Books Recommendations By Destination

When preparing for a trip I always try to read something, fiction or non-fiction, about the place I am going. Click a destination to jump to that section or just scroll through them all!

I favor physical books to eBooks- call me old-fashioned. I am trying to adapt to eBooks, especially when I travel, and love using Libby to check out eBooks from my local libraries. I will not buy anything book-related from Amazon and no longer use Goodreads. Support local bookstores, please! They’re hurting and they are important assets in the community. Booksellers give the best recommendations, too. It is worth the few extra bucks. Local bookshops are always on my list of places to check out when I am traveling. When I order a book, I use bookshop.org. This is an awesome website that benefits indie bookstores. If I purchase an eBook I do it through the lesser-evil corporate giants, Apple to read on my iPad Mini or Barnes and Noble to read on my Nook (B&N’s somewhat clunky but functional eBook reader). Follow me on Storygraph (@natalieontheroad) to see what I’m currently reading.

United States
California
Utah
Illinois
New York

Europe
France
Italy
Germany
United Kingdom

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California
John Steinbeck is one of California’s most famous authors. Most of us probably read Of Mice and Men in high school or perhaps it was Grapes of Wrath. Here are a couple of others I enjoyed.
East of Eden. I couldn’t put it down. I thought about it for weeks after I finished it. I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube listening to others talk about this book. Taking place in Salinas, near Monterey CA, The book follows two multi-generational families across multiple decades. It is semi-autobiographical and delves into whether the sins of the father are passed down to the sons. Are we evil because our parents are evil or do we have a choice?

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. This short novella takes place during the Great Depression in Monterey, CA and centers on the people who live there. We primarily follow four men who have made house in a converted fishmeal shack- they’re unemployed but creative in the ways that they plot and scheme to make money and get by. It’s humorous. It’s human. It centers on community and the people in it whom we rally around.

Utah
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. The author was a ranger at Arches when it was still a national monument and not yet a national park. It is a memoir that takes place in the summer of 1956. Abbey was a bit of a curmudgeon, admittedly. Some of the themes of the book are still extremely relevant today. He talks about his disgust of mainstream culture and the implications it has on modern society. Have we made things too convenient? His descriptions of the desert flora and fauna are beautiful and with them he interweaves discussion on how we interact with our environment. If you are headed to Southern Utah on a desert trip, this one is worth a read. He also has a handful of fiction books, the most famous being The Monkeywrench Gang.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by John Krakauer. No real housewives or secret lives here. This book discusses the history of the Mormon church, fundamentalism, and a couple of murders because a man thought god told him to kill his brother’s wife and daughter- and he managed to convince his brother of this, too! Krakauer points out there is a lot of Mormon history that parallels this- a lot of history the Mormon church does not like to acknowledge. The book was also turned into a limited-run series on Hulu.

New York
Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. Originally released in 2002, this book was updated in 2015 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the iconic show. It is filled with humor and loads of behind-the-scenes stories about the shenanigans that occurred over the decades. Definitely worth the read for long-time SNL lovers.

Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper. I wasn’t quite sure want to expect going into this one but couldn’t put it down once I started it. Christian Cooper was bird watching in Central Park in March 2020 when he asked a woman to leash her dog in an area that did not allow unleashed dogs. He was recording the incident and she said she was going to call the police and tell them a Black man was threatening her life. At the urging of his sister, he posted it on Twitter and it went viral. The book is a tale of self-discovery and figuring out where you belong in the world. Chris is a gay Black man who grew up in New York at a time where being gay wasn’t accepted. He is Harvard educated, worked at Marvel, has written comics, and has traveled the world in pursuit of seeing our feathered friends. He does talk about the incident but that is not the focus of the book. Overall an interesting read about an interesting person who we only know about because some horrid woman wanted to accuse him of something heinous simply because of his skin color because her entitled ass couldn’t be bothered to leash her dog.

Illinois
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This book reads like a thriller but it is the true story of Chicago frantically preparing to host the 1893 World’s Fair- an event that would put the city on the map as a true big, international city and the serial killer that used the fair to find his victims. The parts on the architectural history get a little dry but the serial killer bits fly right by.

