Roam if you want to, without wings without wheels
Roam if you want to, roam around the world
Roam if you want to, just grab a book and roam around the world…
(Thanks to the B-52’s)
This is the time of year when the winter doldrums can start to set in. I may be one of the few who was doing snow dances…alas they were for naught. I do know I’m tired of the damp, rainy weather and ready for some nicer days. Until then, let your mind take you on a vacation with some books.
Mysteries/Thrillers/Suspense
Colin Cotterill introduces us to Dr. Siri Paiboun, the national coroner of Laos. How can you pass by a title like “Disco for the Departed”? Paiboun is also a shaman, which is a big factor in how he does his job. First book in the series is The Coroner’s Lunch.
John Burdett has a great character, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, in his series set in Bangkok, Thailand. No, I didn’t misspell the name~~Jitpleecheep kicks it off in Bangkok 8 with quite the cast of characters.
Let’s go to Communist Russia with Martin Cruz Smith~~starting with Gorky Park where we first meet Moscow’s Chief Homicide Inspector Arkady Renko. Watched closely by the KGB, the Kremlin…Renko is an abnormality in Russia… honest, smart, and doesn’t accept the party line……
James Church takes us, of all places, to Pyongyand, North Korea were we are introduced to Inspector O in A Corpse in the Koryo. Little info about James Church, he is a former intelligence who spent most of his time in Asia.
Alexander McCall Smith and his No 1 Ladies Detective Series take us around Africa~~Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique and many others in the southern parts of Africa are mentioned.
Let’s go to Dublin with In the Woods by Tana French…and see who comes out. Three kids go in, one is found later on. Twenty years later history seems to repeat itself.
I enjoy police Detective Harry Hole in Jo Nesbo’s procedurals’ set in Oslo, Norway. We first meet Harry in Redbreast. Hole can be his own worst enemy at times, but he is fascinating to follow. I am going to say here and now~~~I like Jo Nesbo's series much better then Steig Larson's series...I feel so much better now. 
C.J. Sansom has a great series set in 1545 Tudor England with Matthew Shardlake. The series kicks off with Dissolution. Mystery and historical fiction doesn’t come much better than Sansom.
Andrea Camilleri takes us to Sicily, beginning with Shape of Water, where we tag along as Inspector Salvo Montalbano solves murders and eats great food!
Dona Leon~~We meet Commissario Guido Brunetti for the first time in Death at La Fenice, where he takes us around Venice as he solves murders, and here again, he describes wonderful food!
Henning Mankell’s Inspector Kurt Wallander solves murders in Sweden….and surprise! Nothing is as it seems. Take a trip to Sweden and meet Wallander in the first of the series, Faceless Killers.
John le Carre~~it’s le Carre, espionage doesn’t get any better than this. I was hooked with his first one, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and I have been a fan every since.
Non-Fiction
Jon Krakauer takes to Nepal, the Himalayas, and an ill-fated climb up Mt. Everest in Into Thin Air. What makes someone want to climb this mountain….with the possibility that they might not make it down.
With Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan we end up in Palestine and listen to the viewpoints of an Arab, a Jew and how the county of Israel came to be. Fascinating history from WWII that I never realized.
In Candice Millard’s Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey the River of Doubt we go with the former president down the Amazon River, and what an adventure we have!
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, where he shares with us his first year there. Some laugh out loud moments as he and his wife experience life in Luberon, restoring an old stone farm house, getting to know his neighbors…and the description of the food and the wine. This one is on my personal book shelf.
I could go on and on about books that take you a place that you have always wanted to go, there are many and I have given you just a few to consider.
Dave Barry said once that reading is a vacation for the mind…treat yourself to one.
Happy Reading!
