tremlett’s musings on Spain’s modern-day puzzles and personality quirks that direct and drive his journey and make Ghosts of Spain such a fascinating read. Here are three quirky snapshots of Tremlett’s trip across the country he now calls home.

Snapshot #1—Doctor Worship [On Health Care]

“Spaniards are normally wonderful, imaginative abusers of bureaucracy or rules of any kind. Given the chance, they will charm, cheat or bulldoze their way through them. Stand them in front of a man, or a woman, in a white coat, however and they go meekly wherever they are led. The long complex words of medicine are magical to Spaniards. Their ability to discuss illness, in a combination of detailed medical jargon and vivid, no-holds-barred descriptions of symptoms—pustules, bowel movements and genital itches included—is prodigious. In newspapers and radio programs, footballers’ injuries are described in minute, loving detail. One player, I read in today’s sports daily As, has a fracture to the escafoides carpiano of his hand. Another has torn the cápsula posterior of his knee. Does your average soccer fan know what these remote corners of the body are?”

His wife’s Caesarean section brings Tremlett face to face with the corollary of such worship—doctors who think they’re gods: “Our final goodbye to the Doce de Octubre, in a treatment room a few weeks later, was a reminder of how some doctors peered down at patients from their personal Mount Olympuses. He removed the last few staples from the Caesarean wound—and arranged a golf match on his mobile phone as he did it.”

Snapshot #2—Brothels and Bibles [On Prostitution]

Upon visiting one of Spain’s numerous neon roadside brothels, one of the first catering to handicapped patrons, Tremlett reflects on Spain’s curious mixture of sex and religion.

“The contrast between a country which, when asked by pollsters, describes itself as 80 percent Roman Catholic and its generally laissez-faire attitude to all things sexual is one of Spain’s great paradoxes. That contrast reaches its zenith in the pages of ABC [an established conservative newspaper] and—lest you think that this is a last vestige of ‘old’ Spain—in its new, successful, even more conservative rival, La Razón. The Pope inspires the editorials, but it is prostitutes who service the small-ads pages. Prostitution, then, is a sort of open secret. It is there for all to see, but it is surrounded by either silence or indifference.”

Tremlett offers a historical insight as (partial) explanation for these conflicting attitude, tracing them back to Franco: “To be scandalized about sex is to be estrecho, ‘narrow’ or ‘prudish’—something associated with the repressive and hypocritical time under General Franco, when the Church really did set the rules. His death set Spain on a delayed sexual revolution that was grasped with fervor.”

Snapshot #3—Partying With the Dead [On Funerals]

As a concerned parent, Tremlett views the educational system’s emphasis on socialization, or formande el group (“forming the group”), with suspicion, criticizing the fact that reading and other solitary pursuits are sometimes labeled strange behaviors. As the friend of someone facing tragedy though, he notes how Spain’s highly social nature helps to mitigate the harsher moments of an individual’s life.

“One might expect this [funeral home] to be a solemn place. But, with vigils going on for up to twenty-six dead, all neatly arranged in adjoining cubicles, the tanatorio [a city’s official morgue] bustles like a railway terminus. First-timers might think they have stepped into a small airport terminal. Groups of people mill about. A TV monitor tells you which corpse is in which cubicle. There is, inevitably, a large bar-cum-restaurant doing brisk trade. I even have friends who, because of its extended opening hours, have used it for the last drink on an evening out. A new tanatorio, I notice, has just been opened in Madrid. It advertises on the radio with the slogan ‘the most modern tanatorio in Europe.’ Even in death, then, Spaniards’ innate ability to operate as a social mass helps turn tragedy into occasion.”

Anyone in love with or intrigued by Spain’s flamboyant personality should pick up a copy of Tremlett’s book. While his historical research can, at times, be a little too meticulous for, say, the airplane reader, it results in a text chock-full of the insightful and interesting commentary that informs the best travel writing—writing that simultaneously entertains and educates.

Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through A Country’s Hidden Past, Giles Tremlett. (Walker & Company). $26.95

Enlarge Photo

INDIA

“India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps…the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.” ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator

NONFICTION

An Autobiography of Gandhi: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Mahatma Gandhi and Mohandas K. Gandhi,1927 — Not a literary book, or a fulsome objective biography, but an excellent insight into Gandhi, the man.

Desert Places, Robyn Davidson, 1996 — A fascinating travelogue about following nomadic tribes in India on their annual trek across the desert.

Eating India: An Odyssey into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices, Chitrita Banerji, 2007—In this culinary-cum-cultural history, a talented food writer (and Calcutta native) explores the mingling of old and new in cuisine across the subcontinent.

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia, Paul Theroux, 1995 — The famed travel writer’s descriptive, episodic view of Asia as seen by rail will delight train-addicts as well as travelers to India.

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, Edward Luce, 2007 —The ex-Financial Times South Asia Bureau Chief address the radical economic changes since 1991, and its roots in Indian culture, with an eye to the country’s future potential to become the globe’s third largest economy.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo, 2012 — A look into Mumbia’s Annawadi slum “a stretch where new India and old India collided and made new India late.”

India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking, Anand Giridharadas, 2012 — The Indian American author chronicles his journey to his ancestral homeland where he tries to reconcile the old traditions and customs with the country’s new ambitions and dreams.

FICTION

Burmese Days, George Orwell, 1934 — Drawing from the Animal Farm author’s years in Burma, the novel mines the comic potential arising from the day the whites-only European Club is mandated to open its doors to one, and only one, token native Burmese.

A Passage to India, E.M. Forster, 1924 — Set against the 1920s Indian independence movement, Forster’s crisp, insightful novel—considered by many one of the top 100 in the English language—tells the story of Adela Quested, a young Englishwoman who enters the Marabar Caves and is changed by the experience.

The Raj Quartet, Paul Scott, 1965–75. —The four novels dramatize the waning years of the British Raj in India, beginning in 1942. Granada Television adapted the first, Jewel in the Crown, was made into a popular, and addictive, mini-series.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Minstry, 1995 — The epic Dickensian novel—and Booker Prize finalist—is set in India in 1975–76 during the corrupt and oppressive government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, 1999 — The stunningly beautiful novel about a Kerala family tackles themes of madness, love and death and evokes the super sensuality of India.

Journey to Ithaka, Anita Desai, 1995 — A spellbinding novel by a great contemporary writer who deftly unwinds a narrative while illuminating the country where she herself was born.

Kim, Rudyard Kipling, 1901 — The Jungle Book author’s famous novel traces the amazing Indian adventures of an impoverished, orphaned son of a British soldier: Kim, a.k.a. Kimball O’Hara.

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie, 1981 —The narrator’s birth at the same time India gained its independence from the British in 1947 launches this major work of magic realism, often compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

City of Djinns, William Dalrymple, 1993 — A travel memoir by a wonderful Scottish writer who manages to weave the history of New Delhi into his engaging adventures in the city.

The Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri, 2001 — This debut novel follows the spiritual journey of a handyman in Mumbai and presents vivid glimpses of the modern city.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Haroun and the Sea Of Stories, Salman Rushdie, 1990 — An imaginative tale about a storyteller attempting to fend off the dark forces blocking the seas of inspiration from which his stories stem.

Homeless Bird, Gloria Whelan, 2001 — The courageous story of Koly, a thirteen-year-old girl who is about to get married until tragedy strikes forcing her to deal with the harsh traditions of her Indian culture.

Story of Divaali, Jatinder Verma, 2007 — The children’s version of the Hindu Sanskrit epic the Ramayana follows the adventures of Prince Rama and Princess Sita.

The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, 1894 — The famous collection of stories by R. Kipling based upon his own experiences as a child in the Indian jungle.

The Ramayana for Young Readers, Milly Acharya, 1998 — A native Indian author presents a popular Hind legens in unforgettable words and colorful graphics.

Elephant Prince: The Story of Ganesh, Amy Novesky, 2004 — The story follows elephant-headed and big-bellied, mischievous god Ganesh through his childhood.

Sri Lanka

Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatje, 2000 — A literary mystery about a forensic anthropologist who investigates a human rights crisis in Sri Lanka.

NONFICTION

Restaurantes do Rio, Danusia Barbara — This excellent bilingual (Portuguese-English) guidebook is Zagat and Michelin rolled into one, and for twenty-one years, cariocas have trusted no one else with their restaurant choices.

FICTION

Vienna, by Eva Menasse, 2007. In her poignant first novel, Menasse, a journalist who was born in Vienna in 1970, tells the tale—at once witty and heartbreaking—of a bourgeois Austrian family on the eve of World War II.

Round Dance (Reigen), by Arthur Schnitzler, 1897. The erotically charged novel, a series of vignettes featuring husbands, wives and lovers of various backgrounds, was deemed too obscene to be performed when first published. Schnitzler’s book inspired The Blue Room, a play by David Hare.

