What’s the setting of one of your favorite novels? Why are you drawn to it?
What’s the setting of one of your favorite novels? Why are you drawn to it?
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What’s the setting of one of your favorite novels? Why are you drawn to it?
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I don’t know why but, I’m just drawn to old New York.
You might enjoy “Church of Marvels”, if you haven’t read it already.
@Erin I’ll check that out. Thanks!
Hope you enjoy it! I recommended it to my mom and when she read it once, she started it again from page one because she loved it so much.
@Erin That’s great!!!!!
The Nightingale-France-I love to read WWII novels. Some are difficult to read but since the people affected went through so much, I can at least read about it and try to understand.
Chita: a Memory of Last Island. Based on real life events of a resort island off the coast of Louisiana that was wiped out by a hurricane in the mid 1800’s. It reminds me of my favorite place, Grand Isle, which is Louisiana’s last remaining inhabited island.
I live in Louisiana and have been to Grand Isle. Do you live nearby?
@Vicki in South Lousiana! Live 2.hours from the coast, but spend as much time as possible down there.
@Vicki I just looked at your page and saw that you work for LPSB. I worked for Tangi schools for 20 years and recently retired
I live in Hammond.
I also love old NewYork, but I’ll take Edith Wharton’s version in House of Mirth and Age of Innocence
The Keeper of List Causes. Denmark. The story is very good. The people are wonderful. I get to travel by reading.
South Carolina-Prince of Tides
The Light Between the Oceans… have always loved lighthouses.
Angela’s Ash’s…bleak poverty in Ireland…constant rain..so poor toast as a meal…drunken father and stoic mother.
Arizona/New Mexico. Whether it be Betty Webb, J. A. Jance, Tony or Ann Hillerman, or even Jon Talton. Love characters Lena Jones, Joanna Brady, Ali Reynolds, Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn, Bernadette Manualito and all the characters who surround them.
The fire escape of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Also Hogwarts ✨ And Macondo from One Hundred Years of Solitude. All of these locations have an element of secrecy, of magic, and remind me of the comfort and wonder I felt first reading about them
I totally get what you mean about that fire escape.
The pubs of Edinburgh in the Ina Rankin novels
I love to go to Nantucket in Elin Hilderbrand’s novels. It’s just a yearly escape where I can enjoy seaside nature and island culture!
Ireland – Circle of Friends
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Not my favorite story, necessarily. But Savannah, Georgia is a beautiful place to visit.
Tony Hillerman’s books (and now his daughter Anne’s) set in the Four Corners of SW USA. I love how the Native American culture, and the landscape, and the mysteries, are woven together.
New Orleans in Anne Rice’s Feast of All Saints. I love NOLA a lot, it’s a fascinating city and history.
Hogwarts – loved the adventure and mystery of it. How it provides a sense of nostalgia without having ever experienced it firsthand.
Like so many other people, I fell in love with Savannah while reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It’s just such a beautiful place with so much history.
Love visiting Savannah!
I live in Savannah, actually just 10 minutes out of Savannah now and I love visiting scenes from the book.
@Angela Wow, lucky you!
England
Scotland
John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee mysteries, because I lived in Broward County (SE FL).
West Egg because at heart I’m a hopeless romantic
Scotland!
Manderley
Appalachian Mountains- The Last of the Mohicans
Totally agree!
Ireland
England, I guess because of DNA.
Outer banks
England
Ireland. When it is written about right the author can capture the magic of the land. Like, The Irish County series by Patrick Taylor or Forever by Pete Hamill.
I like the Irish Country series. Reading the books is like visiting old friends.
Scotland…Loved the story so much I went to Scotland and fell in love with the country!!!
I like Sara Paretsky’s V I Warshawsky set in Chicago. Another author from Chicago that I like is Michael Raleigh. His detective, Paul Whalen lives in the Uptown neighborhood. I live here in Chicago and love it.
Not a novel, but The Devil in the White City made me want to see the park with all the great exhibition halls, and the new Ferris wheel. I love Chicago and I would love to be transported back to the time in history.
This was suach a good book.
Loved it. My family is from Chicago and I have a set of Haviland China purchased at the exhibition by a relative.
Great book!
