DESTINATION READS

When the setting is just as important as the story

WORDS: EMILY HUMPHREY

JAPAN

Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan (Will Ferguson)

Canadian writer Will Ferguson is enjoying the journey. In this wickedly funny read, Ferguson decides to follow Japan’s famed cherry blossom front across the length of the country. While hitchhiking. What starts as a drunken bet becomes a hilarious, offbeat odyssey traversing nearly 3,000 km in the Land of the Rising Sun. It’s a fresh, off the beaten track insight on contemporary Japan.

SRI LANKA

Running in the Family (Michael Ondaatje)

The author of The English Patient delivers musings and stories about his eccentric Dutch-Ceylonese family and his native Ceylon, where he lived as a young boy on a tea plantation before moving abroad in 1954. Ondaatje’s fragmented trip down memory lane is peppered with chapters of poetry, anecdotes about family and glorious prose depicting the charms of this lush island nation.

INDIA

Around India in 80 Trains (Monisha Rajesh)

All aboard! Journalist Monisha Rajesh makes a pilgrimage of sorts back to her parents’ homeland in India. Inspired by Jules Verne, over four months she takes – you guessed it – 80 trains across the length and breadth of this beguiling country. From a luxury train in Rajasthan to a heaving Mumbai commuter service and even the world’s first hospital train, Rajesh encounters all manner of fascinating characters and landscapes.

AFRICA

Love, Life and Elephants: An African Love Story (Daphne Sheldrick)

The perfect safari read. Celebrated conservationist Daphne Sheldrick penned her memoirs with warmth and compassion, recounting her incredible career and her love story with husband David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo National Park warden. Dame Sheldrick’s rich life saw her work tirelessly to protect Kenya’s wildlife, notably saving elephant orphans. A truly enchanting read.

ITALY

My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)

The first book in the wildly successful Neopolitan series follows 50 years of friendship between Elena and Lila, two girls who grew up in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. It won’t exactly have you dreaming of la dolce vita – it’s an authentic, gritty depiction of the city in post-war Italy. Naples is a vivid setting in this absorbing story and really becomes its own character.