Literary Destinations

Some spur for a reluctant tourist like me. Via Bhupinder, a list of literary destinations across the world.

My favourite, Russia:

If you savor wine, you probably like traveling in France. If you appreciate good food, especially good food involving cured pork products, you're certainly drawn to Italy. If you love literature, however, the word-strewn, story-riddled, literary character-infested, continent-size country to which you most want to travel is probably Russia. It may be lazily regarded as "the East," but Russia's contributions are integral to the Western literary canon (as well as to the Western canons of music, dance and art). The universal themes of its greatest novels -- alienation, the individual's puniness against the forces of history, the struggle to invent a decent life, really bad weather -- make every reader feel Russian at one time or another.

I also want to go to Venice, with my copy of The Aspern Papers, Death in Venice and just in case I get bored with the two (they are quite boring, honestly speaking), I will have a DVD of Don't Look Now handy. The original novel I suspect will be too sub-literary for a noble enterprise like this!

Very disappointing that they left out Prague and Vienna! Two cities I really want to go to.