One of my cousins who lives in Hawaii messaged me a couple of weeks ago and told me that he and his wife would love to have us visit them and they even had a free downstairs apartment where we could stay. Sadly, we don't have enough money or vacation time to take them up on their offer to go to Hawaii. Sigh. I started thinking about how I've never really left the continental US before, but I have traveled a lot in my head with the help of the many books I read. I thought I'd try to start doing a segment on the blog of all of the places I travel through literature in a month.
I'm going to start with last month. I read ten books in the month of February and this is where they took me:
1.) I started the month reading "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whited. It started me off in Georgia and then to South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana during the 1800's.
2.) The second book I read was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling. This book took me across the ocean to England, but not just England, it was magical England. I am so sad that with that book, I finished the series and can never travel to that world for the first time again. Sigh.
3.) My third book this month was "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Andre Dumas. This novel took me to Italy and France in 1815. Wow, what a trip. If you haven't taken it, you should.
4.) The fourth book I read was called "Swimming Lessons" by Claire Fuller. It took place at Dorset Beach, on the Southwest Coast of England. I did need a little beach time this Winter.
5.) Book number five was "As Good As Gone" by Larry Watson. It took me to Montana in the early 1960's.
6.) My sixth book was "The Miniaturist" by Jessie Burton. It takes place in Amsterdam in 1686. I've always wanted to visit Holland, but it sounds like it's way better now than it was back then when the Calvinists were making strict laws and trying to control the population. No thanks. Luckily, it's at least possible for me to visit now when things are better.
7.) "Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist" by Sunil Yapa was the seventh book I read last month. It took me to Seattle in 1999, during the WTO protests. Again, I'd love to check out Seattle, I'd just rather go now, than when all of that violence and bloodshed occurred.
8.) My eighth novel took place in Yugoslavia, on a train, in 1934. "Murder on the Orient Express" was my first Agatha Christie novel and it was great escapism for a dreary February in Iowa. I'll definitely go back and visit there again.
9) "Why We Run: A Natural History" by Bernd Heinrich was the only non-fiction book I read last month. John has been trying to get me to read it for a couple of years now. It combined running with animal biology, and it was right up my alley. It also took me to Germany, Maine and Chicago, Illinois.
10) The last book I read was "The Starboard Sea", by Amber Dermont. It took me to a hoity-toity boarding school in Maine in 1987. I don't think I could deal with all of the over privileged, rich people in the book, but I would love to check out Maine...In the Summer, of course.
Sure, I may not be able to travel that much in the real world, but in books, in my head, I can go all over, I don't have to worry about jet lag and the most stressful thing about it, is dealing with the weight of my fat orange cat pressing down on my internal organs as he lies on my stomach.
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