5 Books to Transport You (When Travelling Is Not An Option)

At the time of writing, I had been social distancing for nearly 9 months. I had to cancel three trips that I had planned this year and my city was going into its second lockdown since the start of the pandemic. As someone who experiences wanderlust several times a year, I am long overdue for an escape. Since travelling hasn’t been an option, I have been getting my fix via novels about travel.

In this post, I am sharing 5 books that have helped transport me back to some of my favourite places around the world.

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New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

This is one of my absolute favourite novels that inspired travel plans. It is a sweeping epic that follows New York City from the days when Dutch settlers and Algonquian tribes traded with each other in the area all the way through to the day of the 9/11 attacks. The book weaves together the story of New York City with multiple generations of one family whose fates rise and fall with the city.

I recommend this book for anyone who LOVES New York City and/or is a history buff. I absolutely love how the novel describes famous NYC landmarks and how they evolved over centuries. The author describes the sites so well (without being too lyrical about it) that I feel immediately transported over to the Big Apple.

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

This novel is about the forbidden love story involving a woman who would eventually give birth to the Father of Impressionism – Camille Pissarro.

Most of the story takes place on the island of St. Thomas in the 1800s. Hoffman’s colourful descriptions and sensual prose will make you feel like you’re lounging in the Caribbean heat… even if you are at home under a pile of thick blankets.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

I’m not even sure how I can summarize this literary masterpiece… One Hundred Years of Solitude follows members of the Buendía family over the course of a century in the town they had founded called Macondo. The style of writing in this book is so unique that it has come to define the whole magical realism genre.

I first read this book years before I started exploring Latin America extensively. Besides the imaginative way the story of the Buendías’ are told, there was something so unique and refreshing about the novel that I couldn’t quite articulate. Rereading it now after having travelled through much of the Americas, I found the book a lot easier to read.

Prior to reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, the adventure books I read were told mainly from a westernized point of view. García Márquez gave the narrative of millions of people FROM colonized lands and served Western audiences an alternate reality to the exotic settings of these stories. You wouldn’t typically find this on a list of novels about travel. But if you love Latin American culture as much as me or if you plan on visiting that part of the world, I recommend giving this book a go. It is iconic and important to Colombian and even Latin American culture in general.

You don’t have to be familiar (or interested) with Latin American politics to enjoy this classic though; it’s just a really, really good story.

Crazy Rich Asians trilogy by Kevin Kwan

This trilogy follows an American-born Chinese professor as she travels to Singapore to meet her boyfriend’s family. Unbeknownst to the protagonist, her boyfriend is actually a member of one of Asia’s wealthiest and most powerful families.

The series is a satirical take on Kevin Kwan’s childhood in Singapore. His goal was to write a novel to “introduce a contemporary Asia” to westernized audiences and I think he succeeded in that goal. Any list on novels about travel is incomplete without this trilogy. The books transport you to the outrageous world of high net-worth Asian society. If this series doesn’t serve escapism, I don’t know what will…

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Another sweeping epic that follows 4 generations of the Trueba family in the post-colonial political and social upheavals of an unnamed South American country. Though Chile was never explicitly named, much of the events and characters in the book closely mirrors events and figures in Chilean history. For me, The House of the Spirits is easier to digest than its inspiration – One Hundred Years of Solitude. There are elements of magical realism in it, though not as heavy.

I was absolutely mesmerized by Chile during my time there. Today, Chile is among South America’s most economically and socially stable countries. It was not too long ago though that it was ruled by a militaristic despot. The hurt caused by Pinochet’s regime between the 1970s and the 1980s is still felt by multiple generations of Chileans. This was evident in my conversations with locals during my visit. As much as I wanted to know more about that era, I didn’t want to press. The House of the Spirits offers a glimpse of what life was like in the country during that time.

Historical/political parallels aside, The House of the Spirits at face value is a beautifully written book. Trigger warning: there are parts with graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

For more like this post, check out 5 Books to Inspire Your Wanderlust.

How have you been able to satisfy your wanderlust during quarantine? Do you have any novels about travel that you would recommend to a friend? Let me know in the comments below 🙂