Reading, The Original “Slow Travel”: A Curated List for Escapism

Cut off from the easy ways of travel (a few taps on your device and you’ve just bought yourself a ticket to that country across the globe) and socially isolated from places we had planned to travel to either this Spring, Summer or even this year, it has never been a more fitting time to return to the original form of slow travel: reading. Long before travel became affordable and accessible, people were reading their way to the rice fields of India, the rainforests of South America, and the tiny archipelago dotting the Mediterranean. It was the way to escape the doldrum of daily life, if you had no disposable income to afford that train or plane ticket. 

Photo by Emma Lavelle

And here we all are, in the twenty-first century, navigating stay-at-home orders, and--if you’re privileged enough--some possible extra time in your day to fill. While you won’t be able to stock your mobile phone full of travel photos, you’ll instead spark up that childhood notion of imagination and transport yourself far away from your current reality. You might not be able to literally taste that savory foriegn meal you had hoped to try, but instead share it with the characters that taste it for you. We can all go back to the simple reason we read in the first place: to escape. 

Here are our recommendations, a curation of suggested escapes, all fiction and novel in nature, to help you get back to slow travel. The short list below evokes a strong sense of setting, where places are personified, and historical backdrops drive the action and momentum. So go on, take some time, and see which book, or rather place, becomes your personal antidote for loneliness, elixir for romance, or  medicine in these manic times.

The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell 

Set in the 1930s and on the enchanted island of Corfu, the trilogy tells the story of the eccentric English family, The Durrells, who move to the island and their endearing antics while they strive to build a home within the culture and its locals. You’ll find yourself in turquoise crystal oceans and lounging on bleached rock beaches under hot summer sun.

Escape to: Greece

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje 

Within the North African/Italian campaign of WWII, four characters are brought together in an abandoned Italian monastery with intertwining stories (parlayed out of sequence, but this adds to the mysterious plot puzzle) and where memories of love in a desert are nothing short of poetic sensuality. You’ll be feeling the dry desert heat, cool Egyptian nights, and the aromas of an Italian countryside.

Escape to: North Africa and Italy

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

A collection of twenty-two vignettes, the Finnish island setting moves between weather patterns as six-year old Sophia and her grandmother spend their days creating an enjoyable summer with some of the island’s smallest creatures and evolving natural habitats. You’ll understand why those salty, windy summer days are particular to the Nordic region.

Escape to: Finland

The Neapolitan Series by Elena Ferrante

A four-part series spanning over five decades, these addictive novels pull you along the development of two girls’ friendship as they find their own ways of survival from young girls to adult women in the Italian patriarchal society. From the bustling backstreets of Naples, to the Italian islands populated by locals (pre-Instagram influencer days), you’ll get a taste for the easy-come pace Italians claim as their own and you’ll be saying “Allora” out loud after every delicious and digested novel. 

Escape to: Ischia and Naples, Italy

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

Rooney’s novels never fail to deliver tight, spot-on dialogue, but in this book about a group of friends/lovers/acquaintances that spend some summer weeks together in a French villa, escaping Ireland’s habitual grey weather, the conversations are peppered with evening dinners amongst French gardens and late-night table wine consumption. A summer under the French sun within these pages and the witty conversations will have you remembering how refreshing a bottle of provincial rosé can be when amongst friends. 

Escape to: Dublin, Ireland and France

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Before Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet made the film a must-see-talked-about topic, the novel follows Oliver and Elio as they discover one another at Elio’s family Italian estate during summer’s long weeks. The season plays a hand in the blossoming infatuation between both characters, and the Italian heat practically creates the sparks that fly between their love. High brow musings on art, life, and existential thoughts on what it means to be alive, you’ll want to have a glass of limoncello or espresso in hand as you idle away the Italian summer days from page to page. 

Escape to: Italy

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster 

You can’t help but fall in love with Ms. Lucy Honeychurch (for starters her name is one of the most memorable you’ll find in Forster’s novels) attempting to break out from the restrained Edwardian early twentieth century culture she has been conditioned to. Secrets and proposals spin this novel forward, while you root for Lucy to find herself in her European environments. Forster’s fiction offers you advice to go forth with future, slower travels: “Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” 

Escape to: Florence and Rome, Italy and England