Maybe you’re wading in a kiddie pool instead of getting sprayed by Iguazu Falls. Or your idea of an exotic vacation is visiting the next neighborhood over, not closing your eyes and hopping to whatever country your finger hits on the globe. Or perhaps you would simply appreciate a few trusty narrators-as-guides as you gear up for your carefully researched seasonal travels — it’s hard not to be swept away by Bill Bryson’s curiosity for Australia or Murakami’s magical view of Japan.
No matter your plans (or lack thereof), there’s a listen to suit you.
Italy Don't all memorable summers start off on the Italian coast? That’s the case for Pasquale, a young man doomed to live in the tiny (fictitious) village of Porto Vergogna — colloquially known, thanks to its situation in the vertical seam of a cliff, as baldracca culo*. (Ask an Italian friend.) He’s doomed, of course, until a young Hollywood starlet shows up, fresh off the set of Cleopatra with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Did I mention it’s 1962? Their mismatched meet-cute, complete with charming language barrier, kicks off Walter’s decade-spanning novel that hops from Europe to Hollywood to Seattle, and more. But it’s the descriptions of Italia — and narrator Edoardo Ballerini’s liquid accent — that’ll get ya.
London When visiting London, no matter how many “hot” restaurants you seek or avant-garde art museums you visit, there’s a sense, upon leaving, that you’ve only scratched the surface. According to Gaiman’s fantasy epic, you have. The beloved writer, who narrates his own book, dives into London Below, an alternate reality beneath the familiar city. Before submerging, however, he captures a vivid above-ground London: “It was a city of red brick and white stone, red buses and large black taxis, bright red mailboxes and green grassy parks and cemeteries ... but there is a price to be paid for all good places, and a price that all good places have to pay,” says Gaiman, before protagonist Richard Mayhew literally falls through the cracks and must battle monsters in order to return to the London he knew. This 20-year-old book is classic Gaiman, but the author is ready for an update: he’s currently writing Neverwhere’s sequel, The Seven Sisters.
India
Every author can only communicate her own interpretation of a country, a region, a tiny village. Since each perspective is so personal and rooted in a specific time, it’s impossible for a listener to know if one interpretation encompasses all the nuances of a sprawling, changing landscape. And then comes a book that somehow seems to capture it all. Published 20 years ago, it’s no surprise that Roy’s debut novel won a clutch of prizes: Its portrayal of India (specifically Kerala, in 1969 and 23 years later) through the eyes of a crumbling family and pair of separated twins, is as rich in detail as the country itself.And happy news for fans: Roy has a new novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
Jamaica
Your plane lands. You’re driven to the resort. You hang at the resort. You get back on the plane. That’s a familiar pattern for many people who have traveled to a Caribbean island. Yet Here Comes the Sun shows another side of Jamaica beyond the pristine beaches and cruise ship-ready ports. The book delves into racism, poverty, homophobia, and marginalized groups through the eyes of a woman working at one of those perfect Montego Bay resorts, part of “the fantasy they help create about a country where they are about as important as washed-up seaweed.”For once, I felt like I went to an island and actually saw the truth. As transporting as a good vacation, but also eye-opening.
Australia
Ah, yes. Here we have one of the most prolific travel writers of all. Bill Bryson never met a fact he couldn’t call a friend. Did you know 80 percent of plants and animals that exist in Australia aren’t found anywhere else in the world? Or that there have likely been 150 crocodile attacks in Australia in the last century? Or that in 1967, Australia’s prime minister vanished into the surf in Victoria and was never seen again? It’s true, it’s all true! Bryson’s exuberance for the continent is ridiculously entertaining, and since he also acts as narrator, his little asides, comments, and observations are performed with expert wit. Let’s face the truth: Australia’s far. From everything. If you can’t physically get to it this year or next, you could do worse than let Bryson's voice take you there.
Central America
The buffet is open 24 hours. That’s the first thing you need to know about a cruise. The second thing? Beware offshore excursions. What seems like a lovely escapist holiday vacation for two American families — a two-week cruise down the coast of Mexico and Central America, “poking into the Panama Canal” — turns into a bit of a nightmare when their young children go missing at the beach. The beginning made me want to jump onboard a cruise ship, because there are few places you can be so lazy and helpless and get away with it. But the meat of this thriller with multiple narrators is in how the families (the women are cousins) start to play the blame game. And the result makes me question who I’ll choose to vacation with in the future.
Tokyo
Don’t approach Murakami expecting instant payoff. At least that’s what my friends warned me before I tackled 1Q84, the heralded author’s heftiest book. My previous Murakami experience was limited to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, a meditative take on the sport that obsesses him. This magic-realist tale about a male writer, Tengo, and a female assassin named Aomame can’t be easily summed up, and Allison Hiroto’s calm, measured narration reveals the tangled parallel plot, drip by drip. Meanwhile Tokyo, in its isolating and frenetic way, takes shape: “Nighttime Tokyo poured its light into the room. Tokyo Tower’s floodlights, the lamps lining the elevated expressway, the moving headlights of cars, the lighted windows of high-rise buildings, the colorful rooftop neon signs: they all combined to illuminate the hotel room with that mixed light unique to the big city ... Aomame saw the light with a pang of familiarity. This was the light from the world to which she herself belonged.”
France
Finally, there’s nothing more meta than capping off a summer of listening with a book that celebrates literature in one of the most alluring countries of all. I started this novel during a sunny afternoon walk and fell for our aging lovelorn protagonist, Monsieur Perdu, who prides himself on selecting books for people that will cure what ails them. He’s still obsessed with a woman from his past and travels to the south of France to try and find her. This is a breezy listen, both enjoyable and tinged with nostalgia.
Author Nina George seems to feel the same way many of us do about experiencing the world this way: “He had never had to travel; his conversations with books had been sufficient,” George writes, adding "...until finally he prized them more highly than people.
