Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Anyone else dreaming of a taking a trip? Sunny beaches and a cold drink, or maybe a hike in the fresh air of the mountains, or maybe desserts at a cafe in a city abroad... wherever you are traveling this week, I hope the book transports you!

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Suggestions:

69 of the Greatest Travel Fiction Ever
13 Travel Books That Will Give You Wanderlust
20 of the Best Time-Travel Books (hey, it's travel too!)
Nonfiction Books to Inspire Adventure Travel
30 Best Travel Books

ATY Group Listopia

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Optional Questions:
1. What are you reading for this category?
2. Where did the character travel to?
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?

I will use it to finally read a book about animals who journey from their home to a reserve The Animals of Farthing Wood

I may go non-fiction for this one and read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

My fiction options are either The Vacation or People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, the author of Beach Read. Or a book from Belinda Jones' LoveTravel series. Or the next Wayfarers book.

When Pop Sugar had this prompt a few years ago I read Last Bus to Wisdom which I loved.

Other recommendations:

The Unhoneymooners
Twice in a Blue Moon
Cafe Tropicana
The Travelling Tea Shop
Girls Who Travel
The Woman in Cabin 10
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey (non-fiction)

I love the idea of doing a time travel book but I'm doing that for my past, present, future prompts. I loved all of these:

The Time Traveler's Wife
What the Wind Knows
Kindred
Time and Again

Travel writing is a genre where it is a little harder to find authors of color, so even more important to seek them out! I’m thinking of From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet, A Long Way from St. Louie, or go with space travel in Goldilocks.

Pretty sure I am going with The Poisonwood Bible for this prompt... it is the #2 title on my TBR in terms of longest duration added and unread and this is the YEAR! And I have Migrations in my past, present, future prompt which would have been another thing I considered here.

Recs:
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
State of Wonder
Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia
Watership Down (a weird stretch of travel but it is an epic journey and does make me think of traveling to hills in England)
The Odyssey
Circling the Sun
Ghana Must Go

I do like the idea of reading a travel memoir for this, but as a back up plan, Beth O'Leary's next book is The Road Trip.

i might try Arcadia I really enjoy this author's books

BUT i could do Balthazar if I enjoy the first one which I am reading for another prompt

This might be the year my copy of Around the World in Eighty Days that has been sitting on my bookshelf for well over 10 years finally gets read.

And if you are thinking of travel as "tripping" - you could always go with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - though there is actual travel on the bus as well.

I plan on reading Love with a Chance of Drowning for this prompt.

1. What are you reading for this category?
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
2. Where did the character travel to?
She walks the Pacific Crest Trail...I don't know what that is, but I'm sure I'll find out!
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
The Time Traveller's Wife, Life of Pi, Sea Wife,

Clare wrote: "This might be the year my copy of Around the World in Eighty Days that has been sitting on my bookshelf for well over 10 years finally gets read."

It's short and quite readable. The attitudes toward various cultures are pretty outdated but it's still fun. I had a children's version of this with great illustrations, as well as Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers and Sherlock Holmes and I've loved all of them since then.

1. What are you reading for this category?
I read Life of Pi by Yann Martel

2. Where did the character travel to?
Pi was travelling from India to Canada with his family but ended up in a shipwreck and found himself stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. In the end, he ends up in Mexico before moving to Canada

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
I can't think of many books I've read with a travel theme of the top of my head. Murder on the Orient Express is very good, as is The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

1. What are you reading for this category?
Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World
2. Where did the character travel to?
All over the world trying to see as many birds as he could in year
Even though I'm not a serious birder, I got caught up in his passion. It was great how he used birders local to the area and so absorbed some of the culture

I read Less by Andrew Sean Greer last year and thoroughly enjoyed Arthur Less's trip around the world.

What are you reading for this category?
I read Free Country: A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain by George Mahood

Where did the character travel to?
As the title says George and his friend Ben traveled the length of Britain.

What book would you recommend to others for this season?
I would definitely recommend this book as besides describing some of the landscape, it contains humour, and a faith in the generosity of the British public

Hot British Boyfriend by Kristy Boyce

Finished 1/28/21

1. What are you reading for this category?
I read Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

2. Where did the character travel to?
It's a road trip book, with magic. :) The characters started out in Illinois and ended up in Nevada.

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
The only thing that's popping into my head is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, though it's been years since I read it.

