Sarah Baxter’s Literary Places is an interesting and easy read that takes you to famous literary locations and the novels that immortalized them. Each concise entry is accompanied by Amy Grimes’ charming full-colour illustrations. However, I wish that there was much more diversity because Baxter mostly focused on Europe and North America. Moreover, if you’re hoping for more details and want a more traditional travel guide, this isn’t the book for you.

The book takes you through twenty-five places, including The God of Small Things’ Kerala to the Yorkshire Moors of Wuthering Heights and The Catcher in the Rye’s New York. Each brief section features easy-to-read but engaging writing. Baxter includes interesting and relevant history on each place as well as a simple summary of each novel. I’m excited to check out Naguib Mahfouz’ Palace Walk and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain because the descriptions sparked my interest.

But, the book is sorely lacking in diversity. I was hoping to discover new literary locations in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. I also wanted more non-white authors. Baxter mostly focused on white authors in North America and Europe. The book would be more interesting if more novels from diverse authors and different continents were included.

Each location is accompanied by Grimes’ full-colour illustrations. These simple but effective pictures are lovely and softly coloured. I particularly like the depictions in the Monterey and Kerala sections. However, some pictures needed to be more relevant to each section because they felt too generic.

The book is a succinct introduction to these literary places. It made me want to research the books, authors, and fascinating locations. It also definitely inspired me to consider traveling to these wonderful locations. However, I’m hesitant to call this book a travel guide simply because it does not provide enough details.

Literary Places is a great read which introduces you to famous literary locations. The full-colour illustrations are lovely. However, I wish some pictures were more specific to each location and that the book was much more diverse and included more authors and locations from around the world. But, I enjoyed this book. I hope Baxter and Grimes release another more detailed collection soon. If you love reading about novels, fascinating locations, or are just looking for a light and pretty read, check this book out!

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group - White Lion Publishing for this book in exchange for an honest review.

📖 📖 📖 books out of 5!

A book that discusses places that have been in classic literature, and also the works that get such esteemed settings. You don't really learn a lot about either the books or the sites, although many spoilers still get shoe-horned in. Obviously it's on a hiding to nothing to summarise both Paris AND Les Mis in three pages, but having that first and foremost is a sign this book can't quite achieve what it wants. It's better with, say, the link-up of Dublin and Joyce's writing, mapping out Crime and Punishment, or discussing how Cannery Row the book changed Cannery Row the place. When not literally providing a chart of locations the artwork is a little too disposable, giving the volume a feel of a trivial pocket guide with aspirations of becoming a coffee-table book.

Sophie’s next book was Literary Places by Sarah Baxter, a look at the real world locations that inspired and became integral parts of many classic novels. Each short chapter explores a given location and novel, tying real locations to fictional events or looking at the real buildings that inspired fictional variations.

Literary Places travels all over the world, from New York to Cairo, the Yorkshire Moors to Kabul, London to the Australian Outback. Each of the novels selected is intrinsically linked to its location and could not be transplanted elsewhere. Ulysses could not take place outside of turn-of-the-20th-Century Dublin, nor could Les Miserables take place outside 19th Century Paris, or To Kill a Mockingbird outside the American south in the 1930s.

In the book, Baxter gives a brief overview of the novels she is discussing, then takes us on a short tour of the places that inspired it, pointing out landmarks that can be visited should you wish to take a pilgrimage. This is interspersed with illustrations by Amy Grimes whose bright and bold style helps capture the feel of these varied places. Sophie felt these descriptions were a little short and vague at times, often surprising her by their abrupt endings. This is very much a picture postcard look at these places, not a detailed essay.

Because Literary Places focuses heavily on the so-called Western Canon, the authors featured are not exactly diverse. While authors from around the world are included, of the 25 books featured in this volume, 17 were written by men, and 23 by white people. Books located in Europe account for more than 50% of the total too with the Continents of Africa and South America only covered by two titles each.

Sophie felt that while Literary Places has a great concept, it could have benefited by delving deeper and expanding its horizons a little further.

An interesting read for the reader who loves to travel to the real-life locations of literature. Loved the illustrations.