Most of my favorite novels are set in various spots around the U.K. Something about the climate and the people draw me there. Someday I’d like to go and wander the countryside.
And, I would love to see the Lakes region of England and Grassmere cottage where Dorothy and William Wordsworth lived for a time…Reading Dorothy’s journals made that countryside come alive for me.
Cold Mountain because it’s in the South..
Historical fiction.. all the places it leads me. 🙂
Hogwarts
Colorado, Smoke Jensen
The U.K., particularly Scotland
New York
Prince Edward Island for Anne Shirley books!
Ireland. Always Ireland ?
Cold mountain, always been pulled towards westerns and stories of our history, coming across the nation, being the first to see the Rocky Mountains in a wagon train, coming down a river, being around before big civilization moved in!
Folly Beach, SC
Which books? I’m from South Carolina.
The South. As written by Pat Conroy and Nicholas Sparks and even V. C. Andrews.
I fell in love with North Carolina because of Nicholas Sparks books.
same. I think I am going to read the ones I haven’t read over the summer.
Maine, Delores Claiborne,
Scotland!
Australia (Thorn Birds) I’m drawn to the harshness of the land; how unforgiving it is and how the human spirit rises above these difficulties. It led me to read The Dry by Jane Harper which also takes place in Australia. The heat got me just like the heat is getting to me today!
The Dry was fantastic! It’s like I could hear the crackle of the vegetation throughout.
I read a lot of books set in England and Ireland. I’m not really sure why I’m drawn to them, maybe because my ancestors came from the British isles.
My ancestors also came from England…in 1635….and I definitely feel an affinity for the UK…I always thought I would go and see it all, but, unfortunately, I doubt that will happen now.
My dad, uncle and grandparents emigrated from England after WWII. I have always been partial to anything set in the UK.
New Orleans. Atmosphere and angst. Lol.
The stark, bleak, lonely landscape of West Texas and Mexico in All The Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian, and others portrayed in Cormac McCarthy Novels, and then the incredible contrast in All The Pretty Horses of the Ranch.in Bolsón de Cuatro Ciénegas. It represents wide open spaces and freedom, self and discovery, the unknown.
Cornwall coast. Most of Daphne du Maurier’s books were set in this region of U.K.
Any place in Europe from the past
I’m drawn to London because it is such a diverse, WALKABLE city with wonderful parks everywhere. Years ago I read a short book called The Perfect London Walk and followed that walk and fell totally in love with Hampstead (about 20 minutes outside of central London.) So many great British mysteries are set in and around London. I was, and am, drawn to Yorkshire because of James Herriot’s books, and I would love to visit Botswana since I love the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Cry the Beloved Country made me want to visit South Africa.
Wasn’t “The Perfect London Walk” written by Roger Ebert? We followed his directions to Hampstead Heath. It was wonderful!
Scotland
Shion Miura’s A Great Passage. Setting: a publishing house discussing words, shades of meaning, and the involved process of creating a new dictionary in Tokyo.
Hogwarts…Because MAGIC!
The United Kingdom
Three Pines. It’s the whole picture …. The calm the beauty, the shared aloneness and the welcoming (for the most part) characters.
Usually like wilderness scenes as i fell in love with “Walden” , but have been reading early america settings & revolutionary era wilderness novels & historical fiction, plus i have been drawn to WW2 Love stories after finding my parents love letters in a box my mom had saved til she passed, they had written when my Dad was in Europe as a paratrooper
That is so amazing. Where did he serve during the war?
Scotland with Jamie and Claire
Kingsbridge in Pillars of the Earth. The community that pops up there is like family to me. I’ve missed that book since I finished it.
I have never been there, the Low County in Pat Conroy’s books. The setting is actually a character in his novels.
Love Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit hole (cozy and round?) and living under the clock in the Borrowers and the “hidden” Victorian mansion in Gone-Away Lake and the secret cottage in Mandy and….. I think I detect a theme! I probably would have zero problems being in the Witness Protection Program! ?
Yoknapatawpha County. I love his ability of character development
Narnia!! Walking trees and talking animals!
England, the language- new words for ordinary items
Discworld. It’s one of the most ridiculous and one of the most sublimely human places created.
I really like world war two stories set in Europe. I just find them fascinating.