The Road into the Open (Der Weg Ins Freie), by Arthur Schnitzler, 1908. One of only two novels published by Schnitzler, The Road into the Open exposes fin de siècle Vienna as a city full of contradictions, decadence and rising anti-Semitism.

Radetzky March, by Joseph Roth, 1932. A colorful family saga set during the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Piano Player, by Elfriede Jelinek, 1983. The Austrian novelist and playwright, who won the Nobel Prize in 2004, is one of the country’s most famous literary voices to emerge after World War II. Her works are challenging and often disturbing, like The Piano Player (though a lot is lost in translating her creative language as well). In 2001, the novel was made into a film starring Isabelle Huppert.

NONFICTION

A Nervous Splendor, by Frederic Morton, 1980. This brilliant book focuses on a single year in Vienna’s history, 1888, and covers the creative beginnings of Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Mahler and Bruckner; the mystery surrounding Crown Prince Rudolf’s apparent murder-suicide with his teenage mistress; and daily life and politics in imperial Vienna. It is my favorite book about the capital.

Thunder at Twilight, Frederic Morton, 2001. The author of A Nervous Splendor delves into the historical events surrounding the assassination of Austria’s last Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand, which launched the Austro-Hungarian empire into World War I.

Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, by Carl E. Schorske, 1980. Illuminating work that explores the city’s politics, art, architecture and design at the turn of the 20th century, including vivid portraits of Freud, Kokoschka, Schönberg and Klimt, among others.

Alma Mahler: The Art of Being Loved, by Françoise Giroud, 1992. This elegant biography is no longer in print but is worth seeking out. It’s one of few books that explores prewar life in Vienna from the point of view of a complex and frequently controversial woman: Gustav Mahler’s wife, Alma, whose many lovers included Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel.

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami - Pick up any book by Murakami and you enter the surreal world of his fertile imagination. This one has a runaway-schoolboy hero, a baseball-obsessed trucker and talking cats. Though odd, Murakami’s books are totally beguiling. The author used to run a Tokyo jazz bar in Kokubunji before decamping to live and work in the United States, so his fictional oddballs may well be based on real-life urban encounters.

Samurai William, Giles Milton - The amazing true story of an English sailor in Elizabethan times who was shipwrecked in Japan and went on to become a local hero. William Adams was astounded to find a world where people bathed regularly (not common among Londoners at the time), ate raw fish and lived a life of elaborate daily rituals. Funny and heartwarming.

Shogun, James Clavell - It is fashionable to sneer at Clavell, but his rip-roaring action thrillers are historically accurate. A primer in how things were done in more bloodthirsty days, when the samurai code of honor was everything.

FICTION

After the Divorce, Grazia Deledda, 1995. A novel about adultery and murder by the Italian Nobel Prize Winner and Sardinian native Grazia Deledda.

Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brien, 1990. The very first in the wildly popular series of historical novels, Master and Commander is set during the Napoleonic Wars.

Reeds in the Wind, Grazia Deledda, 1913. A Jane Austenesque novel by the Nobel Prize winning author about three sisters, which wonderfully captures the local superstitions and how they influenced island life in the early 20th century.

NON-FICTION

The Lead Goat Veered Off: A Bicycling Adventure on Sardinia, Neil Anderson, 2000. The memoir of a man and his wife who decide to trade in their life in Canada and bike the little-traveled byways of Sardinia.

The Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux, 1996. Classic musings of the observant wanderer Paul Theroux as he follows in the footsteps of Hercules along the Mediterranean coast from the Riviera and Corsica to Albania and Morocco, with lots of stops, including Sardinia, along the way.

Sea and Sardinia, D.H. Lawrence, 1921. The writer and his wife spent only nine days on the island in 1921 but his account is a wonderful evocation of the local traditions and eccentricities.

“I had seen the flowers on her dress beside the canals in the north, she was indigenous like an herb, and I never wanted to go home.” ~Graham Greene, The Quiet American

NONFICTION

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and the Americans in Vietnam, Sheehan Neil, 1989. Sheehan’s Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning expose of America’s foreign policy in Vietnam is informed by Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a disenchanted soldier who leaked reports to the press. HBO released a film adaptation in 1998.

Dispatches, Michael Herr, 1977. An incredible memoir of the Vietnam War by a former soldier who also coauthored the screenplays of the films “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket.”

Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, Frances FitzGerald, 1972. FitzGeralad’s classic account of the Vietnam War, told from a sociological rather than a military perspective, was a Pulitzer and National Book Award winner.

The North China Lover, Marguerite Duras, 1992. Almost a decade after her wildly successful novel, the Lover, Duras wrote an autobiographical account of the same events, recounting her own girlhood love affair with a much older Chinese man.

These Good Men: Friendships Forged from War, Michael Norman, 1989. Almost two decades after his Marine brigade was disbanded, a New York Times columnist tracked his comrades down and tells the story of how their fighting days marked their lives.

FICTION

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler, 1992. This collection of short stories, each one narrated by a different Vietnamese immigrant living in the state of Louisana received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993. The 2001 edition contains two additional stories—Salem and Missing.

Paco’s Story, Larry Heinemann, 1987. An incredibly powerful novel about a serving in the Vietnam War by a writer who served with in the infantry with the 25th Division. It is considered by many to be the best fictional account ever written about this war.

The Lover, Marguerite Duras, 1984. Winner of France’s highest literary prize and a bestseller when it was published, this slim novel is a beautiful portrait of a young girl in Indochina and a colonial era rife with complexities.

The Quiet American, Graham Greene, 1955. Greene’s brilliant Saigon-set political novel about the havoc a naïve, young American Alden Pyle unwittingly wreaks in Vietnam at the end of the first Indochina War in the early 1950’s.

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien, 1990. This haunting collection of stories about an American platoon in the Vietnam War reads like a novel as various characters and events reappear. A must read.

Up Country, Nelson DeMille, 2002. Paul Brenner, DeMille’s protagonist in the General Daughter, is brought back in this military thriller to examine the death of a young army lieutenant that took place during the Tet Offensive.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Goodbye Vietnam, Gloria Whelan, 1993 – The heroic tale of Mai and her family on their journey to escape Vietnam.

NON-FICTION

Havana Dreams: A Story of a Cuban Family, Wendy Gimbel, 1999. Gimbel fell in love with Cuba in her youth when she visited her socialite grandmother under Batista. She returned as an adult to find a changed country and through exploring one family’s history she manages to capture Cuba’s romance, revolution and ravages.

Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba…and then Lost It to the Revolution, T.J. English, 2007. A spellbinding narrative of Cuba in the 1950s and how such American mafia kingpins as Meyer Lansky and “Lucky” Luciano collided with the revolutionaries Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba, Tom Gjelten. A gripping saga that tells just as much about human nature and the struggle between power and freedom as it does about Bacardi’s transformation from a fledging business into the world’s top family-owned distiller.

The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba’s Last Tycoon, John Paul Rathbone, 2010. The biography of Cuba’s most successful businessman, who was born the year Cuba gained independence in 1898 and became the most powerful player in the world sugar market, until Castro’s regime abruptly brought him down.

FICTION

Cuba and the Night, Pico Iyer. 1995. A wonderful travel writer and essayist’s first novel is a lyrical love story about an American photographer who falls for a young Cuban woman in the haunting landscape of Castro’s Caribbean island.

Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia. 1992. In her debut novel, Garcia employs magic realism to trace the path of three generations of Cuban women from the 1930’s to 1980.

“So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next…” ~Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos

NONFICTION

The Encantadas, Herman Melville, 1856. Melville journeyed here almost a decade after Darwin and found the “enchanted islands” to be the most desolate place he’d ever encountered. His descriptions, while accurate and poetic, reveal the disenchantment that he felt on his journey.

Galapagos Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide, David Horwell, 1999. Galapagos Wildlife focuses on the unique inhabitants of the Pacific islands west of Ecuador and covers every aspect of both land and marine wildlife.

Galapagos: World’s End, William Beebe, 1961. Account of a 1924 scientific expedition to the Galapagos.

On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, 1859. In this influential work of scientific literature, Darwin introduced the controversial theory of evolution that contradicted the biblical story of how life began.

Teaching A Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, Annie Dillard, 1982. This Pulitzer Prize-winning author has a wonderful essay, titled “Life on the Rocks,” on the islands’ natural history in this collection of writings.

The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin, 1845. The diary of the founder of evolutionary theory is a must for anyone visiting the islands that inspired him.

FICTION

Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut, 1985. The late author’s darkly comic novel reviews the state of humankind from the skewed perspective of the survivors of an ill-fated cruise to the Galapagos Islands.

The Origin: A Biographical Novel of Charles Darwin, Irving Stone, 1980. No longer in print, this book is worth tracking down for its gripping telling of the life of Darwin.

