Literary Places: Inspired Traveller’s Guide by Sarah Baxter, illustrated by Amy Grimes

White Lion Publishing
Nonfiction, travel
March 5, 2019
Rating: 5/5

I received this digital ARC from NetGalley and White Lion Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

A great story allows the reader to travel in time to places that only exist in our imagination. This book focuses on 25 great literary places around the world. Each chapter uniquely illustrated provides a reflection hoping to transport you to those places which we can only visit via the pages of these literary treasures. The author explores the location in regards to history and the author’s vision at that time.

Imagine being in Paris 1800’s during the Enlightenment amidst the squalor and revolution which existed in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. An interesting history of Paris during this era provides a historical perspective of the travails of Jean Valjean. From there you can time travel to Dublin where James Joyce describes the humdrum events in a typical Irish day in Ulysses. Imagine being Léopold Bloom exploring the streets of Dublin on 16 June 1904.

Similarly, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster allows us to see Florence during the resplendent Italian Renaissance. Fast forward to Naples 1950’s as two young girls come of age in My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. You can also imagine Berlin Alexanderplatz in the late 1920’s during a period of hardship and political unrest. Perhaps a trip to a timeless place of simplicity and awe! We might find ourselves in Nordland as described by Knut Hamsun in Growth of the Soil.

Of course, a literary jaunt would not be complete without a stop in St. Petersburg, an imperial Russian city described in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. These are only a sampling of the journey you will take in this book. A lovely guide for those who enjoy the journey as well as the destination.

https://www.bookbub.com/books/literary-places-inspired-traveller-s-guides-by-sar... ( )

Literary Places: Inspired Traveller’s Guide by Sarah Baxter, illustrated by Amy Grimes


White Lion Publishing
Nonfiction, travel
March 5, 2019
Rating: 5/5

I received this digital ARC from NetGalley and White Lion Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

A great story allows the reader to travel in time to places that only exist in our imagination. This book focuses on 25 great literary places around the world. Each chapter uniquely illustrated provides a reflection hoping to transport you to those places which we can only visit via the pages of these literary treasures. The author explores the location in regard to history and the author’s vision at that time.

Imagine being in Paris 1800’s during the Enlightenment amidst the squalor and revolution which existed in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. An interesting history of Paris during this era provides a historical perspective of the travails of Jean Valjean. From there you can time travel to Dublin where James Joyce describes the humdrum events in a typical Irish day in Ulysses. Imagine being Léopold Bloom exploring the streets of Dublin on 16 June 1904.

Similarly, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster allows us to see Florence during the resplendent Italian Renaissance. Fast forward to Naples 1950’s as two young girls come of age in My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. You can also imagine Berlin Alexanderplatz in the late 1920’s during a period of hardship and political unrest. Perhaps a trip to a timeless place of simplicity and awe! We might find ourselves in Nordland as described by Knut Hamsun in Growth of the Soil.

Of course, a literary jaunt would not be complete without a stop in St. Petersburg, an imperial Russian city described in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. These are only a sampling of the journey you will take in this book. A lovely guide for those who enjoy the journey as well as the destination.

https://www.bookbub.com/books/literary-places-inspired-traveller-s-guides-by-sar...

( )

In the Venn diagram of those with wanderlust in one section, and another section of readers who enjoy books where Place is a strong element, readers who find themselves in the overlap will enjoy Literary Places by Sarah Baxter.

A visually beautiful book, illustrator Amy Grimes uses bold colors to depict locations described within 25 books (well, 26: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are combined in one chapter about Bath). Author Sarah Baxter devotes a few pages to each place.

I'm a fan of illustrator Amy Grimes' aesthetic. The colors are bold, lines crisp. Let your gaze linger a bit and see some of the subtler details she includes. Notice how she uses light in her artwork. I don't actually know anything about art, but I know what I like, and I like what I'm seeing.

The titles represented in this book cover a range of dates and places. Locations include the inhabited continents, with the bulk of titles in Europe. The earliest I've spotted is Don Quixote in 1615 in Spain, to 2011 and My Brilliant Friend, set in Naples. This particular depiction also graces the cover.

Each chapter can stand alone. For that reason, I'd suggest you start with a chapter on a book you've already read. This will help you get a feel of what Literary Places can offer.

Baxter writes about the setting and places the book in historical context for the book and author. For the chapter on To Kill a Mockingbird, Baxter's use of imagery sets the scene, then she reminds us of events during the Civil Rights movement around the time the book was published. We have a brief plot summary (I don't think there are spoilers within, though I know some readers prefer to jump into a book knowing nothing at all about plot, so bear that in mind). We also have a description of Harper Lee's hometown, where she drew inspiration for the book. If you want to visit a site in person, Baxter suggests a few highlights for a tour.

My summary doesn't do it justice; read a sample chapter.

I'm planning on using Literary Places to enhance my appreciation for books I've already read, and to add to my TBR stack.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a digital review copy. I preordered this in hardcover. ( )

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

2.5 Stars

This was not at all what I had expected it to be. First of all, it wasn't really so much a Traveller's Guide, as a book with short descriptions of books and some of the locations it was set in. If I were planning an actual literary based holiday, I doubt this would have helped me.

