Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

It's time for a getaway! This week, you are looking for a book that involves travel of some type, whether it's a long epic journey, a journey through time, or a walk around Manhattan.

25 Best Travel Memoirs and Nonfiction Books About Travel: https://bookitletsgo.com/25-best-trav...
50 Best Travel Books to Feed Your Wanderlust: https://www.wildjunket.com/best-trave...
15 Best Travel Books to Inspire Your Next Trip: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment...
69 Greatest Fiction Travel Books of All Time: https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/20...
35 Best Books About Time Travel: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/lei...

ATY Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

What are you reading for this prompt, and how does it fit the prompt?

True North: Travels in Arctic Europe

Portal fantasy! One of my favorite subgenres of fantasy!

I have a couple of options that I'm deciding between.

I’m taking it loseThe Line of Beauty characters travel across London and to France I believe

dalex wrote: "Portal fantasy! One of my favorite subgenres of fantasy!

I have a couple of options that I'm deciding between."

I just finished reading The Unmaking of June Farrow, which is portal fiction, and I really enjoyed it. Slow to start, but it picked up and ended beautifully.

I'm reading one non-fiction, Morocco That Was and a novel News of the World.

Having used The Hike, The Hike and The Hike for other prompts, I've got The Hiking Trip by Jenny Blackhurst lined up for this one.

In the unlikely event that I can fit in an extra book, I'm tempted to add in a non-fiction hike - maybe Walking the Great North Line: Up England Another Way, Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence or The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.

Emily wrote: "I just finished reading The Unmaking of June Farrow, which is portal fiction, and I really enjoyed it. Slow to start, but it picked up and ended beautifully."

I added it my TBR. Thanks!

Into the Wild
The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back

If I pick a time travel book for travel, I might pick a conventional travel book for land, water or air.

I haven't decided on a book for this prompt yet but am leaning towards A Long Petal of the Sea. I have never read anything by the author. Has anyone read this book before that would give a good recommendation?

I have several to choose from, but my top choices are:

Tomorrow by Damian Dibben (immortal dog — or at least VERY old, 217 years so far — who travels through time and Europe to find the man who granted him his long life.)

OR

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez (conventional travel from South America to Eqypt) - chosen by my IRL book club

Mix of fic/non-fic on my shelves that fit this one:

- Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood (travel to a Caribbean island)
- Amazonian: The Penguin Book of Women's New Travel Writing (ed) Dea Birkett (travel writing anthology)
- Villette by Charlotte Brontë (travels to France to teach)
- The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (time travel)
- The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto Che Guevara (travel diary)
- The Map of Salt and Stars by J. Zeynab Joukhadar (quest to chart the globe)
- The Effect of Living Backwards by Heidi Julavits (hijacked plane)
- Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (time travel)

SadieReadsAgain wrote: "Mix of fic/non-fic on my shelves that fit this one:

Thank you for the reminder that travel would include through time. I have several that I could use, including those you mentioned.

I read The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele. One of the MC's undertakes a cross-country journey on foot after the economic collapse of the United States.

I read A Million Little Pieces which starts on an airplane. Apparently there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not this memoir is completely factual, but that doesn’t matter to me. I found the book very relatable and inspiring nonetheless. As someone in recovery myself I found this book to be very realistic and refreshing compared to other recovery memoirs. His attitude toward recovery felt more like mine in the beginning than other ones I’ve read.

For this prompt I chose .

Hayley wrote: "I haven't decided on a book for this prompt yet but am leaning towards A Long Petal of the Sea. I have never read anything by the author. Has anyone read this book before that would..."

Hayley, I read this some time ago. It wasn't a 5 star for me, but I enjoyed it.

I read My Life in France by Julia Child and it was sumptuous way to "read in" the new year. I almost used it for "set in one of the most beautiful cities" because of how central the setting of Paris (and of course its food!) is to the first half of the book. However, other travels to other parts of France, the Mediterranean coast, as well as Germany and Norway are included so I think it foots the bill here very well too. I recently rewatched Julie & Julia and am tempted to give in to the Julia series on Max, and I could barely bring myself to wait until 1 January to start this. I quite enjoyed it, if you can't tell!

My full review is here.

I'm going to read Around the World in 80 Books, which features literature from different parts of the world

For this prompt, I read:
Walking to Samarkand: The Great Silk Road from Persia to Central Asia by Bernard Ollivier - 5* - My Review

In this book, Bernard Ollivier travels through part of Turkey, then crosses Iran and Turkmenistan to arrive in his destination in Samarkand, which is about mid-way through Uzbekistan.

I'm reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer. The main character, Andrew Less, travels to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan. I've just barely started it but I'm hoping it meets the hype, since it won a Pulitzer Prize!

I read The Restaurant At The End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (space travel). It was a re-read and also could be science fiction or part of a series

I think I will only this for the winter challenge. My classic book club is reading Around the World in 80 days which is so much better here

I read Dragons in the Waters by Madeline L'Engle. Most of the book takes place on a freighter as 10 passengers plus crew are traveling from the US to Venezuela.

