Thursday, May 18, 2006

"Books That Triggered Writers' Wanderlust"

LITERATURE has long shaped desire, including the lust for travel. Curl up in a chair, in St. Paul or Encinitas or New Rochelle, open a volume of Robert Louis Stevenson, Gabriel García Márquez or Isak Dinesen and discover new worlds, full of treasure seekers, smoky Paris cafes and vast sand-swept spaces dotted with scrubby brush under which zebra sleep.
So opens Susan Lehman's article, "Books That Triggered Writers' Wanderlust" in the New York Times.

E. L. Doctorow, Walter Mosley, Tom Wolfe, and Lorrie Morre are among the writers who share "what books most made them want to light out for the territory."

Have you got a book that makes you want to travel to its setting? Let me know at bolling DOT binx AT gmail DOT com.

--Marshal Zeringue