Wanderlust Reading List
Recommendations for those who long to roam...
As promised, a reading list for the dark days of winter and the call of the road - for anyone in need of a companion, whether standing still or setting sail.
The new album Valise was born from travel, yes, but also from the journeys we take through the pages of a great book. Some of the places in the novels below I’ve been fortunate enough to visit myself; others I may never reach. Still, they live with me, rendered indelible by writers whose work feels nothing short of alchemical.
These are books I return to - deeply beloved and endlessly inspiring - maps not only of places, but of memory and feeling.
They may be a cure for the term John Koenig coined in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:
Anemoia is the emotional longing for a time or place one has never known.
A nostalgia for something never experienced.
If one of the books below calls to you, feel free to reach out. I’ll gladly help point you toward your next adventure.
Bon Voyage!
The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau
Anam Cara by John O’Donoghue
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Trinity by Leon Uris
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
Devotion by Patti Smith
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
No One Knows Where Gobo Goes by Mark Saltzman