The Evolution of Jane, Cathleen Schine, 1998. This novel by the author best-known for her book The Love Letter is a family saga that unfolds on a tour of the Galapagos so merges meditations on Darwin’s theories of evolution and family dynamics.

FOR CHILDREN

Nilo and the Tortoise, Ted Lewin, 1999. The story of a boy who is stranded on an island in the Galapogos and his encounters with animals. For ages 4 to 8.

NONFICTION

Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons, Steven Gaines, 1999. Gaines’ “social history of the Hamptons” is gossipy and snarky but full of interesting, occasionally shocking, factoids about the East End’s wealthiest and most famous denizens.

In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities, Dan Rattiner, 2008. The memoir of Dan Rattiner, who has been editing the popular weekly Hamptons newspaper Dan’s Papers since 1956.

In the Spirit of the Hamptons, Kelly Killoren-Bensimon, 2002. A collection of beautiful photographs—some submitted by famous residents like Calvin Klein and Julian Schnabel—meant to celebrate (not critique) life in the Hamptons.

Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons, Alistair Gordon, 2001. The former East Hampton Star columnist explores the various waves of Summer People and the architecture of their various summer homes from 1890 onward.

De Kooning’s Bicycle: Artists and Writers in the Hamptons, Robert Long, 2005. Before the Hamptons became the Hamptons, it was a creative colony for some of the twentieth century’s most influential artists. Long, the East Hampton Star’s art critic, chronicles that period, in this collection of both historical and fictional essays, some reimagined from the artists’ perspectives.

Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, 1998. A 934-page tribute to one of the East End’s most legendary artists.

FICTION

Hampton Shorts: Fiction Plus from the East End, published by Hamptons Literary Publications, 1997. A collection of short stories by and interviews with writers who have lived in the Hamptons, including Judith Rossner, George Plimpton and Daniel Stern.

Lapham Rising, Roger Rosenblatt, 2006. In the TIME columnist’s first novel—a pun-filled satire on Hamptons’ materialism—protagonist Harry Munch, a Quogue recluse, is driven to action by the arrival of his new, flashy neighbors. The latter are planning to build a house with both sun and moon decks and an air conditioner designed to cool the entire property (lawn included).

“Only the great lost cities of Asia have the power to induce in me this feeling of the cessation of history, a sensation with which Asians are quite familiar, and which Europeans fear.” —Carsten Jensen

“Though we do not know where we are supposed to go, our goal is to somehow try to find our brothers.” —Loung Ung

NON-FICTION

Cambodia: Report From A Stricken Land, Henry Kamm, 1998. This first-hand report was written by Pulitzer Prize winner who covered Southeast Asia for New York Times.

First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung, 2001. A moving autobiography of a child’s first-hand experiences in the war.

Golden Bones, Sichan Siv, 2008. Written by a former US Ambassador to the UN, this autobiographical account relates the author’s experience in Cambodia’s slave labor camps and his eventual escape to Thailand

I Have Seen the World Begin: Travels through China, Cambodia and Vietnam, Carsten Jensen. Paul Theroux declared that Jensen “sees Asia anew, the poetry as well as the politics.” The travel memoir won the golden laureate award in his native Denmark and the accounts of his time in Cambodia are particularly powerful.

Stay Alive, My Son, Pin Yathay, 2000. Yathay’s book is one of the first refugee accounts of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

Sun After Dark, Flights into the Foreign, Pico Iyer, 2005. One of the great modern travel writers comments on many countries, including Cambodia and other Asian nations in the midst of change, in memorable essays.

When Broken Glass Floats, Chanrithy Him, 2001. Him’s memoir recounts growing up under the Khmer Rouge, from the loss of her parents and siblings to her escape to a Thai refugee camp following the regime’s fall. When the War Was Over, Elizabeth Becker, 1998. Author Elizabeth Becker covered Cambodia for the Washington Post starting in 1973, and her examination of the events following the Lon Nol regime’s overthrow is widely considered one of the best reports on the Khmer Rouge.

“Lake Breakfast in Cambodia,” Sichan Siv, New York Times, April 28, 2008. Article about the start of the war from the author of Golden Bones.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Never Fall Down, Patricia McCormick, 2012 – The true story of a young Cambodian boy who survived the killing fields by playing music for the sadistic Khmer Rouge political party.

FICTION

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chavelier, 2001 Chevalier’s acclaimed historical novel is set in Vermeer’s house and traces the artist’s (fictitious) relationship with his young maid and muse. A vivid and well-researched portrait of 17th-century Holland.

The Discovery of Heaven, Harry Mulisch, 1997 A chance meeting between a politician and an astronomer sets in motion a chain of events that will bring into question fate, religion, science and friendship in this ambitious and thought-provoking work by the Dutch writer Harry Mulisch.

Blue Mondays, Arnon Grunberg, 1994 A best seller in the Netherlands, this (presumably) autobiographical debut effort follows its protagonist through the bleak streets of the red-light district, finding beauty and humor in the darkest corners of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, Ian McEwan, 1999 McEwan’s macabre Booker Prize–winning novel examines the uncertain friendship between Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday, brought together by the death of their common lover. Ethics, ego and morality are explored in McEwan’s familiar self-referential style.

NONFICTION

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Read the world over, Anne Frank’s account of her time hiding in an Amsterdam attic has become one of the most famous tales of life during World War II.

The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, Simon Schama, 1997 From their obsession with cleanliness to their pursuit of wealth and love of family, the Dutch in the Golden Age are the subject of Schama’s brilliant work.

Rembrandt’s Eyes, Simon Schama, 1999 Seventeenth-century Holland is brought to life through Schama’s detailed biography of the notoriously difficult artist.

Amsterdam: A Traveler’s Literary Companion Twenty stories by Amsterdam writers such as Harry Mulisch, Cees Nooteboom, Marga Minco and Bas Heijne are arranged for the traveler by city district. Many appear here in English for the first time.

Amsterdam: The Brief Life of the City, Geert Mak, 1999 A delightful journey through time and through the streets of one of the greatest cultural capitals in Europe.

EAST AFRICA

“There’s no sky as big as this one anywhere else in the world. It hangs over you, like some kind of gigantic umbrella, and takes your breath away. You are flattened between the immensity of the air above you and the solid ground. It’s all around you, 360 degrees: sky and earth one the aerial reflection of the other.” —Francesca Marciano

NONFICTION

Africa in my Blood, Jane Goodall, 2000 — Autobiography of the author in Kenya.

Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir, Joyce Poole, 1996 — This fascinating account of an elephant specialist’s work in Kenya over more than a decade is also a very personal tale of a woman’s struggle with sexism, violence and the conservation crisis, particularly as it effects her beloved elephants.

Emma’s War: An Aid Worker, A Warlord, Radical Islam, and the Politics of Oil: A True Story of Love and Death in Sudan, Deborah Scroggins, 2002. — A fascinating account of an idealistic young British woman who went to the Sudan as a relief worker and married a rebel warlord before her tragic death.

Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway, 1935 — This novel includes wonderful evocations of safari days in Kenya and Tanzania, where the Nobel-prize winning author went on numerous shooting safaris in the 1930s.

Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari, Christopher Ondaatje, 2004 — The best-selling British biographer followed in Hemingway’s footsteps to trace the trail of two of his safaris through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to gain a deeper understanding of one of his literary heroes and his love of Africa.

I Dreamed of Africa, Kuki Gallmann, 1991 — The incredible memoir of an Italian woman who moved to Kenya where she fell so in love with the land and the wildlife that even after she tragically lost her husband and her son, she stayed on.

Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar, Emily Ruete, 1998 — This out-of-print memoir is hard to find but provides an interesting glimpse into life in the palace of a sultan in the 19th century by one of the princesses.

The Tree Where Man Was Born, Peter Matthiessen, 1972 — The New Yorker writer visited East Africa multiple times over the course of a decade to create this incredible portrait of the landscape and people and animals. The writing demonstrates why he is considered one of the best nature writers of the century, and what a perfect topic for him to mine.

West With the Night, Beryl Markham, 1942 — Compared favorably to Out of Africa, the controversial but acclaimed memoir(some attribute the writing to her publicist husband)is a passionate aviator-and-equestrienne’s poetic account of flight and discovery in Kenya, where she moved when she was three.

Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures, Richard Leakey and Virginia Morell, 2001 — A memoir by the famous paleontologist about the years he spent as director of the Kenyan Wildlife Department from 1989 to 1994, witnessing first-hand the difficulty the country faces to save African wildlife.

FICTION

Rules of the Wild, Francesca Marciano, 1998 — Literary chick lit of the best kind, this novel is set in Kenya in the 1990s and is people with expat relief workers, journalists and artists looking for love against the backdrop of Africa’s wilderness and modern Nairobi.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

Akimbo and the Elephants Alexander McCall Smith, 2007 — The well-known author of _The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, McCall Smith has written a series of novels for young readers on African adventures. This one follows the son of a game warden who is trying to thwart elephant poachers.