Quarto publishing always deliver some interesting reads. This book was no exception. Dip in anywhere and you will find something new about the place books you have enjoyed are set or decide to read (even reread) a novel after discovering the real place it was set. What ever way tou approach this book it’s a little gem.

I think I'm always guilty of browsing through NetGalley during my free time, admiring book covers, analyzing synopses, and looking for a unique read. It only seemed right that I would pick up a book about books.

I think I fell in love with this book from the very get-go. It details places around the world that are featured in literary masterpieces. The book has a wonderful format with colorful and vivid drawings accompanied by writing.

The writing is absolutely stunning. What the pictures fail to show, the descriptions make up in sight, sound, and smell. While Sarah Baxter sets you up with the rich history of the setting, she also allows you to follow the story line of the novel.

You learn so much in a compact 144 pages. The book also introduced me to many pieces that I have yet to read and expanded my knowledge on the places I have yet to go. But I am certain that when I make my next trips, it will be so much more enriched knowing the literary value of the places I visit.

For those of us who love literature there could be no better way than spending a few hours in the company of this sumptuous and fascinating book which looks at the locations associated with 25 literary masterpieces from around the world. It is sometimes said that in certain novels the location becomes an all encompassing ever present character that seeps through the very texture of the pages that we read. The locations are so instrumentally and endemically linked to the plot and concept of the books contained here that in most cases the transportation to another place would be quite unthinkable. Could Ulysses work away from Dublin or Les Misérables be the same without Paris?

Sarah Baxter is a travel journalist and is able to provide an atmospheric description of the location. These are so descriptive that for instance one can clearly visualise the small southern town where To Kill a Mockingbird was set. Each novel covered has a summary of the plot which includes where necessary their historical, social and political setting.

The great thing about the book is that it will no doubt inspire readers to search for many of the novels covered here. Some are well known but others are less so. The illustrations are by Amy Grimes and would I suggest need to be studied in detail to reveal their full complexity. The only one I struggled with was that of London which had mountains in the background and seemed slightly divorced from the Dickensian content. This book was certainly a treat and would I feel make an excellent gift for someone who appreciates the relationship between literature and location.

It was so interesting to read a little more about the setting of so many great novels, most which I have seen in person. The illustrations were absolutely beautiful! This book will be very enjoyable for any literature-lover to sit back and flip through.

Thanks to Quarto and Netgalley for this ARC!

A nice read. I would recommend! A very unique book. I loved that it had places from some of my favorite books.

Who hasn't read a book and wished they could just jump straight into its world? The great news is that for a large number of brilliant books, this is absolutely and utterly possible since they're set into our very own world! For me the most vivid memory of this is Barcelona. I fell utterly in love with Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind and wanted nothing more than visit Barcelona and get lost in it. Thankfully I got to do so a few years later and now Sarah Baxter has given me a whole new list of cities and books to visit. Thanks to Quarto, White Lion Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The magic thing about literature is that it transports the reader. Whenever I open a book I travel, explore, learn and discover. Hogwarts may not be real but from the moment I first read the Harry Potter books I could smell the food in the Great Hall, map the old corridors and feel the heat of the fires in the Common Rooms. It's been the same for me with many real places, like I mentioned above with Barcelona. I had a really vivid picture of it in my mind and although the city, of course, was different from what I had pictured, it still felt familiar, like an old acquaintance whose face is a faint memory.

A wide variety of places are covered in Literary Places although none of them are exactly surprising. There's Paris, of course, famous for itself but also for Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. The city may look different from Hugo's heyday, but the feel is still there. Perhaps less famous but equally as attractive to me are the Yorkshire Moors, made immortal by Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights. Just watch me, one of these days I'm going to wear a full-skirted dress and stand in the moors, the wind moving through my hair! Anywats, Sarah Baxter travels across the world in Literary Places, mostly visiting famous cities like Berlin, Cairo and Kabul, but also the culturally important or memorable places such as Monroeville or Hanging Rock. The last chapter is dedicated to the entire country of Chile, inspired by Isabelle Allende's The House of Spirits. The main thing this book reminded me of is just how full this world is of homes. What I mean is that each of the books mentioned in Literary Places were written by people with strong ties and a strong love for their home, which they bring back to live in their writing.