The Village of Three Pines…seems so quaint and out of the way?
Any state in the south. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is one if my favorite novels and is so southern.
England–the moors, the Yorkshire Dales, Lyme Regis, Cornwall, London, and, of course, the Globe
can’t wait to get to heaven by fannie flagg is set in a lovely little town, i wish i lived there
Post-apocalypse America (The Stand) and pre-historic Europe (Clan of the Cave Bear). In both, people travel vast expanses to find others and make connections. The settings are so foreign to anything else I’ve ever read. ❤️
Yeah I loved the setting of the stand too.
Scotland.
Prince Edward island
A lot of my favorites take place in London, but a swing through the Channel Islands would be terrific too.
I tend to gravitate towards WWII books when it comes to a setting. France, England, Italy, during that era. Also Japan, Poland and Germany I find so interesting during the war. Although I think my favorite setting ever is the lowcountry of South Carolina in one of my favorite books ever The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy.
Amen to Prince of Tides.
Boston
I like the Pacific Northwest, so forks, WA, in twilight.
Also, Rebecca, Manderelay, a country estate.
Three Pines, from Louise Penny. A perfect community: good food, good people, a beautiful environment and a bookstore 🙂
I totally agree! I could live there!
Ditto.
I also like the setting of district 12 in the hunger games.
Anything early 20th century New York (a la “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”).
Baroness Blixen’s home in Nairobi.
I love novels that take place in New England.
I love historical fiction no matter where.
In winter, I love a snow mystery,or adventure like Annapurna,
In the autumn I must read a novel that takes place with cider, pumpkins and foliage, and maybe some adventure thrown in,
I love reading books by Tana French around St, Patrick’s Day. Her mysteries take place in Ireland.Kristin Hannah has brought me to the West Coast and introduced me to the Seattle area. James Patterso in his Private series has brought me all over the world.
“So as you can see, reading has brought me great pleasure
And taken me many places
Sounds like my kind of reading!
I assume you’ve read William Martin. If not, it sounds like you’d enjoy his stuff.
Just added him to my list .
So many of my favorite books are set in London. Since l spent two years there, teaching, it wasn’t a hard ” call “.
I love Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, set in both the real and a fantasy London.
@Cheryl After reading quite a few Maeve Binchey books, l went to Dublin for a weekend, just so l could walk up and down on Grafton Street!
I like to see the settings of the books l read.
@Marcia Love Maeve Binchey. Would love to go to Ireland.
@Priscilla well, if you save money by using the library instead of buying books, you could start an Ireland fund!
@Marcia You are right… but I do like having books around. The library gets so fussy when you don’t return them. They have no sense of humor.
@Priscilla yes, but their fussiness could get you to Ireland…and a stroll down Grafton Street and a free Guiness at the brewery!?
Grafton and Guiness – I’m in !!
@Priscilla It was GREAT way to spend the day.
I can only imagine. It’s a dream of mine.
Great Britain. From stone age to modern times 75% or more takes place somewhere in Great Britain. so does my TV viewing.. acorn and britbox all the way.
Mountains of North Carolina or Tennessee.
Yorkshire UK, think James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small
I fell in love with Yorkshire because of Herriot too, then that wonderful seventeen year britcom series, Last of the Summer Wine cemented that feeling.
Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer. Because the river provides, and everyone who has ever lived is reincarnated by the river.
Coastal Cornwall , England. InThe Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.
Middle Earth, Hobbiton, The Shire. I love high fantasy and no one has done it better than Tolkien. Having never traveled far outside the U.S. I had no idea that Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Middle Earth would so perfectly fit New Zealand. A variety of weather/climates, but beautiful.
A boys school in Devon.
Central Texas because it’s close to my home
I also love Ireland and stories and novels set there, such as those by Maeve Binchy.
Love her books!
I think England too and Europe, Paris of Hemingway but also England and Wales of the Arthurian and Merlin stories.but second thought, New York too and New Mexico of the Tony Hillerman stories.
Three Pines – because the residents care about each other
I wish it was real!
I love the gothic south so I’ll read anything where there is a strong sense of that in the writing. There’s just something about old trees, a violent past, and humidity that brings out the spooky loveliness of Charleston, NoLa, Savannah, etc.
