I am back in the land of the Wurundjeri Wandoon people of the Greater Kulin Nation, that is, in my part of Melbourne, because not only was it Easter last weekend, but we wanted to take my Californian friend on a road trip through some of New South Wales and Victoria. We saw some great sights, but right now it’s time to get onto the meme … If you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.
The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month she set a fun challenge: we had to choose a travel guide from our bookshelves! What fun. I chose the Rough guide to Japan, and – woo hoo – I found an image on GoodReads of the cover of my 2011 edition. That wasn’t our first visit to Japan, as we’d been twice before, but that was when we bought the guide, because … well read on …
I decided not to go the obvious route – a book by a Japanese writer – because who wants to go the obvious route? Instead, I’m linking on Kindle books. The Rough guide to Japan was the second book I bought for my Kindle, thinking that an eTravelGuide would be so much easier to manage. Well, yes – and no – but that’s for another day. Meanwhile, the first eBook I bought was Jane Austen’s Sense and sensibility (one of my posts)! Yes, I already had a couple of copies of it, but you can never have too much Austen, and, anyhow, because I know it well, it was a good book on which to test using eReaders. Wouldn’t you say?
Sticking with the Kindle theme – and a bit of personal history – the third book I bought for my Kindle was another classic, Horace Walpole’s The castle of Otranto (my review), because, also in 2011, my Jane Austen group decided to discuss a Gothic novel of our choice. (This image is not my Kindle edition.)
OK, I’ve probably bored you enough now with my Kindle history, so my next link is on Gothic novels. I’m choosing a Australian gothic novel, Louis Nowra’s Into that forest (my review), which is set in the late 19th century, and tells the story of two young girls who find themselves lost in the bush (forest), and are taken in by a Tasmanian Tiger.
They are, in other words, feral children. My next link is another Australian book about feral children, Eva Hornung’s Dog boy (my review), which is about a boy taken in by a dog – but in Moscow, would you believe!
And now I’m going to do one of those nice, clear, obvious links that MR will like because it’s on a word in the title, dog! My link is to Louis de Bernieres’ Red dog (my post on the book and movie) which was inspired by the story of a real dog which roamed the Pilbara region of Western Australia through the 1970s.
Finally, because we had to go there, and legend has it – at least in the film – that Red Dog did, we are going to end in Japan. I haven’t reviewed as much Japanese literature on my blog as I would like, despite its being a favourite of mine, but the first work of fiction I posted on here was Haruki Murakami’s short story collection, Blind willow, sleeping woman (my post) so that is my final link.
I do hope you enjoyed this month’s journey, because I had fun putting it together – and for once we did come full circle.
Now, (sort of) the usual: Do you have a favourite travel guide on your shelves? And, if so, what would you link to? If not, then I’d love you to comment on whatever takes your fancy!
Whispering Gums 
Ha – my favourite travel guide is the latest one bought in anticipation of the next holiday!
Sadly, all our old travel guides were one of the things that went in the BIG declutter of 2024.
Oh good one Brona … I mean re your favourite. And yes, as I’ve just responded to Kate ours went in our big declutter of 2023!
I may be getting a bit old for rough guides. There is much to be said for a good mattress, and sometimes for air conditioning.
I’m not sure what my favorite travel guide would be, but perhaps something for Rome. Since you chose The Rough Guide to Japan, though,
Degree one will be High City, Low City, by Edward Seidensticker, which writes of Tokyo in the late 19th and early 20th Century.
Degree two (moving west) will be Pharos and Pharillon by E.M. Forster, about Alexandria.
Degree three will, stepping considerably back in time, will be Pausanias’s Guide to Greece (Penguin has a translation in two volumes).
Degree four will be Roman Journal by Stendhal, a fascinating book and guide purporting to have been written in Rome when in fact he was in Paris.
Degree five continues west, to London: A Biography by Peter Ackroyd, whose veracity I have no reason to doubt.
And degree six winds up right here, with Washington, City and Capital by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency that produced guides to all forty-eight states, plus Washington, D.C.
I have looked into London, just barely. I have read all of High City, Low City, and Pharos and Pharillon, and at least large portions of the others.
A fascinating chain George and I like your geographic moving west each time. Nicely done. All sound interesting but I’m probably most intrigued by your Tokyo and Alexandria ones, the first primarily because of its subject, and the second primarily because of its author.
<i>Pas mal, ma chère …</i> 🙂
I have only one sort of travel book; but it would be so insufferably self-indulgent to mention it that I (yes, even I !) cannot bring myself to do so. [grin]
Therefore, I cannot do as George has done – wow ! E.M. Forster on Alexandria !!! – and provide my own list.
Consider yourself lucky, dear ST !!!
You could you know, MR. And I would consider myself lucky if you did!
Ooh, I didn’t know about that title by Louis Nowra, I’ve only ever read his Ice, which was nominated for the MF, I think…
Here’s mine: https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/04/06/six-degrees-of-separation-from-in-search-of-london-to/
I need to read more of his Lisa …
Hi Sue, I like your links, especially the one about Red Dog. My links are The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson; The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin; American Journeys by Don Watson; On The Road by Jack Kerouac; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; and my favourite, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
Oh, good travel linked ones Meg … and I’ve read most (though haven’t finished Don Watson’s).
I keep all of the travel guides I buy, mostly because I annotate them while traveling and so often I return to them to find something or other for a friend who is going to the same place. I have a shelf full but there’s one there that makes me a little sad – a guide to the Maldives, which we had planned for 2020… never got there and since then other locations have absorbed our holiday time.
