A practical, armchair travel guide that explores eighty of the most iconic literary locations from all over the globe that you can actually visit.A must-have for every fan of literature, Booked inspires readers to follow in their favorite characters footsteps by visiting the real-life locations portrayed in beloved novels including the Monroeville, Alabama courthouse in To Kill a Mockingbird, Chatsworth House, the inspiration for Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice, and the Kyoto Bridge from Memoirs of a Geisha. The full-color photographs throughout reveal the settings readers have imagined again and again in their favorite books.
Organized by regions all around the world, author Richard Kreitner explains the importance of each literary landmark including the connection to the author and novel, cultural significance, historical information, and little-known facts about the location. He also includes travel advice like addresses and must-see spots.
Booked features special sections on cities that inspired countless literary works like a round of locations in Brooklyn from Betty Smith’s iconic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn and a look at the New Orleans of Tennessee Williams and Anne Rice.
Locations include:
Central Park, NYC (The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger)
Forks, Washington (Twilight, Stephanie Meyer)
Prince Edward Island, Canada (Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery)
Kingston Penitentiary, Ontario (Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood)
Holcomb, Kansas (In Cold Blood, Truman Capote)
London, England (White Teeth, Zadie Smith)
Paris, France (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo)
Segovia, Spain, (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway)
Kyoto, Japan (Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden)
About the Author
Richard Kreitner is a contributing writer at The Nation magazine. His work on politics, history, and literature has also appeared in Slate, The Baffler, and The Boston Globe. A lover of books and travel, he is the author of “The Obsessively-Detailed Map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trip,” featured in Atlas Obscura in 2015. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Praise For…
“If you like exploring real places related to literature, this book is a good place to start.”—GeekDad
“Booked provides full-color photographs of 80 famous literary locations, including To Kill a Mockingbird‘s courthouse in Monroeville, Ala.; the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice‘s Pemberley; and Memoirs of a Geisha‘s Kyoto Bridge.”—Publishers Weekly, Spring Announcements feature
