Reading tips 2024
5 books that make you want to travel
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A good book immerses us in its story. Of course, it helps if it takes place in a place you long for. These novels make us dream of distant destinations – and awaken our desire to travel.
Reading books is like traveling: we get to know new, exciting places, meet people we would never have met otherwise, and can leave everyday life behind us in a wonderful way. So what could be better than novels set in special places? Places that are almost like their own characters within the story are so important to the book.
These five books make us feel the place in which they are set in a very special way – and make us really want to maybe travel there.
Like a vacation between the pages: These 5 books awaken your desire to travel
1. “The Whisper of the Fig Trees” by Elif Shafak
“The whisper of the fig trees” takes place between Cyprus and London. We learn a lot about the difficult history of the divided island. The Greek Kostas and the Turkish Defne meet secretly and at some point flee together to London, where their now 16-year-old daughter tries to understand her parents’ history A central role is played by a fig tree that already stood in Cyprus in the tavern where Defne and Kostas met, and which is now in the English garden trying to withstand the cold winter.
Elif Shafak’s sensitive novel not only gradually unravels the tragic love story of the Turkish-Greek couple, but also paints a loving picture of Cyprus, despite the difficult political situation.
2. “If I Had Your Face” by Frances Cha
In “If I had your face” we get to know four women who are trying to find their way in Seoul, which is obsessed with beauty and youth. Treatments in beauty clinics are as normal as going to the gym; the elite of the dazzling K-pop world determines cultural life.
Frances Cha’s novel is an exciting insight into the society of the South Korean capital and makes you want to get to know this culture and what defines it beyond the superficial values.
3. “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” by Coco Mellors
“Cleopatra and Frankenstein” is a romance novel about an unlikely couple who meet on New Year’s Eve in New York. The US metropolis is almost as important to the story as the protagonist Cleo, a British art student, and her partner Frank, an advertiser and bon vivant.
With her debut novel, Coco Mellors has created a quiet but expressive love story that gives New York as a character just as much well-deserved attention as the unlikely couple who meet and fall in love there.
4. “Love and Ruin” by Kristin Hannah
Alaska in the 1970s, Lenora moves with her parents into the wilderness of the northernmost US state as a teenager, and the family tries to make their own way in the small community. In the summer, the family enjoys the breathtaking nature of Alaska with their neighbors, but in the winter everyone is on their own – and has to face their demons.
Kristin Hannah describes the beautiful, but at the same time harsh and sometimes even dangerous flora and fauna of Alaska in such a vivid way that you immediately feel the need to plan a trip there.
5. “Winter in Paradise” by Elin Hilderbrand
What could be nicer than a trip to the Caribbean right after the New Year? Certainly a lot for protagonist Irene, because she has to spontaneously fly to St. John on the American Virgin Islands – because she finds out that her husband died there. Irene neither knew that he was even there nor that he apparently not only owned a luxury villa on the dream island, but also had a second family including a twelve-year-old daughter.
The novel series “Winter in Paradise” by Elin Hilderbrand is pure escapism and takes us to the truly paradisiacal Virgin Islands. At the same time, the story of Irene and her family is moving and exciting. Because the secret second family is not even her husband’s biggest secret.
The “Winter in Paradise” series has so far only been published in English.