Baxter's writing is charming and simple. She paints vivid pictures with her words, her experience as a travel writer clearly shining through. But there is a strong love for books there as well, which helps her look at all these places anew. If you're looking for active recommendations on where to sleep and what to eat, Literary Places might not be the best book. But if you're hoping to get a sense of how a place feels, what it has meant to those who've written about it, what it continues to mean, then Literary Places is a great read. The book is enormously aided by Amy Grimes' illustrations, which are absolutely stunning. They remind me of those old school travel posters that give an instant classic feel. (You can purchase her art at Hello Grimes, it's stunning!). I wish I could frame the cover of this book, it's gorgeous and is what first drew me to the book.

I loved reading through Literary Places, although ithas a definite coffee table-book vibe to it. Leaving through it, marveling at Grimes' illustrations, your mind will take a journey all on its own. Anyone who wants some literary inspiration for their next holiday, look no further!

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Gives 25 places (Dublin, Paris, etc) and a novel that has taken place there and how it relates. It talks about the place, book, author, inforamtion that go for a few pages with 2-3 images. It is not a long book, nice mix of the information. It can be a nice jump off point if doing anything related to one of the books or topic of books.

This is such a lovely, well illustrated little book that would make a great gift for any literary or travel lover in your life. Detailing classics such as Wuthering Heights and Oliver Twist, as well as modern classics like The Kite Runner. I found some fabulous new places to add to my travel bucket list, as well as some new-found books to add to my TBR.

Would have loved if there was just a bit more detail about each book/place to visit and maybe some formatted highlights to make it easier to pick out information, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

I found this to be a beautiful little book that should grace everyone’s coffee table! I’m curious how the author chose the places she writes about and how she limited it to 25, seems like there could be so many more. Each chapter picks a place where a book is set and she describes how the book fits into the setting, plus a little about the author and the story. Each is beautifully illustrated as well. I especially like it where she outlines a path the traveler can follow to see the specific places from the books. Perfect for a bookworm who loves to travel like me!

This is a pleasant enough little book and would make an ideal present for a bibliophile friend, but it felt very lacking in substance to me. 25 literary places associated with 25 writers – an interesting premise, but each is only sketched out in a couple of pages, and although the illustrations are charming, I would have much preferred actual photographs and maps. There are a plethora of books about writers and places and I don’t feel this one adds anything to the genre.

This was such a great piece! Literary Places is one of those few books that I’ve read as an e-book and would be more than happy to buy as a hardcopy, as well.

Let’s start with the title, though, “Inspired Traveller’s Guide”. I peeked at the worse reviews on Goodreads and realized that the majority of people who rated this book with 3 or less stars did so because they felt mislead by the title. If you’re expecting a lengthy novel which you can use step by step to literally follow the characters of certain novels on their journeys, this is not it.

I, however, had no such expectations. I kind of expected that the book will cover a bunch of locations with brief stories about them and lovely pictures, and even though the book does exactly that, it still impressed me and surpassed my expectations.

Literary Places is a short book which paints luscious landscapes and beautiful, if short, descriptions of literary locations. It takes you through Victor Hugo’s Paris of Les Miserables, the St Petersburg of Crime and Punishment, and Don Quixote‘s La Mancha, as well as some not so popular locations, like the Rock from Picnic at the Hanging Rock, and Kerala from The God of Small Things.

The book offered me a new look into locations which I’ve already visited through reading some, if unfortunately few, of the novels mentioned, but it also inspired me to read many new ones and created an entirely new reading list for me for the upcoming year. It would be a real pleasure to read the books that I hadn’t, now that I’ve read Sarah Baxter’s short guide for them.

The second thing I really liked was the simple, yet attractive way the author makes descriptions. In fact, although the book is very small, it manages to capture the best and most important details, the essence of the literary places:

"THE AFTERNOON is heavy, hazy, lazy; the viscid air, damp as an unwrung sponge, awaits the imminent squeeze of the monsoon. For now, it’s curry-hot, the sun beating indiscriminately on red ants and yellow bullfrogs, whooping coucals and long-legged lily-trotters. It glitters on the corpses of silver fish. It nurtures the mango and jackfruit. Then, finally, the sky cracks."

