Booked: A Traveler's Guide to Literary Locations Around the World

by Richard Kreitner

A practical, armchair travel guide that explores eighty of the most iconic literary locations from all over the globe that you can actually visit.
A must-have for every fan of literature, Booked inspires readers to follow in their favorite characters footsteps by visiting the real-life locations portrayed in beloved novels including the Monroeville, Alabama courthouse in To Kill a Mockingbird, Chatsworth House, the inspiration for Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice, and the Kyoto Bridge from Memoirs of a Geisha. The full-color photographs throughout reveal the settings readers have imagined again and again in their favorite books.
Organized by regions all around the world, author Richard Kreitner explains the importance of each literary landmark including the connection to the author and novel, cultural significance, historical information, and little-known facts about the location. He also includes travel advice like addresses and must-see spots.
Booked features special sections on cities that inspired countless literary works like a round of locations in Brooklyn from Betty Smith's iconic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn and a look at the New Orleans of Tennessee Williams and Anne Rice.
Locations include:
Central Park, NYC (The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger)
Forks, Washington (Twilight, Stephanie Meyer)
Prince Edward Island, Canada (Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery)
Kingston Penitentiary, Ontario (Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood)
Holcomb, Kansas (In Cold Blood, Truman Capote)
London, England (White Teeth, Zadie Smith)
Paris, France (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo)
Segovia, Spain, (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway)
Umuofia, Nigeria (Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe)
Kyoto, Japan (Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden)
Cartagena, Colombia (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Adult, Literature, Geography

240 pages, Hardcover

Published April 23, 2019

About the author

Richard Kreitner was born in Queens, New York, grew up in Wayne, New Jersey, and educated at McGill University in Montreal. A frequent contributor to The Nation magazine, he has also published articles and essays on history, politics, and culture for Slate, Salon, The Boston Globe, The Baffler, Raritan, and elsewhere. He is the author of Booked: A Traveler's Guide to Literary Locations Around the World (2019) and Break It Up; Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union (2020). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 A book lovers, literary traveler either by armchair or in person, dream book. It highlights places made famous either by a books setting or authors background. So many are included, some I knew,many I did not.

Have you ever seen Stephen Kings place of residence? In Bangor, Maine this gothic style home, painted red, standing behind an iron fence, looks just like the sort of house that one would expect him to live.

Amherst, Massachusettes, Emily Dickinson, "Only a handful of her poems were published in her lifetime, but after Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister found a stack of pages locked away in a chest. Dickinson's house, and her brothers next to it, have been preserved as a museum, and visitors can even pay to rent her "mighty room" by the hour? Any budding poets need inspiration?

Of course Thoreau's Walden pond and s replica of his cabin is included. I have spent the last few months getting to know him, so was glad to see his inclusion, and the pictures of the pond.

So many authors from Capote to Atwood, this book even travels out of the US, to Forrester and Mahfouz. The stories are interesting, the pictures a wonderful addition. This is a book to own, and I do intend to buy a copy. There is just so much included, it is hard to take it all in, with just one reading.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

good for skimming, could use another pass from an editor. a cool idea, but i can almost see this working better as a site with contributors from many different backgrounds so there is a greater variety of works/authors highlighted.

[Betsy Gant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice coffee table book!

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew when purchasing this book it was very US-centric. About half the book is on US locations and the city of Brooklyn (the author's home) half the number of pages devoted to the whole of the UK. One location in NZ gets a mention, but the whole continent of Australia is omitted despite coverage of several Asian and African books, although India is largely missed considering the mass of literature that country generates. Of course you can't include everything and I knew what I was getting, but this rundown gives you an idea of the skew.

There are some nice photos (it's a glossy hardback) and details of key locations provided, but overall, I'm sad to say I don't think I learned anything very new.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where to go to see the locations mentioned in books, where the books were written, where they were sold and visited by the authors. International buildings, graveyards and gardens to bask in reverence to our literary idols. Statues in their honor and more. Quite nicely done with color, photographs, and plenty of information. Mine was a hardback copy, but I hope they come out with a soft bound so it’s easier to take with you, should you decide to do a road trip with it.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Booked" is a fantastic book for those who love armchair traveling. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I really have not been able to travel widely the way that I used to in the "before times." This book was a great way to get to "see" some other places and add a few more bullets to the list of places I'd eventually like to go.

Many of the places in the book I was already familiar with but there were also some that I was not as aware of. Some of my favorite parts of the book were the maps and associated paragraphs that laid out multiple literary sites in a single city. It was an interesting way to look at a familiar place with a new lens on it (London and New Orleans were especially cool to me - I'm so ready to go to both again!).

