From Paul Theroux to the poet Basho, stories about journeys real and imagined for the frustrated traveller
- Let these books containing adventures both actual and fictional whisk you away from reality this summer
- Try contemporary travelogue Three Tigers, One Mountain or The Narrow Road to the Deep North from the 18th century
In a typical year, choosing the perfect books for the summer holidays goes something like this: cram a few paperbacks in the suitcase; load up the e-reader; and download some audiobooks. For last-minute ideas, browse an airport bookshop before boarding the plane.
Given that 2020 is anything but typical, whether in terms of holidays, airports or reading itself, we thought a special list might be needed to free the mind from whatever lockdown you are currently experiencing. With most of us rooted to the spot, too nervous to venture outside or too weary to navigate newly imposed restrictions, we can at least allow our imaginations to roam.
One way of overcoming the absence of travel is by reading about it. As travel writers face as uncertain a future as anyone else right now, it would be an act of financial and literary solidarity to invest in their books.
In Three Tigers, One Mountain (2020), Michael Booth visits China, Japan and South Korea in an attempt to untangle the unstable cultural, social, economic and political strands connecting the three.
Paul Theroux’s Riding the Iron Rooster (1988) may be older than Three Tigers, but age has not withered this closely observed, tartly comic account of a year spent travelling across China by rail. “The bigness of China makes you wonder. It is more like a whole world than a mere country,” he writes. Theroux, who received 2020’s Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing, is the perfect person to cut it down to size.