Literary Places by Sarah Baxter
Have you ever read stories with settings so vivid that you felt you could be standing there alongside the characters? Some settings in books have become so iconic and intrinsic to their stories that they serve as active elements rather than passive backgrounds. From dark and brooding to serene and whimsical, authors have been capturing locations around the world and transporting readers for ages. In Literary Places (White Lion Publishing), breathtaking illustrations fromAmy Grimes accompany detailed descriptions by Sarah Baxter to carry you to 25 famous bookish destinations around the globe.As Baxter points out at the beginning of this beautiful book, “Truly great writers recreate not only locations but also eras and histories.” Writers can take you not just to another place in the world, but also to another time entirely. I found this to be the case as soon as I opened my translated copy of Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes took me to the late Middle Ages when a heightened form of chivalry was doggedly pursued by the brave knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza. Their efforts more often than not strayed to misadventure, but heartfelt all the same.
One of the last location highlights that I’ll mention is the Mississippi River, lush with color and full of literary symbolic meaning. Depicted in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Baxter explains that Twain “…worked as a riverboat pilot, gaining intimacy with the Mississippi’s many twists, turns and eddies.” This river sets the scene for his classic tale of exhilarating boyhood adventure and complicated racial relationships.