I put a lot of possibilities on the listopia, but if I don’t read real travel books for other challenges this year, I can always count the time travel book I read last month. A Rip Through Time.

I just read Once Upon a Leap Year: A heart-warming friends-to-lovers romance full of love, second chances, and hope by Anna Bell for Popsugar Reading Challenge, and I think it fits this post. It starts with a day trip to Calais where the main characters meet. During the book the characters travel to Dublin and New York.

I read Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff for this prompt. It starts with a road trip, and then there is travel to a much farther destination at one point. It's a really good book.

Tracy wrote: "I have several to choose from, but my top choices are:

Tomorrow by Damian Dibben (immortal dog — or at least VERY old, 217 years so far — who travels through time and Europe to find the man who granted him his long life.)

OR

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez (conventional travel from South America to Eqypt) - chosen by my IRL book club"

I ended up not reading either of these. The book club pick was a dud. Well, I was the wrong audience at least — it was YA — although certainly there is a lot of YA that is enjoyable to an adult. The one was shallow and boring.

I would have ended up reading Tomorrow, but for Christmas I received the book Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure by Monisha Rajesh from my younger son.

My husband and I took the train to see him in January (California to Colorado) so this was to get us ready for train travel. I only read 1 chapter before we left, which did the job. I'm glad I read the rest after the trip. The chapter involving Amtrak had a lot of similarities to our trip, so if I'd read it before I would have not been surprised by the good parts, and would have dreaded the inevitable less than great parts. Whatever your experience on the train, there's always a story to tell at the end!

I read The Scent of India by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The author, who is Italian, traveled in India in 1962.

I will be reading 'The Road to Little Dribbling' by Bill Bryson, which is a travel book about Britain.

A chance to spend a year in Rome ... despite having new-born twins.

✔ - 15Mar24
Four Seasons In Rome – Anthony Doerr – 4****
Subtitle: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. This is Doerr’s memoir of a year he spent as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award came with a studio in which to write, an apartment, and a stipend. And, of course, the experience of a year in Rome. I was completely delighted by his recollections.
LINK to my full review

I did a re-read of The Road. I definitely enjoyed reading it more the second time.

For this prompt I read World War Z by Max Brooks (which it would also fit the prompt for an x connection).

The only similarity to the movie was there was a zombie war, that's it. And of course, the book was so much better. The narrator travels the globe to get an oral history of the war. Enjoyed reading it. Highly recommend it.

I read:
Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip by Richard Ratay

BIO: A book featuring land travel
REJECT: A book by an author born between 1965-1980 (Generation X)

Finished: 04/27/2025
Rating: 4+ stars

I really enjoyed this book! It brought back so many memories of our family car trips in the '60s and '70s. I really liked the historical aspects. Since I work for a paving company with lots of highway work, I especially liked the history of the US highway system.

Robin wrote: "I read:
Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip by [author:Ri..."

Loved this book, it was hilarious!

The book I chose for this prompt


short and sweet review: 5.0
This book started off really SLOW. I mean SLOW, but the overall ending was really sad. Many say it was a tear jerkier but I didn’t find them emotions in this book. Maggie was a sweet heart. But wait I wrote this before the END! My heart is smiling! MARK!! MARK!! MARK!! You were the best part of the story!!

I read Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg for this prompt. It fits this week very well, but also not in the most obvious way.

I read The Far Reaches: Stories to Take You Out of This World. It is a collection of short stories mostly set in outer space I feel like all of them fit the travel prompt (one of them is a little iffy). I am trying to figure out what I like in Sci Fi so thought this would be a fun way to sample a few authors.

J wrote: "I read Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg for this prompt. It fits this week very well, but also not in the most obvious way."

Very cleaver and appropriate use of the prompt!

I was pleasantly surprised by how fresh and modern The Royal Road to Romance turned out to be, despite being published almost 100 years ago. I expected to slog through this travel memoir, anticipating a dry and out-of-date writing style. Boy, was I wrong! This was a thrilling (and funny!) compilation of author Richard Halliburton's exotic travels on a budget through parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. I highly recommend it, but be warned: the book was published in 1925 and despite the modern take, it still contains some racist and sexist comments and tropes.

After a bit of mind changing, I have ended up with: Jessie's Journey: Autobiography of a Traveller Girl and News of the World.

The author of the first book, Jess Smith, is a storyteller as well as an author, and that really came through in the rhythms of the prose. A good look at a way of life that was vanishing as it was being lived and some lovely portrayals of the Scottish landscape.

I think News of the Worldended up on my TBR because someone recommended it for the Western prompt last year. Thank you, whoever it was, because I loved this book. it was always focused on the growing relationship between the main characters, but managed to convey so much about the landscape and history of the places that they travelled through.

I read You Are Here

I read The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa for this topic (Read June 16th; 3*)

Firefly Lane One of MC's is a journalist and News presenter involving a lot of travel

I read Are We Nearly There Yet?: A Family's 8000-Mile Car Journey Around BritainBen Hatch