Fiction
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman
The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle
All of these are fiction books in which the characters travel – to look for something, for fun, or to learn about a loved one who has passed. All have interesting elements – based on clues, looking for faeiries, murder or intrigue. But all are fictional tales that involve traveling for one reason or another.
Fictional Travel – Sci-Fi
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
This is the Sci-Fi portion of the list. The first allows someone to experience various lives they could have had after they die, thus traveling through space and time. One Last Stop involves time travel of a sort. Cloud Cuckoo Land is partially set on a space ship. And Project Hail Mary is entirely based on a space mission.
Forced Travel
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
This is all different types of travel, sort of. Forgiveness covers the incarceration of Japanese people in British Columbia during WWII – in this book some of them are forced out of their homes and cities and sent to live in rural areas in horrible conditions. When Breath Becomes Air is a little more metaphysical, as the travel in this is between life and death. It kind of doesn’t fit… but at the same time, isn’t that the most mysterious journey, and one we all face? The Lie of the Land is about a family who move out of London into a run-down farm house in the countryside because the couple have both lost their jobs and can’t afford to get divorced. It’s a great look at the ways in which economic pressures affect relationships these days. In The Salt Path a couple are cheated out of their savings and lose their home. All they have is a tent, so they decide to set out to hike and camp their way along the salt path that traverses 600 miles of Britain’s southern coast.
Literal Travel – Travel Memoirs
The Window Seat by Aminatta Forna
The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell
The Size of the World by Jeff Greenwald
All four of these books look at travel in various ways. Tourism and travel writing. A life that has involved living in lots of different parts of the world. A family move to a far away island. A decision to travel around the world without leaving the surface. Quite different, but all involve actual movement around the globe in one way or another.
Immigration
Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Immigration is its own kind of movement, and one that I find really interesting and affecting. It’s challenging – at the very least it means choosing to leave behind your home and the people there to start over in a new place. But sometimes it also involves running from danger in a home country and facing multiple challenges in a new country that is safer, but not necessarily a place that’s been freely chosen. I think, especially with all the anti-immigrant sentiment that’s been brewing (particularly in the US), it’s really important to understand the other side of that coin, and have empathy for the people who are leaving behind everything for an unknown future that they just hope will be safe and better. I always feel like the courage and pain of this needs to be met with welcome and hospitality, not hatred and prejudice.
Travel with Emotional or Important Historical Backstories
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Borders by Thomas King, illustrated by Natasha Donovan
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
The first two of these books are very emotional. Both involve travel after the loss of a loved one. Both are excellent – but maybe have some tissues handy! Borders was a fascinating look at the ways in which colonization caused physical divides in First Nations communities. This looks at a family trying to cross the Canada/USA border, but not leaving their ancestral territory. It really brought home the reality of how the arbitrary lines that were drawn on maps by colonizers did not take into account the existing traditional territories and land use of the First People. And the Band Played On is sort of investigative journalism looking at the origins and spread of the AIDS epidemic. It’s been a while since I read it so it’s a little fuzzy, but I do remember the shocking revelation that one flight attendant who travelled widely had probably picked it up and brought it with him to liaisons all over the world. At least I think that was how it went, but either way, it was an interesting look at how disease spreads and how quickly it can happen. Made more poignant by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Local Travel
Between the Stops by Sandi Toksvig
The Fortnight In September by R.C. Sherriff
These three books are a little unusual. In each there is travel – by boat, by bus and by train – but it’s not proper travel to a foreign locale. In Hidden Nature the author is dealing with some difficult decisions and realizations in her life and takes up rowing on the canals near her. So she’s moving, but just little trips. Then there’s Between the Stops, a memoir that is structured around the route Toksvig travels between her home and her work on the Number 12 Bus. It’s a fascinating structure for a memoir – she discusses landmarks she passes, uses them to segue into stories from her life, from which she branches off in various directions. She then returns to the bus and its passengers, musing about all kinds of things based on her observations and interactions with them. I really enjoyed it because of this interesting structure and the varied content it covers. Then there’s The Fortnight In September in which a family travels by train from their home to a seaside town for a two week vacation. It’s sort of travelling, but they’ve been there every year for ages and it’s not very far from their home, so it’s not so much the travel as the internal lives of the family that’s the point of the novel.
Well, hopefully that made some sense outside my brain! Did anyone else veer off course a little with this week’s prompt? Which book were you most pleased to include on your list this week?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.