The downside of the book is that while billed as an around-the-world book, it is very American and Euro-centric, which felt a bit limiting to me. It did raise an interesting conversation for me though: did the book only look at these places because it is what the author picked or is it a reflection of how far our literary world has to go for authors from all different places to have equal footing? It's interesting to think about.

All in all, this was a good book to whet my appetite for literary travel but left me looking for a bit more robust travel guide that truly fits the around-the-world descriptor.

[Stefanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book highlighting where to travel to experience the places found in a classic book. Sectioned off geographically, Kreitner writes a short article giving a high level summer of how the story or book relates to the area. He notes where you can visit today - be it a museum in tribute to the author/story or a location that's mentioned in the text. I wondered how he came about his shortlist of locations and book selections. He might have mentioned in the introduction and I missed it. I think I loved the idea of being Kreitner and writing this book more than I did reading it.

[Tami (So far behind...) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dreaming of traveling led me to pick up this book. Its filled with fascinating spots to stop and visit. I have been to only 1 prior to the read - Margaret Mitchell's house in Atlanta, Georgianand I absolutely loved it. As a lover of books and the "feels" you get from reading, when I pick a second travel book location its sure to be Don Quixote spot in Spain.

[Heather Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 this was a fun coffee table book. I loved the pictures and places mentioned. Have a couple new books to read and lots of places to visit. I did feel quite a few literary stops were missed.

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guide to literary tourism highlights both places featured in books as well as locations important to their authors. While interesting, most of the entries (leaning heavily towards the U.S. and U.K.) seem more fitting for an I'm-already-in-the-area visits rather than dedicated pilgrimages. Still, it's fun to learn about these places through solid descriptions and photographs. Good for skimming.

[Colona Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were so many great locations included in this book. I liked the fact that the author took the time to add local attractions and places to visit. A few of my favorite literary locations include: Monroeville, Alabama (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee,) Forks, Washington (Twilight Trilogy,) Torquay, England ( The Novels of Agatha Christie,) Dublin, Ireland ( Ulysses by James Joyce,) Consuegra, Spain ( Don Quixote,) Segovia, Spain (For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway,) and Stockholm Sweden ( The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson)


~April

[Yulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A guidance to literary pilgrimage.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my 1,000th book review on Goodreads, so I thought I should make it a bit reflective of myself. I am a voracious reader, who also likes to travel. I was pleased to discover that I've already made some of the literary pilgrimages recommended in this new guide! My favorite one is still the trip to Green Gables on P.E.I. that I did with my family 25 years ago. It was a dream come true!

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, Booked didn't have much attraction for me, since I've read several better books on the topic that relied less on stock photography. What Booked has going for it is a few locations outside of Europe and North America, but they are few and far between. I can't tell what the criteria for selection was since a lot of famous authors/sites are missing out--famous in terms of reader numbers and literary accolades. Booked would have worked better for me if it was more personal, perhaps with several writers who could contribute pieces on sites they've visited, rather than being a collection of stock photos accompanied by less-than-scintillating write-ups.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’ve always heard it said, “Books take you places.” With this book, you really can go places! Plan some trips surrounding some of your most favorite reads! This book helps you to know where to go!

[Katelynn Rhoton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing really deep here, but I’m a sucker for a bright, photo-laden travel book.

[MargCal · Rating 1 out of 5]

1☆
Finished reading … Booked: a traveler's guide to literary locations around the world / Richard Kreitner ... 18 July 2021
ISBN: 9780316420877 … 266 pp.

I picked up Booked as it sounded interesting when a participant in my online book group spoke about it – a dip-in, skim-read for those times when you don't want to retain the ins and outs of a lengthy narrative in your head.

However …. This book simply didn't do it for me.

It is quite unbalanced in that almost half its pages cover the US. Perhaps that's necessary for a US audience where many citizens don't have passports, apparently. Not good for me, who isn't really into American writing... but I do have a super-fave in Anne Tyler whose Baltimore sadly doesn't make the cut.

The content is comprised of snippets about the authors, their writings, the locations, in varying proportions. Any of this can be gleaned from quick Google, Google Images, Wikipedia and Lonely Planet searches. And quite possibly that's how it was done, because the list of photo credits and the lack of personal engagement in the writing show little evidence of the author's having left his writing desk.

Not recommended.


Borrowed from my local library.

[Lisa Burris · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Harper Lee's Alabama to Cervantes' Spain to the birthplace of Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Ramotswe, this book, part travelogue, part literary history, is a treat for readers. Not only does it explore authors and the locations significant to their lives, it also offers insight into the inspirations for some of the greatest works in literary history. Though I'm sure there have been entire books about specific authors and their connections to place, like Tennessee Williams' New Orleans or Emily Dickinson's Amherst, Booked gives us a broad, sometimes too brief, swipe at a variety of book-related places. Even so, Richard Kreitner supplies the reader with plenty of photographs and, in defiance of the Anglo literary canon, also explores diverse locations such as those in Africa and Asia. Taken a a whole, Booked is a treat for fans of literature and history.

