5 Books That Transport You to Other Worlds

Many of us have more time to read during the summer than during the rest of the year —  well, at least those of us who didn’t launch a Kickstarter campaign. I’m hoping to make Getting Naked for Money next summer’s best-selling beach book. But beach books are not (necessarily) what I’m covering here.

I asked several friends to choose books that have some significance to them, for whatever reason; all that I required is that they be grouped around a common theme. Beach books might indeed turn up on my roster in the future. But not today.

***

My first guest book recommender, the very accomplished travel writer Judith Fein, writes of her selections: “I chose these books because they are not travel books, per se, but they transport you to other worlds in a deep, passionate, meaningful way.”

They are:

The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca, by Tahir Shah. Casablanca was never described in a more crazy, soulful, mystical, colorful manner. It’s a world of jinns and appeasing spirits to build a dream house.

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler: A gripping fictionalized account of the terrifying pogrom against the secret Jews of Lisbon in 1506, and the auto-da-fe that still haunts the city.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky: One fish –cod–changed the world and impacted empires, slavery, the worldwide economy, wars, and life in Atlantic Canada.

Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez. Lopez whisks you away to the Far North where Eskimo hunters, icebergs, exotic lights and inaccessible landscapes take on a dreamy, inspiring quality.

Long Life, Honey in the Heart, by Martin Prechtel. A moving, profound, and personal look inside the world of the living Maya in Santiago de Atitlan, Guatemala in the tumultuous 1980’s.

***

Judith Fein is an award-winning travel journalist who has contributed to more than 110 publications. She is the author of the best-selling book Life is a Trip: the transformative magic of travel and the recent The Spoon from Minkowitz: A Bittersweet Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands (with Discussion Guide), which just garnered a gold award for best travel book of the year from the Society of American Travel Writers.

Judith’s TEDx talk on Deep Travel is about how to travel beneath the surface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GErjagMyrYk&feature=youtu.be

Sometimes, Judith takes people on exotic trips where they can travel deeply. For information about trips, books, and blogs, go to www.GlobalAdventure.us

Tags: summer reading, travel, travel writer