Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

I am an armchair traveler at the moment, but this book brought back fond memories of my junior year abroad in college when I visited many of the destinations listed. Traveling to the setting of the novel or home of the author made the stories richer, which is why this book appealled to me. I loved both the practical information and the obvious affection these book-loving authors had for literary travel. The organization of the book and headings were clever. I was not aware of some of the locations that are close to home. I am inspired to visit more literary landmarks in the near future.

Novel Destinations is a uniquely wonderful idea for a book. The two authors, both huge literature fans, visit the places around the world associated with certain authors and detail their findings in a travel guide for fellow bibliophiles. At first I was a little disappointed, because I expected personal journal style escapades, but instead I was quickly pulled in to their descriptions of the museums devoted to Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway. They thoroughly cover each of the selected authors even including local pubs and restaurants that bestow honors. I was tickled to discover that there is a Stella Shouting contest in honor of A Streetcar Named Desire as well as a Papa Hemingway look-a-like contest. The book really shines in its focus in the back on very specific authors like Austen and Steinbeck. Short, concise biographies are given with detailed places to tour to get to know them better. It made me want to read those classics as well as biographies of their writers. This is one of the few books that I would actually want to own and keep on my shelf for future reference, because who would ever want to go on a vacation again without checking to see if a great literary spot is near by?

This is a book in which literary travelers (armchair and otherwise) will lose themselves -- literally and figuratively. Literary history, criticism, geography, biography, anecdote, sidebars, and small but relevant photos are woven into this exploration of writers and their haunts. From Shakespeare to Dashiell Hammett, Robert Burns to Emily Dickinson, the authors visits graves, festivals, birthplaces, bars, libraries, cafes, gardens, hotels, cottages, meadows, and lanes.

The book seems to wander in time and place and in its focus and organization. This is both appealing and maddening. You will, for example, find Hemingway on more than 40 pages; first in a brief mention of a bar in Paris (the Dingo American Bar where he met F. Scott Fitzgerald), later in a 7-page biography, "Rugged Adventurer." Farther along is a 6-page feature on six Heminway watering holes (in France, Spain, and Cuba). Later still, there is a 14-page section on Hemingway in Key West -- more bars there as well. He is also found on other pages having to do with other locales (New Orleans, Venice) and various festivals -- Ketchum, Idaho; and Key West.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book (for reasons listed by other reviewers), a book to get lost in and with . . . in Harper Lee's Monroeville, Alabama; Steinbeck's Salinas Valley; Jane Austen's Bath, England; in Joyce's Dublin . . . jump in anywhere, and away you go.

Marsh Muirhead - author of "Key West Explained - a guide for the traveler."

First and foremost, [...]

I have had the distinct pleasure of knowing one of the authors since she was born. Not only is Shannon my sister, she happens to be one of my best friends. My mom, my daughter and I have all had the pleasure of accompanying Shannon on several literary jaunts. With that being said, I will seek to be as impartial as possible. :)

Recently, the community in which I live chose the book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee as the "one book, one community" read. Novel Destinations was a super complement to this. I was able to learn interesting facts, not only about the book, but about the reclusive, elusive author herself...Harper Lee. I had no idea that she had written only one book. Reading the section contained in Novel Destinations provided me with helpful information about the book which aided me in my preparation for the section that I eventually read on live radio.

Perusing Novel Destinations also brought back many memories of novels that I had read in high school as well as in more recent years. One of my all time favorites, Gone With the Wind and the author Margaret Mitchell, are also included in Novel Destinations.

I enjoyed the fact that the book is a read that one can pick up at any time, open to any page and find something interesting to read about. It is light, engaging and transports you to places without even having to leave the comfort of your own home. Novel Destinations has inspired me to re-visit some of the novels from my youth as well as venturing into new and uncharted literary territory.

I have a friend who delivers a hilarious monologue about her book obsession that opens with the line, "My name is Kathy, and I am a biblioholic." Kathy, this book is a dream come true for you and for all your biblioholic friends.

