Six books that encourage tourism

Oberlin professor Anne Trubek's new book, A Skeptic’s Guide to Writers' Houses, has been hailed as "a remarkable book: part travelogue, part rant, part memoir, part literary analysis and urban history."

At The Week magazine she tagged six books that draw visitors to their authors' home towns.

One title on her list:

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Twain’s novel about Americans traveling through Europe and the Holy Land mocks Americans’ penchant for tacky tourism: “We find a piece of the true cross in every old church we go into... And as for the bones of St. Denis, I feel certain we have seen enough of them to duplicate him if necessary.” What would he make of the Twain-land erected in his hometown of Hannibal, Mo.?

Read about another book on Trubeck's list.

The Innocents Abroad also appears on Michael Oren's five best list of books that vividly capture the long history of America's encounters with the Arab world and among Laura Landro's five best travel books.

--Marshal Zeringue