What hobby compares to reading? Travelling! And I love to combine the two, so every time I travel I hunt down the local English bookstore to buy my favorite type of souvenirs: books set in the country/city I’m visiting.
One of the best things about living in Brussels is how close you are to so many different places. It’s very central and has fast and cheap rail and air connections, so Andre and I sometimes go on short breaks. Whenever I need to travel for work I also try to squeeze in a visit to a bookshop.
Do you also do this?
This is the loot I brought from some of our most recent destinations.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
Scottish Queens by Rosalind K. Marshall
Pocket Scottish History
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Selected Poems by Robert Burns
Un dia de cólera by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
La Catedral de Mar by Ildefonso Falcones
El Perfume de bergamota by Gastón Morata
Tales of the Alhambra by Irving Washington
Copenhagen (December 2009)
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
The Library of Shadows by Mikkel Birkegaard
London (January 2010)
Literary London by Ed Glinert
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
Venice (March 2010)
Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The Book of Holy Mischief by Elle Newmark
Corto Maltese: The Fable of Venice by Hugo Pratt
The Remedy by Michelle Lovric
Russia (August 2010)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
China (August 2010)
Little Red Book by Mao
The Sleepless Reader 
15 comments
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September 12, 2010 at 10:50 am
leeswammes
I like it how your books relate to the country you’re in.
I don’t tend to do this. I don’t normally go to book stores when I’m abroad (except in England or an English bookshop abroad). But it would be a fun idea.
I do remember where I read some books, such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which I read in Iceland.
September 12, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Alex
Yes, with some books I remember exactly where I was when I read them and sometimes at what time of year. I also usually remember the books I was reading at an important/traumatic time. Does that also happen to you?
September 12, 2010 at 8:30 pm
leeswammes
Well, I remember especially non-standard times: like on holiday, or in the car or in the hospital, situations like that. Not traumatic, but different from normal.
September 12, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Falaise
Hi Alex,
I don’t normally buy books when I’m away (unless I’m in somewhere like the US) but do what you do in reverse. I make sure that I take a couple of books with me that are set in the place I am going to. So I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil while on a train going through South Carolina, Pepe Carvalho stories in Barcelona and so forth.
Falaise
September 12, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Alex
Yes, I also do the opposite (take a look at my posts previous to my Trans-Siberian journey this summer).
I also read The Garden of Good and Evil when I was in he South. Actually, that might have been one of my first souvenir-books. I bought it when I visited Savannah! Good times!
September 12, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Emily Jane
Yes, I always buy books as souvenirs!
September 12, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Alex
🙂 Any combination book/place you particularly like?
September 12, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Steph
i’ll go into bookstores wherever I am! I’d like to be better about picking up books that feature the country I’m in, but often times I just snag whatever catches my eye and looks good. Even better is when I can find a good used bookstore! One of my dearest books is a copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary that I picked up at a used bookstore in Oxford!
September 12, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Alex
Must go to Oxford soon, I heard it’s the perfect city for book-lovers! Did you enjoy it?
There’s this great side that can help you chose books set in particular places. Do you know about BiblioTravel? http://www.bibliotravel.com
September 12, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Melissa
I’ve always bought books as souvenirs. I love having my shelves lined with books I love, that remind me of the places I’ve been.
September 12, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Alex
I know, it’s the perfect souvenir. Most of the times I write the place and date in one of the first pages and leave in the shop receipt as a bookmark. Do you also do something like that?
September 12, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Claire (The Captive Reader)
I love doing this! I’ve stopped doing it in some places that I visit a lot (the States, London, Prague) but when I go to new destinations I love to pick up books. I’m not very consistent though and, sadly, my picks are very much dependent on my luggage space.
September 12, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Alex
I visited Prague before I started doing this, but guess that’s as good an excuse as any to go back.
Luggage space… a problem especially if you like a coffee-table type of books, I feel your pain 🙂
September 13, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Eva
What fun! I’m jealous of your travelling though. :p
I tend to like jewelry for souvenirs, and I always get a little knick knack for my bookshelves, but books would be fun too!
January 25, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Fables (Volume 2,3,4,5) by Bill Willingham « The Sleepless Reader
[…] Went into several bookshops looking for books in English by Swedish authors to get as souvenirs (as I’ve done in the past), but everything seemed to be dominated by Stieg Larsson. Only read the first in the trilogy and […]