I read Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson for this challenge. Former lovers, now frequent travel companions, journey from Canada through Europe to Morocco where Lydia meets a mysterious character and learns about a new adventure that begins with skin and tears. When she disappears, Christopher sets off to find her.
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift was my alternate selection, but I had a copy of Hodgson's book on hand.

I'm also doing Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail for this category! It's making me want to lace up my boots, and put on my (not quite so heavy) backpack, and hit the trail.

1. What are you reading for this category?
Borrower of the Night by Elizabeth Peters

2. Where did the character travel to?
Germany and an old decaying castle

1. What are you reading for this category?
Gods of Jade and Shadow


2. Where did the character travel to?
The main characters need to constantly travel from one place to another on their quest. They travel all over Mexico and finally to Texas, US. Then the main character needs to travel on a quest in the underworld as well. So yes, lots of traveling here.

1. What are you reading for this category? Who Is Maud Dixon?
2. Where did the character travel to? Morocco
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
Destination Wedding
Crazy Rich Asians

I am reading A Traveller's Life by Eric Newby.

He travelled all over the world.

I can recommend The Long Walk: The True Story Of A Trek To Freedom by Sławomir Rawicz.

Wendy wrote: "I'm also doing Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail for this category! It's making me want to lace up my boots, and put on my (not quite so heavy) backpack, and hit t..." I read this last year and found it fascinating (I cannot say "enjoyed" as I felt those blisters and the weight of her enormous pack). It was a great book to read in lockdown as it took me away from my four walls and into the wild open spaces.

1. What are you reading for this category?
I've just read In Spain by Ted Walker. I came across this author and book rather randomly. Ted Walker was an English poet (born 1934, died 2004) and I heard some of his poems about the Sussex countryside on BBC Radio 4 extra's Poetry Extra. I decided I'd like to read his work and found his books are out of print. However I managed to get a secondhand copy of In Spain which fits the bill for this prompt
2. Where did the character travel to?
Ted Walker had studied Spanish at school and at Cambridge and had taught Spanish for a few years too but had only been able to visit a few parts of this varied country. In the 1980s he was awarded a travel bursary and set off for Cuenca to write. The book evokes a Spain of the time, emerging from Franco's long dictatorship. His writing is beautiful and he conjures up very vivd descriptions of the people, places and very importantly the food and drink. His affinity with Spain really speaks to me and I class this book up there with Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and Gerald Brenan's South from Granada: A Sojourn in Southern Spain.
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
It depends where you'd like to go! I enjoyed reading books about walking last year in lockdown when I couldn't just take off for the mountains or coast paths so here are a few reads I enjoyed: -
The Salt Path
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years - and a World of Change Apart

I read Andrew and the Firedrake for this prompt. This is a classic quest style story (self consciously so), with lots of walking across a fantasy country to eventually get to a dragon and rescue a girl.

I couldn't get into it when I tried to read it lIlluminaeast year, but enjoyed it much better this time on audio book.

Recommendations:
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Historian
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Followed by Frost
Illuminae

1. What are you reading for this category?
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

2. Where did the character travel to?
Well, the center of the earth. :)

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
It's already been said but, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail or The Stand

What are you reading for this category?

I read Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon. It was one of my best reads of the year.

Where did the character travel to? This is a non-fiction book, so the author travelled in the early 1980s along the minor roads of the USA (blue on the map) basically a circle around the edges of the country.

What book would you recommend to others for this season?

Any travel book by Bill Bryson, Jan Morris or Paul Theroux. I highly recommend The Salt Path and I also enjoyed The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.

1. What are you reading for this category? A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
2. Where did the character travel to? Appalachian Trail
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season? I would definitely recommend A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

1. What are you reading for this category?
Angel of the Overpass by Seanan McGuire
2. Where did the character travel to?
All over the United States - she is a hitchhiking ghost
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
Sparrow Hill Road is the first book in this series and it's really fun. Hitchhiking ghost who travels all over the United States on the highways and roads that interconnect the country.
I Wanna Be Where You Are A road trip across country to an audition her mother doesn't approve of.
Perfect Escape Siblings on a road trip
Unpregnant Another road trip. This one is a bit heavier.

1. What are you reading for this category? The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
2. Where did the character travel to? Began in Georgia then South Carolina,North Carolina,Tennessee, Indiana. At the end is headed for Missouri.
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?