I love the Graveyard Queen series even though it’s not literary fiction because Charleston and Beaufort county are basically characters.
I grew up in South Florida I never thought of the humidity as any kind of loveliness however my hair looked spooky most of the time.
Which books in Charleston do you like? I’m from SC.
@Janice I don’t count Florida in this. I just moved away from 5 miserable years in St. Pete. It’s got the humidity all right, but without the charm.
@Gretchen Amanda Stevens’ The Restorer is my favorite. I’d love other recommendations as well.
In terms of Charleston, a book with a Southern Gothicness is Why We Never Danced The Charleston by Harlan Green. Probably the best Southern Gothic writer from SC I’ve read is Sherri Reynolds, though her books don’t take place in Charleston.
Bitter Root Landing is the one I’d recommend by Sherri Reynolds if you want something more Southern Gothic.
@Gretchen yay! Thanks. I’ll read them all!
New Orleans The Witching Hour, Interview with the Vampire
Hogwarts, renaissance England, Botswana, Zafon’s old Barcelona, the renaissance italy of artemesia, deep russian winters in St. Petersburg with Anna Karenina…the foggy, damp London of William and Hester Monk
18th Century Scotland in Outlander. Beautiful country and old castles.
Newfoundland- The Shipping News
Three Pines because I feel as if I have friends there!
The Three Pines—in my mind it is beautiful and filled with friendship
So thankful for Netflix, and Britbox!
English countryside….peaceful and nature
Narnia and Perelandra are CS Lewis’ marvelous fantasy worlds. That Hideous Strength is his dystopia set in a lovely and lovingly described English university town.
The Discworld…that whole freaky flat planet…so diverse, so weird.
Hogwarts- England, Scotland
Seaside village, or secluded old village.
Prince Edward Island, Canada The way LM Montgomery describes it, it has to be one of the most delectable feasts for the senses ever put on earth. I trust Anne’s renaming implicitly.
I, too, thought it must be wonderful. Then I had the good fortune to see it. It is glorious!
I had a great uncle born on PEI. I loved hearing him talk about living there.
It’s on my bucket list
Manderly. After staying a few days at Rydal Hall, a large English manor house (first part built as a tavern in the 1600s) I love grand homes.
For some reason I’m drawn to novels that take place in the south. I’ve always wanted to visit.
Don’t come in the summer lol! The heat index averages around 105-115 here in the SC low country ?
@Kim I live in Maryland. It will be a grossly hot and humid day here this weekend. I can only imagine further down south! Stay cool!
@Carole thanks! You too!
The Great Alone – her depiction of Alaska is so vivid, I need to put on a coat for the winter scenes. She really grasped the wild beauty of the country
Rivendell, Middle Earth
Outlander- the Scottish part (where I was born) and the NC part (my current home) but especially in the past, more wild and rural.
I like books set in the English countryside or in London. That’s my favorite!
Scotland
Milford! Would love to live there… idyllic, small town, lovely neighbors, friendly, I would love Father Tim to be my pastor.
The Metropol Hotel in Moscow. I just love that gentleman in Moscow with all his elegance, wit, wisdom, kindness and decency. He showed us how to live a rich full life in restrained circumstances, and the setting itself is one of the most important parts of the novel.
Sooo right!!!! There isn’t a day that I don’t think of Count Rostov and put a smile on my face!!?
Any place cozy! I remember this from my first reading of the Boxcar Children. They went to a dump and found a teacup without a handle. There was such excitement as they washed it and used it for the littlest one!
Scotland
Watership down
Scotland
Gone with the wind, love Atlanta, Savannah, and of course Charleston..
I’m going to reread that if I can for the gar
Verona Italy
That’s a coffee ?
That Summer in Sicily by Marlena De Blasi. She transports you to Sicily,home of my ancestors.
Wales
Oh, so many! I love books with a strong sense of place. Under the Tuscan Sun – makes me want to live in a small town in Italy – sunshine, rolling hills, lunch on the terrace . . . I also love Jan Karon’s Mitford – would love to live in that idyllic small town in the mountains of North Carolina.But I’d love to visit Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, too! And who wouldn’t want to join Mary Lennox in her Secret Garden? Over the past couple of years I’ve read several mystery novels set in Cornwall in England – makes me want to rent a cottage and explore it all summer!
