When travelling, many of us like to bring a book (or two) to pass the time on plane flights or railway journeys or just waiting in queues. But it is not even necessary to leave our armchairs if we want to explore the furthest reaches of any country. We can travel to distant points of the compass, into the vastness of imagination. Books can be our vessel for transport to places, times and cultures that are too numerous to fit into single lifetime. We can even cross the boundaries of space and time to explore strange new worlds.
Here are just a few of our favourite books about travel from the CAE catalogue:
The Accidental Tourist [1193] by Anne Tyler
A travel writer who hates travel, adventure and anything outside his routine meets an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let him wallow in solitude. She up-ends his systemized life, catapulting him into a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined.
Almost French [1776] by Sarah Turnbull
After backpacking around Europe, a Sydney journalist embarks on one last adventure before heading home. A chance meeting with a charming Frenchman in Bucharest changes her plans. She joins him in Paris, resulting in spectacular and often hilarious cultural clashes.
The Boat [B2022] by Nam Le
From a tourist in Tehran to a teenage hit man in Colombia; from Hiroshima just before the bomb is dropped to the South China Sea after another war, each story is absorbing and fully realised as a novel, making up a collection of astonishing diversity and achievement.
Cold Enough for Snow [2383] by Jessica Au
A young woman joins her mother on vacation to Japan. They visit galleries, churches, cafés and restaurants, guarding against rain and the prospect of snow. They talk, or seem to talk, but how much is spoken between them, how much remains unspoken?
Down Under [1753] by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson journeys to Australia and falls in love with the it. He finds the people cheerful, extroverted, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging, its cities safe, clean and nearly always built on water. The food is excellent, the beer is cold, and the sun nearly always shines.
Eat, Pray, Love [B2000] by Elizabeth Gilbert
A newly divorced journalist struggles to carve out an identity in New York. Desperate to reinvigorate her life, she embarks on a modern-day pilgrimage, from Italy to India to Bali, as she comes to terms with choices that have defined her life, and begins to rediscover herself.
Journey to the Stone Country [1803] by Alex Miller
Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle retreats to her family home in North Queensland where she meets Bo, of the Jangga tribe. He claims to hold the key to her future. They set out on a path of recovery that leads back to her childhood and into the Jangga’s ancient heartland.
Night Letters [1542] by Robert Dessaix
In a Venice hotel room, an Australian man recently diagnosed with an incurable disease writes home to a friend. Against a background of earlier journeys in literature, with Dante as his imagined guide, he reflects on what it means to live a good life in the face of death.
The Secret River [1934] by Kate Grenville
From a childhood of poverty and crime in London, William is transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. But freedom can be earned, with an opportunity to start afresh. By the Hawkesbury River, battle lines are drawn between old and new inhabitants.
Under the Tuscan Sun [1553] by Frances Mayes
Poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer Frances Mayes buys and restores an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside. With glorious descriptions of local markets, food, wine and landscape, this book has inspired generations to embark on their own journeys.
Where the Fruit Falls [B2356]
A young Aboriginal woman and her daughters navigate a troubled nation of First Peoples, settlers and refugees, all determined to shape a future on stolen land. Brigid moves through an everchanging landscape to unravel family secrets by facing the past.
What about other books that feature travelling? Here are some of our favourites:
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
A shepherd boy travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point him in the direction of his quest.
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
Although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, we seldom ask why we go and how to become more fulfilled. Helped by a selection of writers, artists and thinkers this book seeks to explain why we really go in the first place, and how we might be happier on our journeys.
The Beach by Alex Garland
A gap-year student is introduced to a beautiful island. But with drugs and the glamorized violence of Vietnam War films haunting his perception of his Thai paradise, the hideaway becomes a nightmare.
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
The account of an epic journey through Asia which describes places, cultures, sights, sounds and fascinating people. This entertaining travelogue pays loving tribute to the romantic joys of railways and train travel.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
It’s an ordinary day for Arthur Dent until his house is demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and his best friend announces he’s an alien. He carries a book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, while hurtling through space.
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, an explorer, believes that the Amazon jungle conceals a hidden complex civilization, which he calls the City of Z. In 1925, he and his son vanish without trace. Hordes of explorers follow, seeking evidence of Fawcett’s party or Z.
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Before leaving his abode in Yorkshire to return home to the USA, Bill Bryson takes one last trip around Britain, a valedictory tour in which he takes stock of what he loves so much about the country.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
To the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, this trip is the embodiment of the Beat generation. It races towards sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion.
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
A hydrophobic son of a preacher renounces his father’s stern religion in favour of the Anglican Church. A frizzy-haired heiress buys a glass factory with her inheritance. When these two meet, they are bound by an affinity for gambling and risk. Love will be their ultimate gamble.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
An evangelical takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959, carrying with them everything they believe they will need but soon find that all of it is calamitously transformed on African soil.
See Naples and Die by Penelope Green
A travel memoir that delves into myths surrounding Naples, Penny seeks a new job and romance, and finds both in the toughest Italian city of them all. A first-hand account of fear, crime, beauty, food, and a thrilling sense of living every moment to the fullest.
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares
A group of friends prepare to spend their first summer apart. When one buys a pair of second-hand jeans, the girls discover that despite different physiques, the jeans look great on all of them. They promise to rotate the magical jeans. The result is a true sisterhood of support.
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Songlines’ or ‘Dreaming Tracks’ are a labyrinth of invisible pathways across Australia, intricate sources of personal identity and territorial markers. Disputes over the right to excavate land sacred to wandering tribes highlight the importance of myth and instinct in the human psyche.
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, a scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. But then she is killed. A colleague and former student tries to uncover the secret.
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Richard Hannay returns to England after years in South Africa when a murder is committed in his flat, after a chance encounter warning him of an assassination plot. A suspect, he escapes to his native Scotland where he must stay one step ahead of the police and the killers.
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
The account of a woman’s solo journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert with only four camels and a dog for company. A courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia’s landscape, empathy for its indigenous people, in an odyssey of discovery and transformation.
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
A bank manager accompanies his septuagenarian aunt to what he supposes is his mother’s funeral. But then she persuades him to abandon his dull home life join her on a tour through Paris, Istanbul and Paraguay. An intoxicating entertainment.
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
A retired English couple living their dream abroad, only an idyllic life in a 200-year-old farmhouse in the south of France does not go according to plan. Witty and affectionate, a charming portrait of rural life.
You Are Here by David Nicholls
Two individuals, isolated post-divorce find their way back to themselves, and to each other on the Coast to Coast path in England. This tender, funny and charming story will be tugging on your heartstrings.
And let’s not forget the classics, both ancient and modern…
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Odyssey by Homer
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
What other books about travel do you know and admire?