I read Migrations by Charlotte McGonaghy for this prompt. This will definitely make my top 10 of the year.

The character lived in Ireland and Australia, and spent time in Scotland (in flashbacks). She joined a ship in Greenland, and they traveled the Atlantic ocean to Antarctica with several stops along the way.

Two of my favorite 2021 books fit this prompt:
I highly recommend:
Migrations
What the Wind Knows (she traveled across the ocean, and then across time.

1. What are you reading for this category?
Float Plan

2. Where did the character travel to?
She took a boat trip around the Carribean.

3. What book would you recommend to others for this prompt?
I highly recommend Walking the Nile and other books by Levison Wood. I also enjoyed Migrations.

1. What are you reading for this category?
The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto Che Guevara

2. Where did the character travel to?
Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Miami

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

I read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

I definitely recommend this book.

Nancy wrote: "I may go non-fiction for this one and read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

My fiction options are either The Vacation or People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, the author of Beach Read. Or a book from Belinda Jones' LoveTravel series. Or the next Wayfarers book."

Ha, I didn't read any of these because I got The Road Trip from NetGalley. Not my favorite book I read this year.

I just finished The Underground Railroad and loved it. Colson Whitehead did the impossible and turned a slave narrative and gave it hope. It's not an easy read, but it is stunning.

The main character, Cora, travels from Georgia to South Carolina, to North Carolina, to Tennessee, to Indiana, and we're left not knowing which state she's in but we're optimistic all the same.

Besides this book, I'd recommend:
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Americanah
We Need New Names
The Kite Runner
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Outlander
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (I'm 2/3s through & had to return to the library - it's excellent and led me to research Ancient Mongolia)
And finally, Kindred from the master. Octavia Butler.

1. What are you reading for this category?
-----I plan to read Around the World on 50 Bucks: How I Left with Nothing and Returned a Rich Man.

2. Where did the character travel to? He traveled for 4 years, visiting 45 countries and working odd jobs to continue his travels.

3. What book would you recommend to others for this prompt?
News of the World I loved this book and gave it 5 stars.
Also Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail was very good.

After our recent - ahem - lack of travel, I decided to venture somewhere in my reading that I'd never traveled to before: Barcelona. The non-fiction Barcelona by Robert Hughes had been on my TBR, added after reading Chelsea Handler's recommendation for it a few years back. It turned out to be an informative, if a little outdated, history of this grand city. One day I hope to be enjoying some tapas while touring Sagrada Familia, but for now, I'll satisfy my curiosity with an online interactive tour.

I just read a review of a nonfiction book of essays about travel that sounds great, so I got it with a libro.fm credit.

Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move

1. What are you reading for this category?
Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams

2. Where did the character travel to?
The authors followed in the footsteps of Douglas Adams travelling to several countries to see animals in danger of extinction

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?
I think Notes from a Small Island and other books by the same author are interesting reads

1. What are you reading for this category? Lost in a Good Book

2. Where did the character travel to? Japan, the past, but mostly into books. (real travel, time travel, and book jumping - all the travels)

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season? I think I read too many thrillers, because most of the books where a character travels it's to get away from someone or hunt someone down.

1. What are you reading for this category?
Shipped by Angie Hockman

2. Where did the character travel to?
Galapagos (Ecuador)

3. What book would you recommend to others for this season?

I thought I posted earlier but I don't see my post. I read Shipped by Angie Hockman about a pair of employees who go on a cruise to the Galapagos run by the travel company where they work. Enemies to lovers romance.

1. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
2. All over Europe, starting in the UK. Hitting France and Greece and if I remember correctly Amsterdam as well.

1. What are you reading for this category?
I have read The Lake of Souls by Darren Shan.

2. Where did the character travel to?
In an alternate future so they can discover the true identity of one of the characters.

1. What are you reading for this category? A Very Beary Christmas Cruise by Ellie Pond
2. Where did the character travel to? Florida to the Bahamas on a cruise
3. What book would you recommend to others for this season? 13 Little Blue Envelopes (YA travel to Europe), Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across North America (historical travel in Canada & US), and any travelogue by Patrick Leigh Fermor

I am dismayed to say I started On the Road for this prompt, and have promptly DNFed it on page 16. So off to find another book!

I read Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers. It's about a woman and her two children travelling around Alaska.

I'd recommend Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, The Colour of Magic and A Darker Shade of Magic.