I kept all mine too … annotated like you … until our downsize last year. Just had to go. But I kept some annotated field guides!
Great chain! Sense and Sensibility is my favourite Jane Austen. Fun fact – a friend of mine is a descendant of Horace Walpole!
I like that one me too Joanne. It was my mum’s least favourite. I like your fun fact!
Loved your chain especially as I do love Japan even though I haven’t travelled there yet; the Kindle link was a good one and definitely different, so full marks there. I was also pleased to be reminded of Otranto which I read ages ago and all I remember of it is a giant helmet falling on someone and squashing them 🙂
Thanks Mallika … I love that someone else has read Otranto. And you must go to Japan if you like it because it’s a great place to visit.
I hope to some day 🙂 But I must get rich before I do–I’ll probably go wild in stationery shops among others.
They are something else Mallika! I love those shops too!
Well done! I’m not really interested in Asia, but Japan… I’d love to go to Japan! But you know, I can’t see using a travel guide on an eReader… I like to flip pages and let things catch my eye, and you can’t do that on a Kindle.
I used to agree re the Kindle Davida but it feels like you can more easily on the kindle app on an iPad. I didn’t go into it but that first Kindle travel guide was a mixed experience. The pics were b&w which was terrible, and many of the maps were illegible and you couldn’t enlarge them. Extremely frustrating. On the other hand searching was a breeze!
Good point about using the app on a tablet. I can see where maybe it would be okay in that case, and yes, searching would be really easy. I don’t have a working tablet anymore, just a laptop and a desktop and my trusty Paperwhite Kindle.
It’s hard to decide what devices we most need isn’t it – I have a laptop, iPad and iPhone. (And my Kindle Touch, pre Paperwhite, that I don’t use)
I can’t live without my Kindle, because I get all eARCs from NetGalley and Edelweiss. But I prefer to use my desktop for most things, and only use my laptop when I travel somewhere. My phone… is for (gasp) phone calls, messages, and using the GPS with Waze!
I haven’t used a desktop at home for 30 years. And I don’t do NetGalley, though I did sign up, and I’m afraid I hate ARCS (e or otherwise) so the Kindle is not a big thing for me. I think we’ve discussed this before, and that access to English language books is harder for you so NetGalley etc is critical for you?
Yeah, NetGalley and Edelweiss are critical for me. But there’s a new shop here that sells some GOOD fiction in English. He has a limited inventory, but the prices are reasonable and I can get them much faster than ordering from the UK or the US.
Great to hear.
I use my phone for more than I could possibly list here! Family and friends communication channels, social media, finance apps, navigation apps, parking apps, weather apps, the Notes app, Wikipedia, the list goes on.
I don’t use my phone as much as many people do, but I don’t know if I could get along without it. Plus, it syncs up with my car so I can listen to good music when I’m driving, instead of listening to the depressing news stations we have here.
I normally get rid of guidebooks, once I’ve visited the country (and these days, I only use electronic versions anyway). I still have a book about Central Asia. I was meant to go there with a group of friends, but then I got the opportunity to move to London and had to give up the Central Asia trip. One day! Like you, I tend to enjoy Japanese fiction. The only Murakamu I’ve read is Kafka on the Shore, but hopefully more will follow.
Thanks Stargazer… I know some people tear out used sections of guides as they go to lighten the wait. I could never do that but my travel is a lot lighter these days even if we have to carry chargers!
I’ve read quite a bit Murakami but not Kafka or his recent BIG novels.
Heh, before I read how the travel guide and S&S were linked, I thought you had chosen to link them based on the floral covers 😀
The only travel guide I’ve ever owned is Lonely Planet London. And that was so long ago I’m pretty sure Lonely Planet doesn’t publish print guides any longer. I think I would link to a book set in London then, Mrs. Dalloway would be good. And then I’d have to figure out a book to link to that has a big party in it 🙂
Haha good one Stefanie … I can see how that link would have come to you. Mrs Dalloway is a good link from your first choice. Big party … The great Gatsby? Pride and prejudice with its big Netherfield Ball? But so many to choose from I reckon, if we put our minds to it.
Arthur Frommer’s ‘Europe on $10 a day’ was my bible in 1978 🙂
I remember that one Gwendoline. In 1979 ours was Let’s Go Europe. I’m not sure Let’s Go is around any more.
So happy to see Into That Forest mentioned. A favourite read for me.
Thanks bimbigirl … I love mentioning books and authors that seem to have dropped off the radar.
I could probably downsize some of my travel guides but it can be helpful to look things up – the restaurants change (and the prices – museums are so expensive now because in some countries they are not supported by the government).
A couple years ago I was amused that my nephew started dating Arthur Frommer’s granddaughter. They had gone through school together from kindergarten to grade 12 but suddenly during the pandemic at 16 or 17 it became romantic. Of course it didn’t last at that age but it was a pity as she was smart and pleasant, planning to be a doctor.
It can be helpful, I agree, though with the internet these days you can find things so much faster. What I love particularly, though they can be hard to find, are travel blogs. True about museums. We don’t focus on them anymore. In our younger days we went to many of the big ones, and other big sights like the Eiffel Tower etc etc, so feel we’ve seen enough. Now we want to focus on life and culture. Walk the streets (love town self-guided walking tours), see the landscape, eat the food.
I guess it would be an obvious choice but because everyone’s chosen a different guide/destination then it’s still making for an interesting mix this time ’round.
It is isn’t it, Marcie … I like that there’s a theme but the actual starting points are different.