Going Solo, Roald Dahl, 1999. — The author of James and the Giant Peach revisits his days as a young Army officer stationed in Dar es Saleem before World War II and then his tour of duty in Egypt and Greece. Full of humor and history.

Listening for Lions, Gloria Whelan, 2007 — A coming-of-age story set in East Africa about a young girl who is forced to leave the plains of her tribe.

See the Jackson Hole Reading LIst

The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich, 1986 — A celebration of the characters and landscapes of Wyoming by a writer who has been compared to Annie Dillard and Thoreau.

The Meadow, Jack Galvin, 1992—A poet and novelist, Galvin blends fact and fiction in this beautifully written novel that sketches ranch life along the Wyoming-Colorado border.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories, Annie Proulx, 2000 — The Pulitzer Prize winning author’s tales of life in the west, its beauty and harshness captured by a writer who loves its uniqueness.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Elinor Pruitt Stewart—A moving portrait of the harsh pioneer life in the wild Wyoming countryside around the turn of the last century, as told in letters.

Red Desert, History of a Place, Annie Proulx (editor), 2008—Proulx has edited a collection of essays on the geology and history of Wyoming’s little-known Red Desert.

Riding the White Horse Home, Teresa Jordan, 1994—A wonderful memoir written by a woman whose family ran a Wyoming ranch for four generations.

The Fighting Cheyennes, George Bird Grinnell, 1983—A historic account of the battles fought by the Cheyenne Indians written by a historian and naturalist devoted to telling of the plight of the American Indian.

Crow and Weasel, Barry Lopez, 1998—This childrens tale that is as riveting for adults was written by naturalist Barry Lopez and illustrated by Tom Pohrt.

“The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being.” ~ Henry Miller

NONFICTION

A Concise History of Greece, Richard Clogg, 2002 — Clogg’s scholarly distillation is carefully researched and excellently written, making it an essential view of Greek history from 1770 forward. A re-release from Cambridge University Press even brings Clogg’s scope right up to 2000. The Times Literary Supplement says readers need “go no further than this concise history” to have a basic knowledge of what makes Greece the country it is today.

Modern Greece: A Cultural Poetics, Vangelis Calotychos, 2003 — A refreshing take on a country with a history whose breadth and depth sometimes overwhelms. A literary historian and critic with keen anthropological methods, Calotychos breeds a unique, contemporary theory that Harvard historians call “eclectic but unpretentious, [with] a range deep and wide.”

What Kind of Europe?, Loukas Tsoukalis, 2003 — The Economist calls Tsoulakis an “EU insider par excellence” whose deft treatment of established economic arguments combined with introductions to vigorous new ideas makes for lively, informative reading at an unparalleled level of comprehension.

FICTION/POETRY

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso, 1988 — A hypnotic, kaleidoscopic work of mythology and retelling. Calasso’s book takes the well-trod stories of the ancient world; and then, from their original form, spills forth a cacophony of enigmatic variants. Gore Vidal called this beautiful, disquieting book “a perfect work like no other”, while the Boston Globe has called Calasso’s writing “so brilliant you can’t look at it anymore.”

The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller, 1941 — A year after George Orwell called the controversial author of the erotically explicit Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn an extraordinary, modern voice—by turns a “passive acceptor of evil” and a “Whitman among the corpses”—Miller visited Greece and wrote this enchanting ode to its exotic wonders. The book glimmers with traces of French surrealism, provides unsettling meditations on war, and revels in the traveler’s love for mystery abroad.

The Magus, John Fowles, 1966 — A bestseller in its time, Fowles’ first novel is a study in a singular psychology and the patterns of disillusionment. A young Oxford graduate in Greece attempts to escape the constraints of established reality but ultimately meets a mysterious paternal figure whose darker, Freudian forces threaten further psychic imprisonment. A failed attempt at cinema adaptation resulted in a movie starring a young(er) Michael Caine and the stunning Candice Bergen. Though the book endures as a classic, Woody Allen delightfully skewered the film by saying, “If I had to live my life again, I’d do everything the same, except that I wouldn’t see The Magus.”

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres, 1993 — This romance, set on the German and Italian-occupied Greek isle of Cephalonia during WWII, lushly explores the many nuanced shades of love. Corelli, an Italian captain, falls in love with Pelagia, the smart, strong daughter of the island doctor. Meanwhile, a younger Italian soldier explores homosexual feelings that begin to flourish but repeatedly find heartbreaking failure. War ravages both land and body; circumstantial destruction razes the potential of tender connections.

Dinner With Persephone, Patricia Storace, 1997 — A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, this travelogue by American poet Storace has been called the “best book of its kind since Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.” An engaging read, it combines provocative dream-like visions with clear-eyed insights and modern wit. Perfect mood and portable size for intelligent vacation reading.

Collected Poems, C. P. Cavafy, Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn, 2009 — This modern Alexandrian Greek poet, born in 1863, has been a longstanding love of English-language poets such as W.H. Auden and James Merrill. However, in recent years the poet’s exquisite work has resurged into the popular sphere—thanks in large part to recent translations by New Yorker contributor, acclaimed author, and nuanced translator Mendelsohn. Cavafy is an absolute must—whether you bring his elegiac beauties with you as you travel or if you pick up a book when you get home, be sure to sample his oeuvre.

The Unfinished Poems, C. P. Cavafy, Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn, 2009 — The slim companion to the larger Collected Poems features 30 additional poems left unfinished by Cavafy’s death in 1933. Critics remark that Unfinished’s factual notes alone are a precious, seldom-honored glance into a Greek history Cavafy so clearly treasures.

GREEK DRAMA

The Oedipus Plays, Sophocles — A series of three plays, now regarded as archetypal masterpieces of Athenian tragedy, first performed in the 4th century BCE. Oedipus is the stranger-turned-King, who arrives at Thebes, solves the Sphinx’s riddle, and marries the queen. When he unearths the horror of his own past—he is actually the rightful heir to the Theban throne, his father’s murderer, and therefore his mother’s husband—he becomes arguably the greatest tragic figure of all time, caught between free will and oracular fate.

The Frogs, Aristophanes — An unrivalled comedy of the ancient world filled with the self-referential wit and burlesque humor that is the prescient stamp of playwright Aristophanes. Dionysus (also known was Bacchus, god of wine) is a weary theatergoer fed up with a dearth of contemporary talent. To solve this dilemma, he travels to the underworld to return with Euripides, the ancients’ esteemed master of tragedy. Bawdy madness ensues, hinging largely on Dionysus’ disguise inside a lion skin.

Agamemnon, Aeschylus — Another father of dramatic tragedy, Aeschylus’ crowning work is the Oresteia tetralogy, of which Agamemnon is the most popular play. Clytemnestra, queen of Argos, plots the death of her husband, the King Agamemnon. Clytemnestra is a force of maternal rage, as Agamemnon has sacrificed their daughter for the sake of war and has also kept a mistress, Cassandra, at court. Aeschylus’ version has Clytemnestra killing her husband at her own hands; in Homer’s Odyssey, that fact is contested.

THE CLASSICS

The Odyssey and the Iliad — In the past, controversy has swirled around the authorship of these two celebrated masterpieces. But most contemporary scholars attribute these epic poems to the blind poet Homer, who probably wrote them during the late 8th century B.C. The Odyssey begins with the fall of Troy and follows the wanderings of its warrior hero Odysseus on his nostos, or journey home. The stunning poem has become a touchstone for many of Western literature’s greatest themes: the struggle against temptation, the power of mind over strength, and the essential import of storytelling to the endurance of civilization. The Iliad, more ensconced in themes of warfare, recounts Helen’s captivity in Troy and the Greeks’ epic battle to release her.

For a library on Athens, please refer to our Greece Recommended Reading.

Tomboy Bride, by Harriet Fish Backus (Pruet Publishing, 1980) A new bride’s funny and heart-warming diary of life in the Tomboy Mine community in the 1900s.

Conversations at 9,000 Feet, by Davine Pera (Western Reflections Publishing Co., 1990) Life in 20th-century Telluride related by eighty-one wonderful voices.

“The large mansions from forty or fifty years ago looked faded, smaller, stained by dampness and time, their gardens withered. Though clearly in decline, the neighborhood retained traces of its former splendor, like an aged woman who trails behind her a shadow of the beauty she once had been.” Mario Vargas Llosa, The Bad Girl

NON-FICTION

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule in Unknown Peru, Dervla Murphy, 1983. Another wonderful travel account by the spirited Irish writer that brings to life the geography, culture and people of Peru.

