Nine books set on trains that show how they changed the world

Emma Donoghue is the author of sixteen novels, including the award-winning national bestseller Room, the basis for the acclaimed film of the same name.

Her latest novel is The Paris Express.

Donoghue has also written the screenplays for Room and The Wonder and nine stage plays. Her next film (adapted with Philippa Lowthorpe from Helen Macdonald’s memoir) is H Is for Hawk.

Born in Dublin, she lives in Ontario with her family.

At Lit Hub Donoghue tagged nine books set on trains and showing how they changed the world. One entry on the list:

Graham Greene, Stamboul Train

Graham Greene’s breakout novel Stamboul Train (1932, retitled Orient Express for the US) is set over a three-day trip from the Flemish city of Ostend to Istanbul. Its colorful cast includes a lesbian journalist and a vain, bestselling author whose portrait was so thinly veiled that J. B. Priestley’s lawyers forced Greene to rewrite twenty pages before publication.

Some find the characterization of Myatt the Jewish businessman nasty, but to me it reads more like Greene’s rueful awareness of pervasive antisemitism in 1930s Europe.

Read about another entry on the list.

Stamboul Train is among Marcus Sedgwick's top ten books about borders.

--Marshal Zeringue