Or…

"Florence is culturally magnificent, from the priceless art at street level to the tip of the Duomo’s cupola. But there’s also the Florence of the senses, the city that comes alive when you feel its hot sun on your skin. When you loiter over lunch, take a slow passeggiata in the cooling afternoon, watch a pink-orange sunset, sip a glass of good Chianti. When you stop questing for information but think of ‘nothing but the blue sky and the men and the women who live under it’."

I want a plane ticket now!

Lastly, the art of the book is so simple, yet so enticing. It manages to show exactly what the author describes, but to do so while also presenting the location perfectly, so that the reader knows exactly which city we’re talking about, without even having visited them.

Never was a title more apt, as in just a heading, it sums the book up better than any review.

Taking some iconic and other less visited destinations, Sarah Baxter has brought places alive where various books and novels have been set or an author has been influence by such a location.
Charles Dicken's London as described in Oliver Twist, Soweto through the eyes of Nadine Gordimer and Bath where Jane Austen is still remembered and most consider Northanger Abbey and Persuasion as true examples of English Literature.
I enjoyred reading about Paris, Kabul and Cairo, indeed each essay holds some interest for me regardless of the work and author it relates to and despite being a place I'd never considered a travel destination.
Sarah Baxter has a distinct style to make each setting come alive, your senses are stimulated and the artwork of Amy Grimes compliments this wonderfully where photographs would perhaps reflect a different mood. Sarah uses every creative skill to pen a brief discription of the place, including: cliché, alliteration and onomatopoeia. This creates a sence of being there. She also links this with a knowledge of the original location and it's connection to the author of the book that relates to it. Therefore in many cases she enables one to follow in the footsteps of writers with care to connect fiction with streets and buildings.
I absolutely absorbed each chapter and in nearly every case either made me want to pick up the original novel or dream of visiting these special settings for myself.
Overall, it has given me renewed memories of cities I have visited and rekindled an affinity to some treasured books and authors. Any book that both makes you want to visit the places your imagination has taken you and gives you a desire to read more is a sure winner for me.

Literary Places: Inspired Traveller’s Guide by Sarah Baxter, illustrated by Amy Grimes


White Lion Publishing
Nonfiction, travel
March 5, 2019
Rating: 5/5

I received this digital ARC from NetGalley and White Lion Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

A great story allows the reader to travel in time to places that only exist in our imagination. This book focuses on 25 great literary places around the world. Each chapter uniquely illustrated provides a reflection hoping to transport you to those places which we can only visit via the pages of these literary treasures. The author explores the location in regards to history and the author’s vision at that time.

Imagine being in Paris 1800’s during the Enlightenment amidst the squalor and revolution which existed in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. An interesting history of Paris during this era provides a historical perspective of the travails of Jean Valjean. From there you can time travel to Dublin where James Joyce describes the humdrum events in a typical Irish day in Ulysses. Imagine being Léopold Bloom exploring the streets of Dublin on 16 June 1904.

Similarly, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster allows us to see Florence during the resplendent Italian Renaissance. Fast forward to Naples 1950’s as two young girls come of age in My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. You can also imagine Berlin Alexanderplatz in the late 1920’s during a period of hardship and political unrest. Perhaps a trip to a timeless place of simplicity and awe! We might find ourselves in Nordland as described by Knut Hamsun in Growth of the Soil.

Of course, a literary jaunt would not be complete without a stop in St. Petersburg, an imperial Russian city described in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. These are only a sampling of the journey you will take in this book. A lovely guide for those who enjoy the journey as well as the destination.

It’s a short book with description of famous places in literature. Great for someone who absolutely loves reading about certain books. I’ve only read a few of the books that are mentioned in this book.

Covers Les Mis, Ulysses, A Room with a View, Crime and Punishment, Wuthering Heights, The Kite Runner, To Kill a Mockingbird — and more!

A great guide for someone who is familiar with most of the literary locations. I am only familiar with a handful.

This book is about the setting of great literary works, not only in geography, but in history as well. I have been to almost all the places in the book, and the descriptions are very accurate.
Not among the larger books, this one is packed with well written descriptions and outstanding illustrations, making it a "must have" for booklovers.