Reading. We all do it, most of us not frequently enough.
I love a good book. There is nothing better than sitting down with a glass of wine and reading a stormy (or sunny) afternoon away. However, I don’t often get the chance to indulge. I’m one of these people who’ll be reading a good book for months on end; a little here and a little there.
Unfortunately, every time I tend to pick up a book, a little switch in my mind clicks and decides that it’s time for a nap.
But when I’m on holidays, it’s a totally different reality altogether. Seemingly endless flights and bus trips give that perfect forced time to read, and the last time I was in Europe, I was known for skipping a boring tour or a binge drinking session in favour of sitting somewhere with a coffee and ploughing through some chapters.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not about to skip sightseeing altogether in favour of a good read, but I like to travel slow and take time to almost ‘get bored’ in a city. And sometimes the best part of travel is sitting back with simple things (like coffee, or a glass of wine) while watching the world go by like a local.
With this upcoming trip, I’m travelling to a few regions that are still considered off the beaten tourist path. For that reason, I logically hit up Goodreads in hunt of some interesting, compelling reads based in the countries I’d be visiting. Then, of course, I through in some extras as I’m nothing if not ambitious!
The Alienist - Caleb Carr
This had been on my radar for quite a while now. I remember picking it up in a bookshop a number of years ago, though obviously I never purchased it. Now that they’re pushing the upcoming TV series featuring total favourites Daniel Brühl and Luke Evans, I figured it this was a pressing now or never read.
A crime novel with a Jack the Ripper feel set in corrupt New York – what’s not to love?
“A society-born police reporter and an enigmatic abnormal psychologist–the “alienist” of the title–are recruited in 1896 by New York’s reform police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt to track down a serial killer who is slaughtering boy prostitutes.”
Wolf by Wolf - Ryan Graudin
One of the best books I have ever read (and that is saying a lot!) was a young adult book called The Walled City by Ryan Graudin. Based on the infamous Kowloon Walled City, the story was told from the POV of three dynamic and complex characters; a young man with a gun and a secret, a teenage girl sold into sex slavery dreaming of freedom and a young female street-rat, upping her chance of survival by posing as a boy.
It was an intense, hard hitting page turner that I couldn’t put down and highly recommend whenever given the chance.
Obviously, I’m hoping Ryan’s other works are just as good.
“Once upon a different time, there was a girl who lived in a kingdom of death. Wolves howled up her arm. A whole pack of them-made of tattoo ink and pain, memory and loss. It was the only thing about her that ever stayed the same. Her story begins on a train.
Germania, 1956. Over ten years since the Nazis won the war. 18-year-old Yael is part of the resistance, and she has just one mission: to kill Hitler.”
It seems to sweep from Germany through to a motorcycle filled, alternate Japan which are three things that are right up my alley.
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts - Julian Rubinstein
The title says it all, really. It sounds so quirky that there was no way I could pass it up.
“Elmore Leonard meets Franz Kafka in the wild, improbably true story of the legendary outlaw of Budapest. Attila Ambrus was a gentleman thief, a sort of Cary Grant–if only Grant came from Transylvania and was a terrible professional hockey goalkeeper. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. Arrayed against him was perhaps the most incompetent team of crime investigators the Eastern Bloc had ever seen: a robbery chief who had learned how to be a detective by watching dubbed Columbo episodes; a forensics man who wore top hat and tails on the job; and a driver so inept he was known only by a Hungarian word that translates to Mound of Ass-Head.”
Night Soldiers - Alan Furst
I found this through a random google search looking for novels set in Bulgaria. While this doesn’t exactly match the criteria, it sounded far too intriguing to pass by. After all, every holiday needs at least one dark tale of the KGB.
“Bulgaria, 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin’s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. Night Soldiers masterfully re-creates the European world of 1934–45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.”
The Keep - F. Paul Wilson
Its Vampires vs Nazis.
Seriously. That’s the plot.
“”Something is murdering my men.”
Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. And when an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find a something that’s both powerful and terrifying. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims.”
