Immerse yourself in your destination by reading something set there, or written by an author from that part of the world. Here are the books that have done that for us, for the places featured on this site.
We pick holiday reading by destination: a novel set where we are going, or by a writer from there, read on the flight out and finished on the beach. Below are the books that have done that for us across fourteen countries, from Steinbeck’s Monterey to Tim Winton’s Perth. There is a printable list at the end.
Bill Bryson
Appalachian Trail. The author walks the trail and attempts to rediscover America.
John Steinbeck
Monterey. A colourful cast of characters working in a sardine cannery during the Great Depression.
Wallace Stegner
Vermont and Wisconsin. Two couples meet and become friends despite their differences.
Hunter S. Thompson
Las Vegas. An exhausting rollercoaster of a drug-fuelled road trip and misadventure.
Andrew Smith
Houston. Space race stories, touchingly told through the astronauts’ memories.
Ocean Vuong
Connecticut. Identity, family and the immigrant experience of a Vietnamese-American man.
Carrie Fisher
Los Angeles. Dry-witted commentary on Hollywood, from first-hand experience.
David Guterson
An island in Puget Sound, north of Seattle. A man accused of murder faces a courtroom whodunnit.
Armistead Maupin
San Francisco. A series set in a shared house, following the cultural changes from the 1970s onwards.
John Steinbeck
A road trip. With his French poodle, to find the real America (1962). Wonderful writing.
Donna Tartt
Vermont. An inverted crime novel involving a group of Classics students at college.
Tim Winton
Perth. A chaotic, character-driven family drama set in one house over twenty years.
M. L. Stedman
Western Australia. 1926: a lighthouse keeper and his wife face a decision that will change their lives.
Ruth Ozeki
British Columbia. Ruth finds the moving diary of a Japanese girl in a lunchbox washed up on a beach.
Lynda A. Archer
Saskatchewan. A cross-generational novel of relationships and secrets.
Allan Weisbecker
Costa Rica. Surfer Max has been missing for five years, and his friend goes looking for him.
Andrew McCarthy
Costa Rica. The Brat Pack actor writes about his travels to avoid settling down.
Agatha Christie
A classic from Agatha, who was famously found in Harrogate after her disappearance in 1926.
Kate Atkinson
York. A generational family saga, narrated by young Ruby trying to make sense of life.
Hans Fallada
Berlin. A wartime thriller following one man’s attempts to defy Nazi rule.
Anna Funder
Berlin. Fascinating true stories from behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany.
Victoria Hislop
Greece. Historical fiction to transport you to Greece and times gone by.
John Fowles
A Greek island. A psychological thriller following an unlikely friendship that develops on an island.
Anthony Doerr
Rome. A memoir of the American author’s year living in Rome and raising twins.
Elena Ferrante
An Italian beach resort. A dark story of a divorcee forced to confront her demons.
Philip Gwynne Jones
Venice. A midlife couple move to Venice, find their feet and slowly become locals.
Barbara Kingsolver
Mexico and the USA. The fictional memoirs of Harrison Shepherd, across the decades and two countries.
F. G. Haghenbeck
Mexico. A fictional account of the artist’s life, based on the discovery of her notebooks.
Jessie Burton
Amsterdam. A mystery unfolds for new wife Nella in a 1680s canal house.
Deborah Moggach
Amsterdam. Love and intrigue during the tulip mania of the 1630s.
Anna Burns
Belfast. Set during the Troubles, when it pays to remain anonymous.
Louise Kennedy
Belfast. A young woman’s naive affair with an older man during the Troubles.
Wilfred Thesiger
The Empty Quarter. A record of Thesiger’s journeys through the desert in the late 1940s.
Jokha Alharthi
An Omani village. The lives and loves of three sisters against changing social norms.
Matt Haig
Ibiza. A retired teacher is left a house in Ibiza by a friend and sets out to work out why.
Rosanna Ley
Seville. A mother’s secrets are unearthed during a quest to make marmalade.
Joseph O’Neill
Dubai. A New York attorney takes a job in Dubai and struggles to thrive as an expat.
Thirty-seven books so far, and the list is lopsided – eleven for America and two for Australia, which is the wrong way round for where we have spent our time lately. Italy, Greece and Australia will get fuller lists of their own. If you have a book that took you somewhere, tell us in the comments and we will read it.
The printable version of this list, sorted by country with space to add your own, is below, and the rest of what we read, watch and use before a trip is on our travel inspiration page.
*Please note, this was last updated in September 2026. We will try to keep it regularly updated every quarter – but we do tend to read a lot of books!