Murder on the Orient Express – which I’m re-reading now. Romantic train travel – opulence, a private state room with a sleeper, fine dining, being waited on. No “murder” please, but all the rest is on my bucket list.
Our bucket list too Ivan! Actually would love to be on a number of these settings where a live experience of you being a character in the novel is involved in a dinner show on a travel experience!
Gettysburg. Love the book The Killer Angels. Have visited the battlefield several times always looking out for the 20th Maine monument.
Love the Donna Leon books that take place in Venice, my favorite place in the world. The history, art, food, people, glass,beautiful Venison masks, the list goes on & on.❤??❤
Death on the Nile. Imagine floating down the Nile in a small luxury ship.
Any where in the mountains.
I love books set in India. Passage to India is one of my favorite books. I also liked The Space Between Us.
I’m reading that this very minute!
Try The Widows of Malabar Hill – it’s fairly new.
Shantaram was fantastic
M M Kaye was a favorite too. I loved Far Pavilions.
Middle Earth
Moors in Yorkshire from Wuthering Heights. Yorkshire is a magical place.
India from the book Lion…
A SEPARATE PEACE love the,sea eruptions of the private school, Devon. Narrator revisits it 15 years after graduation. Great scenes, even the sad few.
Love reading fiction stories based on or about Nantucket.
That Camden Summer. I want to buy a fixer upper on the beach and have clambakes.
Thomas Hardy, and the Brontes…. must have something to do with a prior life
I have wuthering heights on my Libby shelf.
Corfu. The description of the landscape and of the people made it most enticing
Books set in the south
The Cider House Rules-Beautiful New England winters.
The North Carolina mountains in books 4-8 of the Outlander series. I so want to move to Fraser’s Ridge and live there!
I have the first one checked out ready to read.
Such a great series!
Pat Conroy
I, too, love books with wonderful settings. In some of the best ones, the setting constitutes a character.
Books set on new orleans. James Lee Burke
Louise Penny’s books set in the Eastern townships of Quebec, and the fictional village of Three Pines .
Venice. The City of Fallen Angels. Fell in love & then went & loved it.
Always the beach… my home.
Italy. Must be in my genes.
England, then and now. So much fun to picture the settings, especially if I have visited there
New Orleans The Witching Hour
I have no idea what magnolias smell like but boy do I love a southern novel with all the grandeur both character and setting.
Magnolias smell amazing. I can’t even describe it. I have two in my yard and sometimes I break off the blossoms and bring them inside
Same here. But people with bad allergies couldn’t do that
The Prince of tides.. Lush , ocean front living
Leon Uris’ Trinity set in late 19th-early 20th cent. Ireland really brought the culture and history alive for me.
I loved this book
Little Women: love the family aspect!
Alaska. Any book by Dana Stabenow.
Scotland – have read the entire “Outlander” series, and got to visit Scotland (land of my ancestors) last year, so now I’m obsessed with reading anything I can that is set in Scotland.
Ardmore Bay, Ireland ??
I like Mark Helprin’s novel, Winter’s Tale, for its setting in New York City during the Belle Epoque. It is a fantasy historical novel with lots of transportation motifs.
Great story! I felt i could SEE the scenery as they skated and sleighed up the rivers with the cold crisp air frosting noses as they went!
Outlander books, are so great because it takes me through different settings…Scotland, France, The Indies, and America. It’s never boring and geographically very descriptive.
I loved the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Unbelievable so little they had. But the children seemed to be very content. And they used their imagination to create new ideas and how to handle problems.
River Heights, USA of the Nancy Drew books. A place l’ve wanted to visit since childhood.?
I am drawn to stories about living in postCivil War in the North. Especially New York City and states closest to us.
I love books written about the south and I do love a southern author….and I am from Georgia.
If you have never read Cold Sassy Tree, You certainly need to
Read it and loved the book!
@DianneI I live in Savannah, and I was born in Tennessee. I like books set in the south too. Have you read The Invention of Wings and A Tangled Mercy?
the capitol!
Thanks for the names I will def look them up.
Scotland. The kilts?
The Language of Flowers. It’s set here in my city. I feel like I’m following them around. ❤️