History of the Conquest of Peru, William Hickling Prescott. One of the great overviews of the Conquistadors arrival and overthrow of the Incan empire in Peru.

Inca-Kola, A Traveller’s Tale of Peru, Matthew Parris, 1990. Dubbed “a back-packer’s classic” by the London Times, Inca-Kola describes an observant traveler’s adventures in the complicated and colorful wild west of Peru in the 1980s.

The Last Days of the Incas, Kim MacQuarrie, 2007. An award-winning filmmaker and author, MacQuarrie weaves the story of one of the last great Incan rulers, the search for the fabled city of Vilcabamba and Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu into a suspenseful tale of history.

The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara. The 2004 movie made this title famous, and its splendid celebration of South American landscapes is worth a watch, but it was inspired by the actual diaries kept by the revolutionary about his journey throughout South America, including time in Peru.

Peregrinations of a Pariah, Flora Tristan, 1833-34. The travel diaries of an early feminist (also the maternal grandmother of Gaugain) who wrote about her journeys around Peru.

FICTION

Lima Nights, Marie Arana (2008). A National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, Arana’s most recent work is Lima Nights. The novel begins tells the tale of a middle-aged German-Peruvian who destroys a comfortable bourgeois family life when he falls in love with a teenage mulatto girl from a speakeasy.

The Bad Girl, Mario Vargas Llosa (2007). A vivid novel by the Nobel prize winning Peruvian author, The Bad Girl chronicles a decades-long love affair between a Peruvian translator and a conniving girl whose conquests take her around the world and from poverty to riches. Though only a small part is set in Lima, the main character, who shares many biographical similarities to Vargas Llosa, follows the turbulent politics of Peru, so a picture of the country’s history from the 1950s to the ‘90s is well depicted.

The General in His Labryinth, Gabriel García Márquez

The Pearl of Lima, Jules Verne. A charming story of Lima in colonial days about the tragic romance of a wealthy young Lima woman and a noble Indian.

NON-FICTION

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule in Unknown Peru, Dervla Murphy, 1983. Another wonderful travel account by the spirited Irish writer that brings to life the geography, culture and people of Peru.

History of the Conquest of Peru, William Hickling Prescott. One of the great overviews of the Conquistadors arrival and overthrow of the Incan empire in Peru.

Inca-Kola, A Traveller’s Tale of Peru, Matthew Parris, 1990. Dubbed “a back-packer’s classic” by the London Times, Inca-Kola describes an observant traveler’s adventures in the complicated and colorful wild west of Peru in the 1980s.

The Last Days of the Incas, Kim MacQuarrie, 2007. An award-winning filmmaker and author, MacQuarrie weaves the story of one of the last great Incan rulers, the search for the fabled city of Vilcabamba and Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu into a suspenseful tale of history.

The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara. The 2004 movie made this title famous, and its splendid celebration of South American landscapes is worth a watch, but it was inspired by the actual diaries kept by the revolutionary about his journey throughout South America, including time in Peru.

Peregrinations of a Pariah, Flora Tristan, 1833-34. The travel diaries of an early feminist (also the maternal grandmother of Gaugain) who wrote about her journeys around Peru.

FICTION

Lima Nights, Marie Arana (2008). A National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, Arana’s most recent work is Lima Nights. The novel begins tells the tale of a middle-aged German-Peruvian who destroys a comfortable bourgeois family life when he falls in love with a teenage mulatto girl from a speakeasy.

The Bad Girl, Mario Vargas Llosa (2007). A vivid novel by the Nobel prize winning Peruvian author, The Bad Girl chronicles a decades-long love affair between a Peruvian translator and a conniving girl whose conquests take her around the world and from poverty to riches. Though only a small part is set in Lima, the main character, who shares many biographical similarities to Vargas Llosa, follows the turbulent politics of Peru, so a picture of the country’s history from the 1950s to the ‘90s is well depicted.

The General in His Labryinth, Gabriel García Márquez

The Pearl of Lima, Jules Verne. A charming story of Lima in colonial days about the tragic romance of a wealthy young Lima woman and a noble Indian.

NON-FICTION

Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels with a Mule in Unknown Peru, Dervla Murphy, 1983. Another wonderful travel account by the spirited Irish writer that brings to life the geography, culture and people of Peru.

History of the Conquest of Peru, William Hickling Prescott. One of the great overviews of the Conquistadors arrival and overthrow of the Incan empire in Peru.

Inca-Kola, A Traveller’s Tale of Peru, Matthew Parris, 1990. Dubbed “a back-packer’s classic” by the London Times, Inca-Kola describes an observant traveler’s adventures in the complicated and colorful wild west of Peru in the 1980s.

The Last Days of the Incas, Kim MacQuarrie, 2007. An award-winning filmmaker and author, MacQuarrie weaves the story of one of the last great Incan rulers, the search for the fabled city of Vilcabamba and Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu into a suspenseful tale of history.

The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara. The 2004 movie made this title famous, and its splendid celebration of South American landscapes is worth a watch, but it was inspired by the actual diaries kept by the revolutionary about his journey throughout South America, including time in Peru.

Peregrinations of a Pariah, Flora Tristan, 1833-34. The travel diaries of an early feminist (also the maternal grandmother of Gaugain) who wrote about her journeys around Peru.

FICTION

Lima Nights, Marie Arana (2008). A National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, Arana’s most recent work is Lima Nights. The novel begins tells the tale of a middle-aged German-Peruvian who destroys a comfortable bourgeois family life when he falls in love with a teenage mulatto girl from a speakeasy.

The Bad Girl, Mario Vargas Llosa (2007). A vivid novel by the Nobel prize winning Peruvian author, The Bad Girl chronicles a decades-long love affair between a Peruvian translator and a conniving girl whose conquests take her around the world and from poverty to riches. Though only a small part is set in Lima, the main character, who shares many biographical similarities to Vargas Llosa, follows the turbulent politics of Peru, so a picture of the country’s history from the 1950s to the ‘90s is well depicted.

The General in His Labryinth, Gabriel García Márquez

The Pearl of Lima, Jules Verne. A charming story of Lima in colonial days about the tragic romance of a wealthy young Lima woman and a noble Indian.

FICTION

The Old Capital, Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972)—The Old Capital is one of three novels cited by the Nobel Committee when they awarded Kawabata the Nobel Price for Literature in 1968. The novel tells the story of Chieko, the adopted daughter of a Kyoto Kimono designer. You could trace her many walks and daily goings around Kyoto on a city map and follow it step by step – This book could serve the visitor as a “Kyoto guide”.

The Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon (966-1017)—Classical portrait of court life in tenth century Kyoto – written by lady-in-waiting Sei Shonagou as a diary.

The Lady and the Monk, Pico Iyer, 1992—Modern tale of “a monk and a lady” in 20th century Kyoto. Iyer begins by traveling to Kyoto to study Zen Buddhism, starts a friendship with a Kyoto housewife and mother of two, she is fascinated by him and the west. This book leads the reader through the four seasons of Kyoto.

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Mishima Yukio (1925 – 1970), 1965—Fictionalization of the burning of the most famous Kyoto temple –the Kinkaku-ji. The pavilion dated from before 1400 and had not been destroyed by fire as so many Kyoto temples had – the arson in 1950 – committed by a young Buddhist shocked Japan.

NON FICTION

In Praise of Shadow, Tanizaki Junichiro (1886 – 1965), 1933—Essays on aesthetics, classical of the collision between shadows of traditional Japanese interior and the light of modern age. It really is a look into the Japanese mind set.

Diary of Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikubu (973-1020)—Lady Murasaki, the author of the famous “Tale of Genji”(the first novel ever written) offers a glimpse of her daily life in court – another lady of Heian court (794-1185) – She was the Companion of the very young empress Shoshi.

Kyoto Encounters, Thomas Rimer & Stephen Addiss, 1995 —An introduction to the city of Kyoto by native and foreign writers throughout the Centuries with photos by twenty local photographers.

NONFICTION

Lion in Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace, Aavi Shlaim, 2008. A comprehensive biography of the king who shaped Jordan’s history from his ascension to the throne at 17 in 1953 until his death in 1999.

Uneasy Lies the Head, King Hussein. 1962. The autobiography of King Hussein about his childhood and early years as king.

A Leap of Faith: Memories of an Unexpected Life. The Autobiography of Queen Noor. Queen Noor, 2003. The riveting autobiography of the American woman, Lisa Hallaby, who married King Hussein of Jordan. Her personal story follows the political history of Jordan at the end of the 20th century and reveals the complexity of the region’s international relations.

Married to a Bedouin, Marguerite van Geldermalsen, 2006. The memoir of a New Zealand back-packer who, at twenty-two, met and fell in love with a Bedouin in Petra. She married him and made a life in a cave in Petra (before the Bedouins were resettled in a town nearby) learning Bedouin ways.

