I am looking for fiction books that take you to another place and are very good with the setting in place and time, the same feeling you get from watching a film that whisks you away to the belle Epoque in Paris, or 16th century Holland, or takes you on a journey through the present day Riviera, or explores lesser known nooks in Japan, the feeling you get from a story that envelops you in a place and time and has that smell of the location or place in history. A night in Berlin during the cold war, or a few weeks amongst a small community in the mountains, or that vibe you get in a bond movie when you're in a location and exploring a new place and it's just exciting and fun to "be" there. Could be non fiction but I'd prefer really good novels if possible. I'd particularly like to visit the Belle Epoque in Paris, or feel like I'm in a long afternoon in a hot country, lolling around with stories. Fiction set in the real world ideally, no fantasy though magic realism or heightened realism is fine.
Other books I've read and enjoyed that are of another place or time would be things like girl with a pearl earring, Empire of the sun, room with a view, a passage to India,the beach, most things by William Boyd but something like any human heart or stars and bars, and something like Papillon or Count Of Monte Christo or Shantaram, Moby Dick and possibly even The girl with the dragon tattoo insofar as it's thrilling and in a non UK location. (though I found I really didn't enjoy Shantaram in the end, for various reasons). Others I've read and slightly fit this criteria:Demon Copperhead, Catch – 22, fear and loathing in las Vegas, lots of bill Bryson, Gulliver's travels, beware of pity …
by troutmaskreplica2
7 Comments
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – 1970s San Francisco
Janet Frame, *Owls do Cry*, and C.K. Stead, *All Visitors Ashore* – 1950s New Zealand.
Maybe try The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan. It’s about ballet dancers in Belle Epoque Paris and I remember it being very detailed and immersive.
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute.
Perfect
The age of innocence by Edith Wharton. Captures New York in the late 1800s perfectly. Food, dress, houses.
Chocolat by Joanne Harris “ Vianne Rocher arrives in a small French village and opens a chocolate boutique. The store is a treasure of chocolatey delights that lure the conservative villagers in, despite it being Lent, much to the dismay of Father Reynard.”