In NOVEL DESTINATIONS, Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon, two self-described "lifelong voracious readers who share an equally passionate appetite for exploration," have delivered nothing less than a delightful and long overdue guide for travelers for whom books are a way of life, not merely a diversion. It's a compact, attractive book, chock full of helpful and friendly advice more than sufficient to fuel a lifetime of literary tourism.

In creating a book that goes far beyond the guidance found in the snippets of literary information offered by conventional tourist guides, Schmidt and Rendon recognize that novels have provided "a new dimension to our travel experiences," while at the same time the literary places they've visited have given them "a deeper perspective on the books we cherish." They've engagingly demonstrated that book-oriented travel can be as fun and intellectually stimulating as treks to historic sites or tours of classic works of architecture.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One consists of a thematically organized potpourri of literary attractions, ranging from author houses and museums (more than 60 authors of all styles and genres receive mention) to destinations frequented by literary titans Fitzgerald (a small quibble: his gravesite near a busy intersection in downtown Rockville, Maryland is omitted), Hemingway, Twain, Wharton and Henry James, to prominent literary festivals like the Guardian Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, and preeminent libraries. This section concludes with an ample offering of literary lodgings, restaurants and bars, both in the United States and around the world.

One noteworthy example among the many cited is the Library Hotel, in midtown Manhattan, where each of the hotel's 10 floors is devoted to a different category of the Dewey Decimal System. I can personally vouch for the excellent food and charming atmosphere at John's Grill in San Francisco, a favorite restaurant of Dashiell Hammett and one of the settings for THE MALTESE FALCON. A cautionary note to travelers on a budget: the hotel and restaurant recommendations aren't accompanied by any price information, and it's fair to say that many of the establishments cited tend toward the pricey side. The good news is that the authors provide sufficient contact information so that readers contemplating a trip can conduct their own research.

Part Two focuses on tourist opportunities in places associated with the works of 10 icons, among them Bath, England (Austen), Monroeville, Alabama (Harper Lee), Prague (Kafka) and Salem, Massachusetts (Hawthorne) for literary types who are eager to immerse themselves in the world of a favorite author and see the places that sparked their creativity come to life. In this section, Schmidt and Rendon do a fine job of weaving together helpful tourist tips with anecdotes about their author subjects and discourses on the characters and themes of their works.

Like a pair of food critics writing about their favorite restaurants, Schmidt and Rendon are knowledgeable and informative, consistently conveying their enthusiasm for this unique project. This is the kind of book that cries out for frequent updating, and if that's the case, perhaps the authors will consider a couple of friendly suggestions for future editions. In addition to the book's conventional index, a geographic index and some maps to accompany the thumbnail photographs that dot the pages would be welcome. And although there are occasional references to independent bookstores, some more extended coverage of that economically challenged segment of the bookselling world would be useful.

NOVEL DESTINATIONS is the type of book that can be opened to any page to reveal some entertaining or enlightening tidbit. But it should be accompanied by a warning that casual browsing may lead to extended reading and perhaps even a detour into the works of one of the authors who occupy its pages. Whether you're actually planning a literary trip, or simply want to sit by the fireside contemplating that delightful possibility, this volume is guaranteed to provide many hours of pleasurable and rewarding reading.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg

This book definitely meets my expectations of a National Geographic publication. I expected descriptions of places where authors had lived and worked but was thrilled to find tours of the places within these great authors' novels mapped out for me.

These are not the staid entries of most travel guides. The authors provide a bit of history and biography with each entry. This, combined with quality writing, makes Novel Destinations a great read for any lover of literature, travel, or both.

This is an extremely cool book that includes a ton of information on literary landmarks around the globe. It's perfect for someone to use as a travel companion, and also ideal for a literary buff eager to learn more about his or her favorite books and authors. The book has a lot of practical use and would also make a great gift. I highly recommend it.