Books for city breaks

Since we’re going nowhere for at least a little while yet, I’ve been pining for strange cities. Trying (and invariably failing) not to look like a tourist while you explore an unfamiliar city seems wildly exotic at the moment. Here are some of my favourite books for a literary city break in the absence of the real thing though - be warned - many of these trips may contain more drama that you’d seek in the average weekend away.

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman

This brilliant book has a few locations including London and the French countryside, but it was the scenes set in the arts world of 1950s Rome that really stole my heart, as larger-than-life painter Bear paints and parties with the city’s bohemian artists. Also, this is one of my favourite ever book jackets. Would absolutely wear this print. Tom’s book The Imperfectionists, a series of interlinked vignettes about the staff of a floundering English-language newspaper in Rome, is also excellent.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A great lockdown book in a way, since the main character spends almost the whole book confined to his hotel! This beautifully written, humane book looks at dark times with such a light touch. It’s clever, charming and an effortless crash course in the first part of the twentieth century in Russia. (Also shown, A Roasting Tin recipe with pancetta and artichokes I cannot recommend highly enough!)

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

This sumptuous book, set in Prague, glitters with beauty and menace and horror and sorrow. The legend of Melmoth the Wanderer - who roams in lonely torment, witnessing the commission of sins - is fascinatingly employed. Drab, haunted Helen and her motley assortment of almost-friends are mesmerised by a collection of manuscripts from around the world and throughout history. In their tattered pages, as well as in their own histories, they come guiltily face to face with the banality of human evil.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

I’m not sure Revolutionary Paris would be a very relaxing place for a city break, but if you want to be completely transported, this whopper of a novel will do the job. Hilary Mantel brings all her mastery of character and place to this bloody and turbulent era: there’s terror, corruption, pathos and drama in spades.

NW by Zadie Smith

Yes, even London feels a long way away to me at the moment. I’ve been once in the last year. But here’s a way to walk the capital’s streets without leaving the sofa. She’s just an absolute genius. Set, as the name suggests, in Northwest London. this novel plunges you so deeply into the lives of her characters as they navigate life. I loved the variety of storytelling styles.

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

I loved everything about this wildly energetic, funny, entertaining novel and feel that I now know my way around every street of Old New York. Its sights, sounds and smells rise from the pages so vividly.

Milkman by Anna Burns

Full disclosure: it took me months to read this book. The use of language is so playful and funny and clever but the book creates such a sense of absurdity and claustrophobia, I could only absorb it in small chunks. Middle sister attempts to negotiate the personal and the political - and they are never wholly separate - during the Troubles in Belfast and I felt her being stifled, frustrated, terrified, menaced and isolated absolutely viscerally. It’s dense but also darkly comic. I’d read another whole book about the wee sisters.

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