Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks From Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West [Hardcover]

Shannon Mckenna Schmidt (Author), Joni Rendon (Author), Matthew Pearl (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: May 20, 2008

It’s often said that a good book takes us somewhere we’ve never been before, and here’s the proof: a book-lover’s Baedeker to more than 500 literary locales across the United States and Europe. Novel Destinations invites readers to follow in the footsteps of much-loved authors, discover the scenes that sparked their imaginations, glimpse the lives they led, and share a bit of the experiences they transformed so eloquently into print. If you’re looking to indulge in literary adventure, you’ll find all the inspiration and information you need here, along with behind-the-scenes stories such as these:

After Ernest Hemingway survived two near-fatal plane crashes during an African safari, he perused his obituaries and sipped champagne on a canal-side terrace in Venice.

Washington Irving's wisteria-draped cottage in the Hudson Valley was once occupied by members of the Van Tassel family, immortalized in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

A mysterious incident at a stone tower near Dublin made such a vivid impression on James Joyce that he drew on it for the opening scene of Ulysses.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle consulted on the mystery of Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance before she resurfaced under an assumed name in northern England.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables was inspired by a seaside manse in Salem, Massachusetts, infamous witch trials in which his ancestor played a role.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Want to explore more than 500 literary landmarks without leaving your living room? Then pull up an armchair and pick up a copy of Novel Destinations. "—Tampa Tribune


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

Shannon McKenna Schmidt’s writing has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, New Jersey Monthly, Arrive, and other publications, and she is a regular contributor to Shelf Awareness and to Bookreporter.com. She has held positions in marketing and promotions at several publishing houses, most recently Simon & Schuster. Shannon lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.


Joni Rendon’s work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Continental, Pages, BookPage, The Writer, and on Bookreporter.com. She has held various marketing and editorial positions in the book publishing industry, most recently at Hyperion Books. Currently, she resides in London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: National Geographic (May 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1426202776
• ISBN-13: 978-1426202773
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As much for the armchair traveler as the author-obsessed May 20, 2008

By Jesse Kornbluth TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

For real book fanatics, great novels are only the beginning. Closing the pages of a beloved Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or James Patterson for the umpteenth time is a cue to pack suitcases and head out to visit the sacred places where Austen, Dickens or Patterson --- well, maybe not Patterson --- created their masterpieces.

Publishers know this, and so there are endless "world of" books: great for the obsessive, way too much information for the merely interested. All I want --- and unless you revere Jane and worship at the shrine of Charlotte, may I speak for you here? --- is a book that ventures wisely but briefly into the lives and haunts of a gaggle of writers.

At last: Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks From Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West does just that.

Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon are my kind of bibliophiles --- they know a lot but only tell you the coolest stuff. And their hearts are pure. They're not stalkers. They just seek "a deeper perspective on the books we cherish."

They start, therefore, Where They Wrote. With Shakespeare, of course, but they move on briskly to Eugene O'Neill (did you know his boyhood home is a nearly exactly model for the set in "Long Day's Journey into Night"?) and Charlotte Bronte (don't miss the "eerie blank space" on the portrait of the three sisters at the Bronte house) and John Milton (I, for one, had no idea the blind poet wrote "Paradise Lost" in his head, then dictated it to his secretary). Robert Frost is buried in Bennington, Vermont? I lived there and never knew. And how about Edgar Allan Poe's house in Baltimore --- in addition to his writing desk, fragments of his coffin are displayed. How cool.

Another section focuses on American writers at home and abroad. The writers are the usuals: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wharton, James, Twain. But Schmidt and Rendon don't do the usual tour. Did you know, for example, about the Scott and Zelda museum in Montgomery, Alabama? I'd make a detour to see Zelda's "feather-adorned hair band" and cigarette holder, to say nothing of her manuscript pages edited by Scott.

Literary Festivals? I was going to pass. Then I read about the walking tour of Oscar Wilde's London, led by a guide in Wildean duds. (Wilde smoked 80 cigarettes a day. Again, news to me.) Literary Places to Drink and Dine? Again, I thought, no interest. Then I read about Truman Capote chancing upon Sartre and de Beauvoir writing in the secluded basement bar of the Hotel Pont-Royal in Paris.

Almost half of the book is devoted to ten writers. I'm competent to judge the sections on only a few, but I was riveted by all the new information coming my way about Dickens, Kafka, Hemingway, Harper Lee. The authors serve up mini-biographies, short literary assessments, guides to houses, museums and restaurants --- and, in Kafka's case, a note about tours to the concentration camp where his favorite sister died. And Hemingway --- he had the first swimming pool in Key West. Fascinating how a penny came to be embedded in nearby cement. And....

Oddly, I don't feel the need to travel after reading "Novel Destinations". Nor do I feel tired, as if I've made these expeditions. What I feel like --- what you too may feel like --- is reading. And later, if I get obsessed and feel like packing my bags, I know the book I'll return to.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A wealth of Information in a Delightful Read May 31, 2008

By Margaret

Format:Hardcover

Admittedly, I'm a sucker for anything that combines travel and literature, but I thought this book was terrific. It combines a wealth of information organized in a way that makes it a delight to peruse. The forward (by Matthew Pearl) was engaging, as was the introduction by the authors. And the voice of the text was lively and fun. Section titles like "Eat Your Words: Literary Places to Sip and Sup" and "Unpersuaded: Jane Austen's Persuasion and Nothanger Abbey" are just the start. It's sprinkled throughout with interesting tidbits on the lives of the writers, things like Dickens' Gad's Hill Place being coincidentally cited on the locale Shakespeare set Falstaf's highway robbery in Henry IV and Robert Frost's struggle to make a living farming while suffering such stinging rejection of his poetry as "We find that The Atlantic has no place for your vigorous prose." Since Agatha Christie is my weakness, I was delighted to see the pages on her. I left the book feeling I would have enjoyed it even if I were only an armchair traveler, but, since I'm not, already planning my next excursion that might combine my two loves.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Trip through Books June 26, 2008

By Camille VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This book is so appealing. The dust jacket is textured to evoke the feel of a moleskine cover. The spine is colored to suggest a worn and much handled book. The design and feel of the book works on every level for this bibliophile.

The book is divided into sections including "Author Houses and Museums," Writers at Home and Abroad," "Literary Festival, Tours, and More" and "Booked up: Literary Places to Drink, Dine and Doze." Book lovers will find suggestions for hotels and restaurants. Schmidt and Rendon have also documented locales to visit like Cannery Row and East of Eden--Monterey and Salinas California.

Visit Washington Irving's "Sunnyside" in Tarrytown, NY, or Snagov Monastery--the reputed burial place of Vlad Dracula. There is Thomas Hardy Country in Dorset, England or the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield, MO. The Keats-Shelley house in Rome is included as well as the "southern comfort" locales of Flannery O'Connor, Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee.

An entire section follows Charles Dickens around from home to home to debtor's prison and traces the places where he ate and drank. I did not know there was a Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England each September. From Kafka to Alcott, this is the most entertaining travel guide I have ever owned.