From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman, 1989. The New York Times columnist’s insightful book on the region provides great political background on the Middle East and won a Pulitzer Prize.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, T.E. Lawrence, 1922. The autobiography of T.E. Lawrence, the British soldier, who became known as Lawrence of Arabia for his role in the Arab Revolt, is a classic with amazing descriptions of the region but a bit dry as a read.

Queen of the Desert: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia, Janet Wallach, 1999. A wonderfully written biography of the Victorian era English woman who explored Arab lands in the early 20th century and was considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire for the pivotal role she played in shaping Middle Eastern affairs.

Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile Giaconda Belli, The Country Under my Skin

NON FICTION

Burma Chronicles, Guy Delisle 2010: In this graphic novel, animator and cartoonist Delisle poignantly captures the year he spent in Myanmar with his wife, part of Medecins Sans Frontière, and their infant son.

Finding George Orwell in Burma, Emma Larkin 2005: Journalist Larkin (a pen name) sets out across Myanmar in the footsteps of Orwell, masterfully weaving in modern-day politics into her narrative.

From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey, Pascal Khoo Thwe 2003: A remarkable memoir of a childhood among the Padaug people (of the Karen ethnic group), in what the author dubs “the only Catholic town in Burma.”

Letters from Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi and Freedom from Fear, Aung San Suu Kyi 2010: Moving, astute, observant essays from the Nobel Prize winner about her party’s struggle towards democracy. Neither preachy nor pretentious, these accessible books paint an incredibly vivid portrait of Suu Kyi, her passion and her sacrifices for her country.

No Bad News for the King, Emma Larkin 2011: The government’s catastrophic response to Cyclone Nargis and the continuing devastation in one of Myanmar’s most fertile regions.

Nowhere to be Home, Maggie Lemere & Zöe West 2011: The oral histories of citizens, many in exile, are heartbreaking and paint a vivid picture of the displacement the decades of military rule have wrought.

Perfect Hostage, Justin Wintle 2008: Wintle’s extremely detailed, fascinating biography of the Lady.

The Stone of Heaven, Adrin Levy & Cathy Scott Clark 2003: This well-reported book about Burma’s jade industry will make you think twice about buying jade (or another gem stone for that matter) in a country where the gem industry was long linked to the dictatorship regime.

The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma, Thant Myint-U 2006: A great book for an overview of Burma’s royal and colonial history written by the grandson of beloved UN Secretary General U Thant.

Burmese Days, George Orwell, 1934: Drawing from the Animal Farm author’s years in Burma, the novel mines the comic potential arising from the day the whites-only European Club is mandated to open its doors to one, and only one, token native Burmese.

FICTION

The Glass Palace, Amitav Ghosh 2002 — Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this novel is written by the writer Chitra Divakuruni calls “a master storyteller.”

“But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden, and sentences often left unfinished from doubt as to how to best end them.” – Virginia Woolf

NONFICTION

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Robert K. Massie, 2011 – Publisher’s Weekly called Massie’s latest “portrait” one of the top 10 books of 2011. It would be difficult to say whether its success has more to do with Massie’s mastery of the genre (his Peter the Great won the Pulitzer prize in 1981) or his raw material (some would say Catherine’s life’s story is more spectacular and enthralling than even the juiciest fiction).

The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow that Changed the Course of World War II, Andrew Nagorski, 2007 – With well over a million estimated casualties, the Battle of Moscow has been labeled the deadliest in recorded history. The Greatest Battle is a standout because Nagorski doesn’t allow discussion of military strategy and statistics to drown out the human perspective. A fluent speaker of Russian, he was able to interview an impressive number of the six-month-long siege’s living survivors (even the man tasked with evacuating Lenin’s body from Moscow) and incorporate their personal narratives into his analysis.

The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1973 – Solzhenitsyn, once a devoted communist, himself, risked his life to document the shocking reality of conditions in Soviet labor camps, where he spent a decade as a prisoner. US Ambassador to the Soviet Union George F. Kennan called The Gulag Archipelago “the most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be levied in modern times.”

Land of the Firebird, The Beauty of Old Russia, Suzanne Massie, 1995 – a delightful and accessible meditation on cultural life in pre-revolutionary Russia, from art and folklore to politics and religion.

Lenin’s Tomb, David Remnick, 1994 – Drawing on his years as Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post, Remnick chronicles the collapse of what he calls “the world’s longest running and most colossal mistake” – the Soviet Union. His Pulitzer Prize-winning study mingles historical analysis and eyewitness accounts, making for an engaging and colorful read.

Molotov’s Magic Lantern, Travels in Russian History, Rachel Polonsky, 2011 – a British journalist reflects on Russian history, using the forgotten library of Stalin’s former protégé as a platform from which to launch her exploration. Polonsky’s literary travelogue was named Dolman Travel Book of the Year in 2011.

Natasha’s Dance, A Cultural History of Russia, Orlando Figes, 2003 – Using the country’s great masterpieces of literature, music, and art, Figes examines how the concept of “Russianness”, enigmatic and contradictory though it may be, has transcended rulers, regimes, and revolutions.

The Oligarchs, Wealth and Power in the New Russia, David Hoffman, 2004 – From the former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, a fascinating account of how six opportunist businessmen made millions by capitalizing on the breakdown of Soviet communism.

Pavlovsk: The Life of a Russian Palace, Suzanne Massie, 2004 – Architecture buffs will want to seek out Massie’s fascinating biography of the former imperial residence, which was furnished by Catherine the Great’s daughter-in-law, spared by the Russian Revolution, looted and razed by the Nazis, and heroically restored by 20th-century artisans.

The Ransom of Russian Art, John McPhee, 1994 – In Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, dissident artists were prohibited from showing and selling their work. McPhee’s book tells the story of an intrepid University of Maryland economist who single-handedly smuggled some 8,000 pieces of “unofficial” art out of the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 70s. Norton Dodge’s massive collection – the largest known of its kind – was eventually donated to Rutgers University, after spending years in storage in his barn. McPhee retraces Dodge’s travels through communist Russia and reflects on the peril to which he exposed himself and his beneficiaries in an art underworld threatened with KGB terror.

The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Robert Massie, 1995 – In July of 1918, in the Siberian City of Ekaterinburg, Bolshevik authorities murdered all seven members of Russia’s last imperial family, Anastasia included (Massie categorically refutes the claims of her impostors, most notably Anna Anderson). Massie both details the circumstances of the Romanovs’ assassination and investigates the colorful rumors concerning their remains, which were missing until 1989. Though his study conscientiously employs forensic science and makes careful use of many primary sources, a story this mesmerizing could never be dull.

Russia, A Concise History, Ronald Hingley, 2003 – Since the city of Kiev witnessed the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity by Slavic tribes, Russia has reinvented itself many times over. Hingley provides a helpful overview of Mongols, Cossacks, Romanovs, and Bolsheviks.

Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, 1951 – Nabokov’s poignant memoir reconstructs a luminous childhood characterized by doting parents, multilingual education, and splendid country estates. With the advent of revolution in St. Petersburg, this privileged, harmonious existence crumbles, leaving him to confront exile, poverty, and loneliness on a scale commensurate only with that of his former happiness.

Sunlight at Midnight: St. Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia, W. Bruce Lincoln, 2002 – This fascinating urban biography examines St. Petersburg’s complicated legacy (cultural, political, architectural, historical), beginning with its construction as Tsar Peter the Great’s imperial capital and chronicling its trials, triumphs, and reinventions up through the Leningrad Blockade.

Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed, 1919 – Reed’s classic eyewitness account of the October Revolution was ranked #7 on NYU’s “Top 100 Works of Journalism” list despite his open socialist sympathies. An NYU spokesperson defended the project’s controversial decision, saying: “Yes, as conservative critics have noted, Reed was a partisan. Yes, historians would do better. But this was probably the most consequential news story of the century, and Reed was there, and Reed could write.”

Young Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2007 – Before Stalin became a ruthless dictator, he was an abuse victim, seminarian, playboy, poet, and gangster, among other things. In the prequel to his bestselling Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2004), Montefiore seeks out the origins of his subject’s complicated identity, focusing this time on the decisive events of his childhood and adolescence.

FICTION

Anything by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, or Nabokov, particularly Anna Karenina (Tolstoy, 1877), Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky, 1866), and _Lolita (Nabokov, 1955). _Lolita was written in English, but for works by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, look for translations from prize-winning duo, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

City of Thieves, David Benioff, 2009 – A World War II page-turner, this coming-of-age-novel evolved out of stories passed down by the author’s own grandfather, who survived the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad.

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1941 – Set during the Great Purge of the 1930s, Koestler’s novel develops around the aging Rubashov, a faithful Bolshevik who has been arrested and falsely charged with treason against Stalin’s regime. The foremost space of the novel is Rubashov’s consciousness, and in his reflections we read Koestler’s own disenchantment with communism and outrage at the hypocrisy of revolutionary dictatorship.

