Rainy Day Reads

I think I first became aware of this book because of the movie coming out. I decided to read the book first, but after reading it I decided to also watch the movie (at some point), because I liked the book so much. The book details the author’s journey along the Pacific Crest Trail in the 1990s. Books like these are quite hit or miss for me. Sometimes the author has a tendency to just give you their itinerary, pretty much just detailing what happened when and how they got to this place etc. But Strayed manages to interweave her personal backstory with the main story of her travel along the trail, and to intersperse the telling of it with personal insights and ponderings.  I usually found the story really interesting and it kept me reading even though perhaps not a lot of action takes place as such. As mentioned, the story is her travels along the trail, and obviously we know she survives it, otherwise she couldn’t be writing it. So the few touchy situations always have an ...

My two main reasons for starting this blog was books and travels, and I thought I would try and combine the two in a series of posts called “My Travels in Books”. I always think it’s fun to read books set in a place you have actually been. It makes it a bit easier to imagine the setting and the atmosphere, and maybe it’s also a bit easier to relate to the characters, especially if they are also tourists, like you, struggling to cope with a different culture and the joys and hardships of traveling.   I will try and talk a little about my personal experience in a given country or city and relate how it compares to the descriptions in the chosen book. As of right now I don’t really have any specific criteria for the book, other than that it should mainly be set in the country or city in question. I’ll try to find one that really captures the place and uses the setting in the story, and not pick a book that could really be set anywhere.  On my travels I have often travele...