Books for the Armchair Traveller

I have not travelled to many places far from home in my life. I have not been off the North American continent, in fact. Most of my exotic travel has taken place in my imagination through the writings of gifted authors who can bring the very dust alive of a country where I have never set foot. Most of these authors are transplants from North America or England and their stories are relatable, often funny, and full of love for their adopted homeland.

Peter Mayle and his A Year in Provence books was the first transplanted author to really get my attention. He and his wife, Jenny, vacationed in the Provence region in the south of France in the early 1980's. In 1986 they moved to the area and began renovating an old stone farmhouse. Mayle's lighthearted and often comic descriptions of the food and wine, the Provencal characters, the landscape and the lifestyle opened up the world of armchair travelling to me and I happily return to Provence at least once every couple of years.

American Chef, Julia Child wrote a beautiful memoir, My Life in France about the years she and her husband, an American diplomat, spent living in Paris and Marseille. Needing something to do in a strange country, Julia took cooking lessons and discovered she had an aptitude for the art. With her trademark candid style, Julia describes with delight all the sights, sounds and smells of her adventures in France. She absolutely fell for Paris, fell for cooking, and fell for the French people.

An artist friend loaned me a couple of books by Hungarian-Canadian cum Tuscan author Ferenc Mate. The Hills of Tuscany and A Vineyard in Tuscany lept to mind when I was viewing the Facebook photos of a friend who is presently travelling in that part of Italy. Mate, a true Renaissance man, and his wife Candace, a painter, moved to Tuscany from New York (although I am happy to say they met by chance in Vancouver) to make a life there. Mate writes with a great deal of warmth, love, humour and self-deprecation. Between the lines one can sense his innate talent at making lifelong friends and succeeding at anything he turns his hand to. In the second book, he and his wife and their young son Peter, buy a former convent and turn it into a beautifully stunning, award-winning winery in the Montalcino region of Tuscany. Reading his books was like making a new friend, one for whom you feel an immediate appreciation and look forward to visiting again. I have a feeling I will be rereading Mate's sun-drenched memoirs this winter when the coastal weather here is particularly dreary.

I must confess that non-fiction has not always been my thing. I am a fairly dedicated reader of novels and short stories, but if a writer can entice me with true stories, I become a life-long fan. I can do plenty of armchair travelling through novels: Rumer Godden wrote exquisitely of India, Mary Stewart of Greece, Michael Ondaatje of pretty much anywhere, but there is something unmistakably wonderful about a writer who can write truly engaging non-fiction. Gerald Durrell and his My Family and other Animals, about growing up a junior naturalist in Greece, M.Wylie Blanchet and her The Curve of Time in which she takes us along with her family on their adventures by boat in and along the fjords and coastline of Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast are two such books. Their stories have an immediacy to them which scoops up the reader and takes them along as a guest on the journey, and I have a true appreciation for that quality in a book. Especially when long-flight travel is not on my real-life agenda any time soon.

Have you any recommendations of similar type books for me? Let me know in the comments, please!? Thank you.