Dreams of my Russian Summers, Andrei Makine, 1995 – Originally published in French as Le Testament Francais, Makine’s novel is a fictional memoir set in the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 70s. It is the story of a boy’s struggle to understand his mysterious French heritage, symbolized by his grandmother, with whom he identifies spiritually, and to reconcile this heritage to his experience growing up in the U.S.S.R.

A Hero of Our Time, Mikhail Lermontov, 1841 – Lermontov’s brooding Byronic hero, Pechorin, influenced all of modern Russian literature’s biggest names, including Nabokov, who undertook A Hero of Our Time’s English translation. Widely regarded as Russia’s first psychological novel, it is considerably more manageable than Anna Karenina or Crime and Punishment for those who are pressed for time.

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967 – Considered some of the best literature to come out of the Soviet Union, Bulgakov’s novel, which he began writing as early as 1928, is part scathing political satire, part philosophical allegory, part slapstick comedy, and part Faustian fantasy. The Master is a persecuted novelist, and Margarita is his lover and spiritual devotee. Bulgakov’s plot ensues when they receive a visit from the devil.

The Master of Petersburg, J.M. Coetzee, 1995 – Coetzee makes a literary character of Dostoyevsky, subjecting the great novelist to the torment and paranoia that many of his own protagonists have endured. Though perhaps a more satisfying read for connoisseurs of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov, Coetzee’s novel offers a lush portrayal of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg as a den of depravity and corruption.

Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida, Robert Chandler, 2006 – For those who prefer short fiction, this well-rounded anthology offers a sense of how Russian literature has evolved through the ages. In addition to such literary celebrities as Gogol, Dosteyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Solzhenitsyn, Chandler has included a thoughtful selection of lesser known writers.

The Winter Queen, Boris Akunin, 1998 – The first of Akunin’s cult favorite series of period detective novels, The Winter Queen, published in English in 2004, is a murder mystery set among Moscow’s 19th-century nobility.

GUIDES

Culture Smart! Russia, Anna King, 2007 – This practical guide helpfully contextualizes cultural differences that tend to become pitfalls for uninformed travelers. Readers will appreciate learning both the essentials of Russian social etiquette and the stories behind it.

Literary St. Petersburg, A Guide to the City and its Writers, Elaine Blair, 2007 – An apt resource for a city with such a prolific literary legacy, Blair’s book profiles fifteen preeminent Russian writers with a focus on each of their relationships to St. Petersburg (references to museums, monuments, gathering places, and hideouts included).

Odyssey Guide: Moscow, St. Petersburg & the Golden Ring, Masha Nordbye, 2007 – An authoritative and affectionately composed guide to the cultural inheritance of Russia’s two greatest cities, enriched with fine maps and lovely color photographs.

Easter Island, Jennifer Vanderbes (2004)

The Statues that Walked, Terry Hunt & Carl Lipo (2011)

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond (2004)

Margaret Middleton Rivers Eastman, Hidden History of Old Charleston (2010)

Edward Ball, Peninsula of Lie: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love (2005)

Thomas Sprankle, Harbor of Bitter Tears: Charleston, S. C. 1861 (2005)

Pat Conroy, South of Broad (2009)

Lost World of the Kalahari, Laurens van der Post, 1977 — The story of the writer’s journey through the Kalahari Desert, and an account of the local peoples.

A Story Like the Wind, Laurens van der Post, 1978 — A novel about a boy in the Kalahari Desert and the Bushman he befriends.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith 2001 — This wildly popular book started a series about the fictional detective, Precious Ramotswe.

Enduring Patagonia, Gregory Crouch, 2002 –Crouch, a writer for Outside and National Geographic, takes readers along with him as he climbs some of the most challenging mountains he has faced, in one of the least explored tracts on earth.

The Old Patagonia Express, Paul Theroux, 1989 –Theroux traveled from Medford Massachusetts by rail through the Americas until reaching Patagonia in Argentina. His wit and honesty compensate for his many critical descriptions.

In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin, 1977 – The acclaimed English travel writer and novelist spent six months exploring Patagonia in 1974, an experience which gave way to the seminal work of his career. The New York Times called his award-winning account “a little masterpiece of travel, history and adventure.”

SPANISH LANGUAGE

Final de novela en Patagonia, Mempo Giardinelli, 2001 – Giardinelli intersperses anecdotes from his own road trip through Argentine Patagonia with chapters of a novel he is writing during his travels. It’s about a journey taken by two friends through a region whose mysterious extremes have long been a source of literary inspiration.

Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges, 1962 – Short stories by one of the most important Spanish language authors of all time. One can feel the influence of Buenos Aires on Borges’s vivid imagination.

Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean, Peter Winn, 2006 – This companion to a PBS TV series examines the historical, political, social, cultural and economic trends in Central and South America.

The Tunnel (El Túnel), Ernesto Sabato, 1948 – One of the great psychological novels of the 20th century and a personal favorite of Albert Camus, Sabato’s best known work is short and dark. Making every reader a confidante to its murderer-protagonist, El Túnel probes the condition of the human soul and the soul of Buenos Aires.

SPANISH LANGUAGE

Esperándo a Tito y otros cuentos de fútbol, Eduardo Sacheri, 2000 – “Waiting for Tito and Other Soccer Stories” has become a contemporary classic in Argentina, but Sacheri’s endearing tales about soccer and friendship also make a great read for enthusiastic Spanish language students eager to practice reading comprehension.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa, Francis Kalnay, 1993 — The story of a little Argentine boy, Pedro as he fights for his dream horse on the pampa.

_Argentina – The Land, Bobbie Kalman and Greg Nickles, 2000, ages 9 and up – Color photographs take readers on a tour through Argentina, from its wet northern forests through extreme deserts and breathtaking Andean peaks.

The Disappeared, Gloria Whelan, 2008 — Set against the backdrop of guerilla warfare in Buenos Aires in the 1970s, this novel follows a young man who stands up for his political beliefs.

The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, Pablo Neruda, 2004 – This selection of some of the best poems from Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda will serve as a wonderful introduction to this captivating country.

Antipoems: How to Look Better & Feel Great, Nicanor Parra, 2004 – Parra, winner of the Cervantes Prize, the most important prize for Spanish-language literature, deftly mocks pretensions in poetry and everyday life.

My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile, Isabel Allende, 2004 – Historic facts like the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende, in 1973 accompany anecdotes and pointed inferences, as Allende distills the essence of what it is to be Chilean.

The Little School, Alicia Partnoy, 1986 – Named for the concentration camp where she spent nightmarish years, Partnoy’s book is a concise, poignant account of a hope sustained in the face of unimaginable cruelty.

The House of the Spirits: A Novel, Isabel Allende, 2005 – Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family whose lives reflect the post-colonial social and political upheavals of Chile.

CHILDREN/TEENS

The Dreamer, Paul Munoz Ryan, 2010 — The fictional biography of Nobel- Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda traces the journey of a shy boy as he grows up in Chile.

Buried Alive: How 33 Miners Survived 69 Days Deep Under the Chilean Desert, Elaine Scott, 2012, ages 9 and up – A suspenseful account of how 33 men trapped two thousand feet below the earth’s
surface worked together to survive and eventually be brought to safety.

Folktales from Chile, Brenda Hughes, 1998, ages 7 and up – Fifteen tales bring together the native culture of Chile’s original inhabitants and of the Spanish who colonized the area. Volcano spirits, songbirds and sorcerers are among the many protagonists in these colorful stories.

The Composition, Antonio Skarmeta, 2000, ages 8 and up – This thoughtful story evokes life under a dictatorship as seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old village boy. Pedro is asked to write an essay about what his parents do at night; his political awareness begins to emerge.

Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano, 1971 – A passionately written history of Latin America by a Uruguayan journalist and poet, Open Veins, which depicts a region plagued by centuries of Europe and US-driven exploitation, has become a classic leftist text. At the 5th Summit of the Americas in 2009, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez presented Barack Obama with a copy.

The Rest is Jungle and Other Stories, Mario Benedetti, 2011 – These short stories by a well known Uruguayan poet and author, set in Montevideo and the villages of Uruguay, bring to life the struggles and dreams of the people in this southern country.

The Letters that Never Came, Mauricio Rosencoff, 2004 – This novel begins in the 1930s, when Moishe describes his Jewish immigrant father awaiting news from relatives in Poland. Decades later, as a tortured prisoner of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, Moishe uses his imagination to compose letters to his family.

The Ambivalent Corpse (2011), The Surreal Killer (2012), The Matador Murders (2012), Jerold Last — These fast-paced murder mysteries combine classic whodunit storylines with plenty of exotic sightseeing and descriptions of the region’s sights, food and wine.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Uruguay – Enchantment of the World, Marion Morrison, 2005, ages 10 and up – An introduction to the geography and people of this small South American country.

