Edited to add: this is a new edition of a book originally published in November, 2022. It’s not clear in the publisher’s description what, if anything, has been updated.

The premise of this book is fascinating: a collection of short essays by beloved writers about their pivotal travel experiences, accompanied by maps illustrated just for this book and photographs of some of the locations being described. Unfortunately, for me the book failed to live up to its promise. Each of the essays is short (3-4 page), and describe the writers’ travels in some detail without spending too much time digging more deeply into the ways that travel affected their writing. An example is the essay on Arthur Conan Doyle. We learn that Doyle was ready to move on from Sherlock Holmes and traveled to Switzerland to try to rid himself of the pressure to create more Holmes stories. What he found instead was a convenient way to kill off Holmes (dropping him off a mountain). After his return to England he gave in to the pressure and wrote more Homes stories. The end. I was dying to hear more. What about Holmes so irritated the author that he went to such lengths to kill him off? Why did he relent and bring him back? Did the stories change after his Alpine journey? Did the author change? What could we take away from this essay that would enhance our reading?

As noted above, each essay was accompanied by a map and pictures. The majority of the pictures were just standard photos of (for example) downtown Paris or the Saharan desert, not necessarily images of sites that were meaningful to the author’s stories. And the maps were very confusing. On most of the maps, we see a blob of yellow outlining the general area of the writer’s travels, but the only points marked on the map are the places the author visited - other landmarks, borders, street names, surrounding cities and natural features like rivers are simply missing.

I did enjoy reading many of the excerpts. I do wish the author had made a more compelling case for the book. Thanks to Quarto/White Lion and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is built on a curious concept; how the trips they made, their stays in new places had an impact on the covered writers’ work and lives.
It is generally well-researched, presented and composed.
Quite many of the photos included did not seem relevant in my opinion.
I wish this were slightly more layered, but otherwise, certainly an important topic and book.