Travel Books for Spring
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The new season begins to stir and with it, the desire to get away from everything and everyone. Perhaps to somewhere where the climate is a little more forgiving. A certain Sebaldian spirit of listless travel and recollection seems to prevail as the winter slowly begins to lose its grip on the passage of the year. With that in mind, and for your consideration, a few unconventional travel books to perhaps read on a train.
The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald
An unnamed narrator, possibly some version of the writer, travels East Anglia, passing through small towns, seaside resorts, the countryside. England is presented as fog-laden and decaying. Ghosts of our past rise up out of the pages; unnerving connections begin to appear. Is this book about travel? History? England? Germany? Is it fiction or non-fiction? Who knows. It's a weirdly frightening and boring book.
Masud explores, at all levels literal and otherwise, the UK's Flatlands. These places represent for her the internal 'flat-place' that she carries within herself: emotional numbness and memory loss as symptoms of childhood trauma. Explorations of these places become something much deeper and more personal. You go with yourself wherever you travel.
The melancholy need not persist! Get out there this spring (though ideally not too far from October Books, we need and appreciate your custom).