The Tree of Red Stars, Tessa Bridal, 1998 – After a year away at school in the U.S., a well-to-do Uruguayan teenager gains a new perspective on her troubled country. Bridal’s prize-winning debut was inspired by her own upbringing in 1960s Montevideo. Featured as a New York Public Library’s 1998 “Books for the Teenage.”

Stories, Katherine Mansfield, 1991 – Considered one of New Zealand’s most famous writers, Katherine Mansfield proves her authorship skill with this book of short stories.

Stowaway, Karen Hesse, 2002 – The harrowing story of an 18th century boy who sneaks onto a ship captained by Captain James Cook.

The Journals of Captain Cook, Philip Edwards, 1780s – The journals of the famous endeavoring sea captain.

The Bone People, Keri Hulme, 1984 – Winner of the Booker Prize, this book is at times a difficult read owing to the story being told from multiple points of view, but is a fascinating story about love.

The Colour, Rose Tremain, 2003 – A story about the mid–nineteenth century gold rush in New Zealand.

Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder, 2005 – A personal account of one traveler’s road trip through the fjords, mountains, beaches and rainforests of this stunning country.

Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story, Christina Thompson, 2005 – Harvard Review editor Thompson, married to a Maori man, seeks to understand the cultural clash between Westerners and Maoris since Abel Tasman’s first set upon New Zealand in 1642.

Children/Teens

Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff, 1995 — The harrowing story of a Maori family struggling in modern-day urban New Zealand.

The Changeover, Margaret Mahy, 1985 – This Carnegie Medal winner is a supernatural young adult romance set in New Zealand. When Laura Chant’s little brother becomes ill Laura must use the powers she’s kept hidden until now and team up with her bewitching schoolmate Sorenson.

The Great Piratical Rumbustification & the Librarian and the Robbers, Margaret Mahy (Author), Quentin Blake (Illustrator), 2012 – Written by New Zealand’s best loved children’s author and featuring the quirky drawings of Quentin Blake, illustrator of many Roald Dahl books, this book tells of a babysitter’s plans to use a family house for a pirate party.

CHILDREN/TEENS

Bound, Donna Napoli, 2006 — Set against the backdrop of 17th century China, this Cinderella adaptation mixes the emotional story of Xing Xing with important Ming Dynasty history.

Chu Ju’s House, Gloria Whelan, 2005 — The story of fourteen-year-old Chu Ju and her effort to save her baby sister who is in mortal danger due to China’s one-child policy.

Mao’s Last Dancer, Li Cunxin, 2005 — The autobiographical story of Li Cunxin and his journey from a young impoverished village boy to a famous professional dancer who falls in love with America.

An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina, 2006. In Rusesabagina’s autobiography he tells the story of his childhood in rural Rwanda and revisits the 100 days in which he and more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees took shelter in the Hotel Mille Collines. It is a touching tale of heroism in the face of an unfathomable darkness.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Philip Gourevitch, 1998. Gourevitch’s book paints a vivid picture of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutu’s perished, and the events that lead up to the tragedy.

Shake Hands with the Devil, Romeo Dallaire, 2003. As commander of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire was left with only a small group of troops to protect the Rwandan people. When his call for support fell upon deaf ears he was witness to some of the worst atrocities in recent history. In his book he recounts the events that the world chose to ignore.

Land of a Thousand Hills, Rosamond Halsey Carr with Ann Howard Halsey, 2000. Land of a Thousand Hills is Roz Carr’s memoir of her life in Rwanda, a country where she chose to stay after her marriage with her explorer husband ended. She recounts tales of adventure and loss (like the murder of her good friend Dian Fossey) and her return to her plantation to provide shelter to the orphaned children of the genocide.

An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina, 2006. In Rusesabagina’s autobiography he tells the story of his childhood in rural Rwanda and revisits the 100 days in which he and more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees took shelter in the Hotel Mille Collines. It is a touching tale of heroism in the face of an unfathomable darkness.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Philip Gourevitch, 1998. Gourevitch’s book paints a vivid picture of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutu’s perished, and the events that lead up to the tragedy.

Shake Hands with the Devil, Romeo Dallaire, 2003. As commander of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire was left with only a small group of troops to protect the Rwandan people. When his call for support fell upon deaf ears he was witness to some of the worst atrocities in recent history. In his book he recounts the events that the world chose to ignore.

Land of a Thousand Hills, Rosamond Halsey Carr with Ann Howard Halsey, 2000. Land of a Thousand Hills is Roz Carr’s memoir of her life in Rwanda, a country where she chose to stay after her marriage with her explorer husband ended. She recounts tales of adventure and loss (like the murder of her good friend Dian Fossey) and her return to her plantation to provide shelter to the orphaned children of the genocide.

Fiction/Nonfiction

Bhutan: Himalayan Mountain Kingdom (Odyssey Guide), Francoise Pommaret, 2006 – Essential reading for anyone interested in Bhutan, this overview by a resident scholar is supplemented by color photographs and literary excerpts.

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, Jamie Zeppa, 1999 – This true story relives the decision of a young Canadian to move to Bhutan’s wilderness to teach children in one of earth’s most remote countries.

The Circle of Karma, A Novel, Kunzang Choden, 2005 – The first book to be published by a Bhutanese woman, this coming-of-age story follows a young woman’s journey through Bhutan and into India.

Radio Shangri-La: What I learned on my Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth, Lisa Napoli, 2012 – A radio journalist from Los Angeles moves to Bhutan and examines why the country is considered the happiest in the world.

The Raven Crown, Michael Aris, 2005 – A former Himalayan Studies Research Fellow at Oxford University, Aris details the history of the Bhutanese kingdom and brings us several newly found historic photographs.

Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan, Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, 2007 – Bhutan is rife with dramatic landscapes, intriguing spirituality and legends. This memoir delves into some of the most fascinating aspects of culture.

The Blessings of Bhutan, Russ and Blyth Carpenter, 2002 A compilation of essays about the people, religion and history of Bhutan by a couple who traveled, lived and worked in Bhutan over a period of six years.

So Close to Heaven, The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, Barbara Crossette, 1996 – New York Times correspondent Crossette visits the remaining areas where Tantric Buddhism remains strong, including Bhutan.

Married to Bhutan, Linda Leaming, 2011 – A memoir of a woman who shares her experiences on learning Bhutan’s language, folklore and religion.

Children/Teens

Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, Isabel Allende, 2009 — The adventurous tale of Alexander who embarks on a trip to Bhutan with his grandmother where he meets Buddhist monks, royal disciples and Yeti warriors.

In Search of the Thunder Dragon, Sophia Shrestha and Romio Shresthra, 2007 – This wonderfully illustrated books brings to life customs and traditions of Bhutan.

“Kathmandu is so overwhelming, so packed with images, that succinct summaries seem almost impossible- certainly inadequate…” -David Yeadon

NON-FICTION

Tiger for Breakfast, Michel Peissel, 1966 – Though it is currently out of print, this excellent story describes Nepal as it was opening up to the world in the 1950s.

The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen, 1973 – The author’s account of tracking snow leopards in the Himalayas.

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer, 1997 – The most famous account of climbing Mount Everest, Krakauer’s story was made into a movie and has inspired countless people to visit the region.

Lonely Planet: Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya, 2009 – A fabulous guidebook outlining the details of planning treks in Nepal.

Bringing Progress to Paradise, Jeff Rasley, 2010 – A first-hand account of trekking and giving back in the Nepalese Himalayas

Little Princes, Conor Grennan, 2011 – Conor Grennan was hardly an adult himself when he took a gap year and volunteered at an orphanage outside of Kathmandu. When he came to understand the tragic plight of many of the children, Grennan determined to dedicate his life to reuniting families who had been torn apart by Nepal’s civil war. This autobiographical story is funny, touching and deeply moving.

NON-FICTION

In The Spirit Of New Orleans, Debra Shriver, 2013 Debra Shriver, a self-described “New-New” (New Yorker/New Orleanian) outlines the magic to the mysterious culture, history, cuisine and spirit of New Orleans.

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, Sara Roahen, 2009 Gumbo Tales reads as one food writer’s love letter to the city on New Orleans and it’s food.

Nine Lives: Mystery. Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans, 2010 Powerful and moving, this multivoiced biography follows 9 lives through the ups and downs in New Orleans starting with Hurricane Betsey in 1965 and ending with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers, 2009 The true story of a Syrian-American family simultaneously embroiled in the war of terror and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

FICTION

City of Refuge, Tom Piazza, 2008 This fictional telling of Katrina tells the story of two New Orleans families, one black and one white, during the storm and offers a glimpse into the human experience more than any newsreel ever can.