What it does do is describe all books it mentioned shortly, and since I read less than a quarter of all the books mentioned this was nice. However, not really a travel guide. It then goes a bit deeper into some of the places that are mentioned (or sometimes not mentioned) in the book. While interesting, there were many instances of books chosen where you can not visit the places because they have either been demolishes, or the actual location was never given in the book and the author suggests it might have taken place there. This concept became repetitive rather quickly, and I would have liked to see some more variation.

Everything was accompanied by some colorful, bright drawings which I really enjoyed even though they were quite simple in style. For me, they were the part I enjoyed best. While I liked the idea of Literary Places, I found it was not what I expected and I think there could have been more in the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )

In Literary Places we get a tour of twenty-five places around the world and their relation at a point in time to literary history. Some of the locations are to be expected (Paris, Dublin) but others are a surprise like Alabama (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Naples (My Brilliant Friend). One of the delights of the book are the illustrations by Amy Grimes. Beware that it's very possible you will come from the book with a list of books you want to read or reread.. This book is more enjoyable read as a physical book rather than on an e-reader.

I received this book from Net Galley and am happy to post a review. ( )

"Truly great writers recreate not only locations but also eras and histories."

If you have a literary bent and are contemplating travel this is a fascinating book. Even if your not venturing to far flung place, this gem of a book will allow loads of armchair traveling.
Twenty-five locations were chosen from St Petersburg in Russia to Saigon in Vietnam and places both north and south of the equator and around the globe encompassing longitudes from England to Chile.
I grappled with artist's impressions for the first couple of chapters. I am used to, and was expecting photographs, ideally artistically shot. You know a bridge or archway looming through the bull rushes taken from a prone position etc. etc.
But here we have artistic impressions by Amy Grimes, superbly rendered, colorful, and often showing a 'naive' primitivism influence, with occasional magic realism touches. These art works, capturing the essence of places as we're guided through select novel pathways, are beautiful additions.
So this was unexpected! I was envisaging maps and photos to support Baxter's inclusions and find this literary discussion of the place, time and background of a selected novel, supported by Grimes' delicately nuanced works, rewarding. I found myself enjoying this different approach. And I remembered the small book and pencils I used to carry with me to do sketches with. Nowhere near as creative as Grimes' digital collage works and overlays, but I identified with the process. (BTW reading more about Grimes's artistic methods via other access points was interesting.)
In fact I was disappointed there weren't more illustrations. They were the deciding factor for me between a four star or a five star rating.
Fortunately I have read most of the books selected, and more fortunately I have visited many of their locations. So Baxter's book reminded me of not only the associated books, but my own responses to the novels and to their locations. The particular places recalled to me the times and conditions in which the novels were set, be it at the time of the Hemingway and the Spanish Wars, Steinbeck and Cannery Row in Monterey or Austen's Bath.
I would not be taking this book with me on a trip (unless in eBook form) but I would read it before and after I travelled to any of the places mentioned--just for the pleasure it gives. This is a book to be enjoyed in hardcopy, to be held, to have paper pages turning and to be enjoyed at that physical level.
'Picnic at Hanging Rock' by Joan Lindsay set near Mt Macedon, Victoria, Australia was a favorite, as was the 'God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy set in Kerala in Southern India. And yes, I had many more favs but I didn't want to list all twenty-five.
A most pleasing publication!

A White Lion Publishing ARC via NetGalley ( )

Why do you read book? To enjoy yourself, be entertained by a good story and – at least for me – to travel via the novel to another place and learn something about culture, habits and life in general there. Due to lack of time and money, I cannot visit all the places I would like to see with my own eyes, thus, the fictional world set in real places is often the only alternative available. Especially when it comes to time travel which, of course, will just remain a dream.

Sarah Baxter’s traveller’s guide leads you to 25 famous places of novels, among them Paris, London, St Petersburg, New York and Berlin. She briefly describes the setting of the novel and then compares the presentation as we get it in the book with what to find there today. Some places are almost identical and what you see through the eyes of the protagonist is what you can see yourself when travelling there. Others have changed a lot and the place now only exists between the covers of the book.

The text is accompanied by illustrations by Amy Grimes and even though they are mostly abstract, they wonderfully transport the atmosphere evoked in the novels. When reading make sure you either got a hard copy of the book or an electronic version in colour. I’d be a pity to have them just in black and white.

A beautiful collection which reminded me of novels I read a long time ago and which I definitely want to look at again now. ( )

If you love to travel, and your itinerary always includes Bookish Moments then you too will probably feel as if this book has been written just for you.
The concept is simple: travel writer Sarah Baxter who is obviously also a Bookish Person, has selected 25 well-known books and then written 2-3 seductively bookish pages about the destinations that form the settings. So there are portraits of places that I’ve visited, where I’ve sought out Bookish Moments from my reading: the Dublin of James Joyce’s Ulysses; the St Petersburg of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment; Jane Austen’s Bath as in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion; the Saigon of The Quiet American by Graham Greene. (We dined at the Continental Hotel, where Greene used to stay).
Since the author has spent time here in the Antipodes, there’s even Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges from Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. (One of my teaching colleagues nearly gave me a heart attack when we climbed to the summit with a bunch of schoolkids and he joked very convincingly that we’d lost one of them!) Kiwis may feel a bit slighted that Baxter hasn’t included anywhere elvish in New Zealand which can IMO lay claim to Tolkien.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/03/04/literary-places-by-sarah-baxter/ ( )