Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place

by Alice Maddicott

‘Of all the places where I feel the translucency of things, places that are thin for me, bluebell woods are first among them.’

Some travellers are driven by the need to scale a natural wonder, or to see a city’s sights or a place of history. Others, like Alice Maddicott, travel in search of a particular scene, feeling or atmosphere, often inspired by music, literature and art. Taking us deep into our emotional and creative responses to place, this extraordinary book explores the author’s relentless travelling, from the heat of Sicily to the mountains of Japan. With her uniquely lyrical approach to psycho-geography, Maddicott explores the relationship with landscape that is the very essence of human creativity.

From seventeenth-century salons of Paris to the underground culture and crumbling balconies of modern Tbilisi, through writers as diverse as Italo Calvino and L.M. Montgomery and artists like Ana Mendieta and eighteenth-century girls embroidering their lives, Tender Maps is a beautifully evocative book of travel, culture and imagination that transports readers in time and place.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 6, 2023

About the author

Alice is a writer and artist from the West Country of England. Her work has spanned poetry, writing installations, children's television scripts, as well as nature and travel writing. She is interested in creative folk archives, travel, art history, cats and forests.

Reviews

[Beth Counselman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this strange and provocative text! I’m not sure how to describe to say it’s about place and the emotional connections we find to place, and where and when a place feels like home - and a book Id like to read at least once more because there was so much I got and understood and resonated but so much that I want to revisit

[Leonor Borges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viagens diferentes, mas não menos interessantes. Uma leitura agradável

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt like I was having a spiritual epiphany every other page! I love trees!! A nice drifting piece that makes me want to create my own tender map :)

[milena · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favourite. 10/10, amazing writing, research and introspection, would recommend, beautiful.

“I wonder whether if we are sleepwalking through a life with an atmosphere that is all wrong, travel can wake up the world for us? See it as it really is? Whether this is the real skill. That when we ignore atmosphere or treat it as background, we miss the world as it actually is. And this extraordinary world that we live in, with all its variety and consequent atmospheres, is there waiting to be found in its spectacular ordinaries. Real is ordinary. Ordinary is as it is. And as it is, if we notice, can be more extraordinary than our imaginations, can wake us up to live a life more exciting or right for us that we would have thought.”

I had picked up this book because I was always dreamed to visiting places not for the sake of it, but because it makes me dream, imagine a life when I could live there, romanising my trips, if you will. I waited months to read it, knowing it was about the atmosphere of a place, waiting for the right moment.

Then I went to Copenhagen, Denmark, on a solo trip and took it with me. Best read ever on a holiday like this. This makes you dream, think back about how important your childhood home was, how places you’ve traveled to shape the way you experience the world, the emotions you get from landscapes and the nostalgia it can bring up, even unconscious. This is a book for the people who travel not to document it and tick off their to-do list, but for those you like the vibes and feelings of a place.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book but with reservations. The writing is strong, often beautifully lyrical and I quickly engaged with the idea of the atmosphere of place.

However, it read to me a bit like a thesis that the author was trying to prove and the idea is too abstract and ephemeral for that. As a consequence I felt somewhat beaten about the head with the idea and that left me feeling that it was overdone.

I think the book could have been shorter and more tightly written, and this would have avoided a sense of repetition. The second half became more of an effort to read and I don't think I gained that much extra from finishing it.

That all sounds negative and I will say that the book gave pause for thought and I will probably look a little more carefully around me as I travel as a result of reading it.

[Cathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult read for me but I enjoyed it. The structure is at times a little frustrating, sometimes more closely resembling musing, lists of words, etc, but I think that's the author's point. Atmosphere of place is quite a nebulous and personal concept, and I enjoyed being challenged. The language of psycho geography forced me to think more deeply and I especially loved the West Country section referencing Elizabeth Goudge. And now I want to go for a walk!

[Angela Gostling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a challenging read. The concept seems quite nebulous and the author is trying to catch it and explain it to the reader. There were times when it made perfect sense and others when the author seemed to have gone off-piste. Ultimately I think I got there but it was a bit like grabbing fairy dust.

[Geoff Regan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nice read, but drifted a bit too much.

[Ileana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea why she felt the need to write such a book. It seems to me she liked the idea of "atmosphere" and tried to apply it to her travels.

[Phoebe Baxendale · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was like good but couldn’t fully get into it and finish it

[Laetitia Laubscher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too much waffle and self indulgence. Couldn’t get past the first chapter.

[F · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me - had such high hopes for the idea and read up to p.150 or 170 then had to stop.