Germany
Stasiland- Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder. Funder is an Australian journalist who traveled to Germany several years after the wall came down and interviewed people about their experiences both before and after the fall of communist Germany. Some people said life was better before, some after, some worked for the secret police, some had harrowing tales to tell about constantly being spied on and trying to escape. I think this is an important book to read, especially in these terrifying political times, because it gives insight into a totalitarian regime and a history people seem to be quickly forgetting.

France
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl. Reichl is a former food critic for the New York Times and has written a few books about that experience, including Garlic and Sapphires, which is on my TBR. This book, however, is a work of fiction but food definitely plays a central role. Set in the 1980s, Stella is bequeathed a one way ticket to Paris by her recently deceased mother. She is not an adventure-seeker or a risk-taker but her boss told her to take some time off, so off to Paris she went. This is a book about finding out who you really are and food. So much good food. And wine. She ends up as a Tumbleweed at the famed Shakespeare and Co at one point. I also particularly enjoyed this book because I read it shortly after being in Paris’s Latin Quarter for a couple of days- this neighborhood features prominently in the book so it was fun to envision the places I had recently been.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. This is a mystery/thriller centering on a woman down on her luck and looking for a fresh start. She was to stay with her brother in Paris but when she arrives from London he is nowhere to be found. She begins piecing together clues and learns she really can’t trust anyone but herself. I tore through this book- it had so many twists and turns. Exciting but not too scary.

A Year in Provence– Peter Mayle. Originally published in 1991, this is an amusing account of a man and his wife who moved to Provence to live in a 200 year old farmhouse. Reading about a slower life governed by seasons and meals and wine rather than days and agendas is a delight. I would 100% take the opportunity to do this. It’s fun to dream about. Maybe one day it will happen. He has a follow-up memoir, My 25 Years in Provence, filled with more insights and humor.

Italy
Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. A best selling novel turned into a movie starring Diane Lane. A woman healing from some personal trauma buys a house in Tuscany and adventure ensues. I think I preferred the movie to the book but it was still an enjoyable read, and much like Mayle’s A Year in Provence, fun to dream about running away to the countryside of a new place and doing the same.

I love Stanley Tucci. Ok, so he’s not from Italy but his family is and he is very tied to his Italian heritage. I listened to his memoir, Taste, and it was so entertaining and funny. He talks about growing up in New Jersey and traveling to Italy as a child and as an adult. He shares family recipes and anecdotes that go with them. I enjoyed it so much I went to Omnivore Books in the San Francisco neighborhood of Noe Valley to pick up a signed copy after I finished listening to the audio book. I wanted to try the recipes he talked about. (Omnivore Books is an awesome little shop specializing in cookbooks and books about food. They also have a collection of antique cookbooks. Definitely stop in if you’re in The City.)

The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza. I heard about this on the Bad on Paper podcast and quickly picked it up. A woman’s life is blowing up- her business and her marriage are failing and now she has to go to Sicily in search of a piece of property her recently-deceased aunt left to her. Her aunt arranged everything- someone to pick her up, a place to stay. As she digs into whether or not the property actually exists and belongs to her, she begins to discover her grandmother is a bit of a local legend and may not have died the way she was purported to have. This was a page-turner and now I want to go to Sicily!

United Kingdom
84, Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff. The true story of friendships forged through correspondence over the course of 20 years, including through World War 2. Helene was a writer in the US who was writing letters to a used bookshop in England in search of works she could not find domestically. Their friendship grew, Helene even sent things to the bookshop employees that were rationed in England like a Christmas ham or stockings for the ladies in the office. It was really a charming little read. Sadly the bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road is no longer there. It is now a McDonalds. 🙁

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. From the same author as Devil in the White City, this book chronicles the life, personal and public, of Winston Churchill during his first year as Prime Minister. Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium his first day on the job. Churchill was quite the eccentric character. His secretary used to sit outside his door while he took his twice-daily baths and dictated to her. He wore pale pink silk underwear. He was a politician that truly worked for the people. It is a bit dense but I enjoy Larson’s writing style so it balances out for me. It seems like you can’t travel many places in the world where WW2 hasn’t left an indelible mark on a nation.