8 travel destinations matched with holiday reads
Spring is upon us – what better time to begin planning for your next travel adventure? Luckily, the Readings’ Lonely Planet sale is on once more, with 25% off all their titles throughout October, 2016.
Here, we’ve paired eight holiday reads with eight Lonely Planet travel guides to inspire and assist you in planning your trip.
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… JAPAN
Hiromi Kawakami is a Japanese author known for her charming, off-beat narratives and The Nakano Thrift Shop is her latest one to be translated to English (by Allison Markin Powell). When Hitomi takes a job at the cash register of a neighbourhood thrift store, she finds herself drawn into an idiosyncratic community. There is Mr Nakano, an enigmatic ladies’ man with several ex-wives; Masayo, an artist who has never married; and Takeo, Hitomi’s fellow employee who attracts her attention. Every day, customers from the neighbourhood pass in and out as curios are bought and sold, each one containing its own surprising story.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to Japan here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… ITALY
Even though we never like to miss a chance to recommend Elena Ferrante’s brilliant, phenomenal Neapolitan Novels, we suspect many of our readers have already read them (if not, here’s why you should). Italian writer Erri De Luca’s novel, translated by Jill Foulston, is another wonderful read set in Naples. Lyrical and exuberant, told with the simplicity of a fairy tale and the intensity of a memory, The Day Before Happiness is the story of friendship, a city and what makes us who we are.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to Italy here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… MEXICO
Laia Jufresa is a rising literary star in Mexico, and her darkly comic novel, Umami (translated by Sophie Hughes), has been pitched for fans of A.M. Homes and Ali Smith. Deep in the heart of Mexico City, lives Ana, a precocious 12-year-old still coming to terms with the mysterious death of her little sister years earlier. Over the rainy, smoggy summer she decides to plant a vegetable garden in the courtyard, and as she digs the ground and plants her seeds, her neighbours delve into their past in turns. As the ripple effects of grief, childlessness, illness and displacement saturate their stories, secrets seep out and questions emerge.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to Mexico here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… INDIA
Anjum Hasan’s The Cosmopolitans is compelling portrait of India. Qayenaat is a middle-aged editor and critic who hovers at the edge of the Bangalore art scene. Her old friend and former protégé, Baban Reddy, has become a hugely successful artist on the international stage and his return to Bangalore brings back memories and experiences Qayenaat had carefully repressed. In a swirl of heightened emotion, Qayenaat commits an unforgivable crime and flees to rural India in the hope of avoiding its repercussions.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to India here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… FRANCE
From French novelist Agnes Martin-Lugand comes a moving story about a woman who finds new meaning and love in the wake of a devastating loss; Happy People Read and Drink Coffee is an international runaway bestseller soon to be a major film. After a terrible tragedy shatters her almost perfect life Diane, owner of a popular literary cafe in Paris, moves to a small Irish village. There she meets Edward, a brooding Irish photographer, and a suprising romance blossoms. We recommend this novel be read with a coffee in hand, and preferably on the streets of Paris.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to France here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… NEW ZEALAND
Fiona Sussman is a former GP who hung up her stethoscope 10 years ago in order to pursue another longheld dream – to write. Her second novel, The Last Time We Spoke, is a dark gripping tale which navigates the underbelly of urban New Zealand. One mild summer evening in rural Auckland the life of a middle-aged farmer’s wife and that of an illiterate Maori youth brutally collide. Neither will be the same again, their futures forever linked.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to New Zealand here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… SPAIN
Cristina Sánchez-Andrade has been described as ‘one of the best writers in Spain’ (El Correo Galleg) and her novel, The Winterlings was named a Herralde Novel Prize finalist back in 2013. Only just released in Australia for the first time (translated by Samuel Rutter), this intoxicating tale of two mysterious sisters blends Spanish oral tradition, Latin American magic realism, and the American gothic fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Shirley Jackson.
Get 25% off the Lonely Planet guide to Spain here
IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO VISIT… NEW YORK CITY
The witty, neurotic narrator of Maria Semple’s Today Will be Different is the perfect travelling companion to take with you to the Big Apple. Eleanor Flood has decided today is the day. She is going to clean up her act, only change into yoga clothes for yoga – which today she will actually attend – and just be a better version of herself in general. But then, as it always does, life happens. With all the artistic madness, genius plotting, and bold social observation that made Semple’s debut novel a bestseller, Today Will be Different is a hilarious and heartfelt romp.