[SusanwithaGoodBook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sorted my To Read shelves recently and put things into categories. That's when I realized that I had 10 "books about books" including three that are really about book-themed travel. This is the first of those three, so I'll be able to compare them later. This one is really one guy's idea of the best "literary locations" so I think a lot of them are pretty arguable. Two possible "Pemberleys" but not Austen's actual home? There are several writers with which I was entirely unfamiliar, but that's fine. Some interested me, others not. I was happy to see that the home of the No 1 Ladies Detective was included in the mix. Hurray!

I give this a B- overall. I marked my Google Map with a few "want to go" spots, but if you're looking for a comprehensive guide to literary sites, this is not it.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would you like to see the the water tower featured in Stephen King's It, visit the vampire home of Forks, Oregon from Twilight, go to London and see Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, among other writers, go to other foreign countries or places around the United States for all of your book fandoms? This is the book for you.

The book goes through everyone from Harper Lee to Alexander McCall Smith and a plethora of other authors. It offers up state by state and then major country's book (s)/author (s), famous locations, museums and historic homes that may be available to visit, how to stay in these areas and more tips for the literary traveler.
I want to take this road trip myself. It sounds fun. I'm sure fellow bookworms could become inspired to venture beyond the armchair for this read.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

A fun, entertaining book. Easy to read.

The book is divided into four sections: the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania, and Africa. The author writes a short explanation of the location in the book while showing the actual location in real life. Sometimes he will explain how the writer took inspiration to a real-life location. For example, Stephen King used his hometown, Bangor, Maine, as inspiration for his novel, “It”.

My only critique is I found the Asia and Oceania and Africa chapters to be rather short (compared to the other chapters: the Americas and Europe). Nevertheless, the book would be prefect for a book lover who also loves to travel.

[Jen Well-Steered · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've gone on a few literary pilgrimages. I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid, so once when I was driving in upstate New York and realized I could pass by the house Almanzo grew up in that is so richly described in Farmer Boy, I went to see it. Another time, I was in York and saw that we weren't far from the Bronte Parsonage, so we went, then wandered around the moors trying not to catch tuberculosis. It's not my main travel goal, but now that I have nothing to do but fantasize about what I'll do when COVID is over, maybe it will become one.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I was not familiar with the amount of curiosity and devotion of some readers for the landmarks associated with their favorite fictional characters. If nothing else, I have a new list of books to read or reread. And I will add some of my own locations to the list as well. I gained new insight on many of the authors too. Pleasurable reading and valuable information. Hope you enjoy!

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging round the world journey to literary destinations with great photography at the locations. I was disappointed that nearly all authors, even those highlighted in Asia and Africa, were white European and American authors. It will be good to continue to diversify surveys like these. But all in all, I had a great time reading about these destinations and dreaming about visiting some of them myself.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really about a 3.7. I liked the concept and the writing but I sort of wish they had done fewer things and gone more in-depth on what they did do. Loved the pictures but again, they didn't have photos of everything and some things they didn't show I wanted to see because of the text. Still, this is an entertaining and enlightening look at places connected with either literary works or with particular authors.

[John Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought both The New York Times FOOTSTEPS and this book at the same time and read them together. Both bring out places where key authors lived or found inspiration for their works. This book includes pictures and addresses, which the other book does not, so that you can explore these places on your own. As someone who considers both reading and traveling as favorite things to do, this and the other book were very enjoyable to read together.

[Chelsea Shoemake · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you do when you love to hit the road, are a bookworm, and are trapped at home during a quarantine? You can started by reading "Booked," by Richard Kreitner. Kreitner takes you around the world to locations associated with some of literatures best-loved authors and stories. Visit Walden Pond, Green Gables, Cannery Row, and more without ever leaving home. You might even stumble across new reading inspiration.

[Erin Henze · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly a big let down from what I was expecting. While certainly a few important books the average book nerd would know, you can tell he has a Hoity-toity taste in books. When he did try to slightly delve into popular media, such as Twilight, he had incorrect information about something as basic as how many books are in a series. Three stars bc I love the concept and some of it was good, but could have been 10x better

[Tamara Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little book with details about books written by authors and the locations related to the book setting, or in some cases where the author is from or associated with. I don't consider myself a literary traveler, as in I don't seek out locations made famous from books, but I did enjoy learning about some new books I might consider reading.

[Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nicely pictured packed book that features locations of interest around the world associated with famous and maybe not so famous authors or literary settings.

The book is divided primarily by continents and covers a wide range of written topic and author profiles related to the cites. An interesting twist for us bibliophiles to dwell on and perhaps plan side trips when in the area.