LITERARY LISTOGRAPHY 1: Cities and Countries I have travelled to via literature (that I would like to visit IRL)

By Michelle Nathan

Hello friends! This month I’m writing the first post of a new series that I am embarking upon called Literary Listography, named after a book that my friend bought me for my birthday last year. This book is jam packed with countless list topics that are left blank for you to fill out, so that you can finally definitively decide who your favourite authors are, which books you think would be better left unread and characters that you’d love to go on a date with (if only they weren’t fictional, *sigh* :P) The result? Hours of organised, literary-based fun!

The first list that I have spent many hours pondering over is ‘Cities and Countries that I have travelled to via literature.’ The below book choices have taken me across the globe without me ever having to move from my cosy reading spot, and have inspired me to hopefully travel there in real life one day. While these books may not always be the best representation of the places they are set in, they’ve opened my eyes to new cities, cultures and experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise known existed, and encouraged me to educate myself about these real places that I first discovered through fictional stories.

Review: The Essex Serpent

I’m a sucker for a book award. I don’t always agree with the verdict, but slap a ‘Winner’ sticker on any novel and it will rocket to the top of my reading list. Call it curiosity, call it elitism, call it argumentative, call it whatever; if a book has been called ‘the best’, I want to find out why.

Hence my reading for this month: Waterstones’ Book of the Year 2016, Sarah Perry’s second novel The Essex Serpent.

Spoilers under the cut!

BOOK CLUB: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Happy New Year everybody! So December’s Book Club post is a few days (ahem, a week) late, but as one bud was out of the country over the holiday period and the others were passed out on their sofas after consuming insane amounts of Christmas food, we’ll let it slide this once…! This month we took on C.S Lewis’ classic high-fantasy tale, where four children climb through a wardrobe into the magical world of Narnia, filled with witches, talking lions, thinly veiled Christian mythology and Turkish Delight. Let’s get right to it!

 

SPOILER WARNING: The following post contains major spoilers for the plot of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.