Book Reviewed - Novel Destinations: A Travel Guide to Literary Landmarks by Shannon McKenna Schmidt & Joni Rendon

Literary landmarks In United States and Europe

This book offers an opportunity to visit and learn about literary giants like Ernst Hemingway, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and others. This is a great guide for bibliophiles and readers interested in literature to numerous literary sites in United States and Europe. It also provides information about literary festivals, and places to go for a drink, to dine and lodge. Big Apple bars, Parisian cafes, literary pubs in England, and Ernst Hemingway’s watery holes in United States and Cuba.

Take a stroll around museums dedicated to work of these authors, the homes, neighborhoods, galleries, and the restaurants they hung out, and the towns and cities they lived in. Franz Kafka's Prague, James Joyce's Dublin, Louisa May Alcott's Massachusetts and Papa Hemingway’s favorite place in Sun Valley, Idaho or Havana, Cuba.

Some of the highlights include; Harper Lee’s old Court House Museum surrounded by landscapes of cotton fields, red clay roads, rolling hills tucked into rural pockets of Monroeville, Alabama. Tony’s Saloon in Key West, Florida, which is the original location of Sloppy Joe’s where Hemingway spent much time during his stay in Key West. The 17th century seaside manse in Salem, Massachusetts, which was the inspiration of Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The House of Seven Gables.” The home of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts that was the setting for her novel, “Little Women.” Charles Dickens museum in London, and fragments of Marshalsea debtor’s prison where Dickens was incarcerated.

The book also has numerous photographs, but they are small and hard to appreciate. This book is recommended to readers interested in travelling to places of literary significance.