Miss Moneypennypincher | Book Traveling

This week I should have been thinking of great ways to save you money, or maybe embarked on a new Short Attention Span Challenge task, but I have been so incredibly engrossed in this book, The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson, it is leaving me unable to think of anything else but getting back to the book.  This is the most recent Pulitzer prize winner (and actually part of another one of my personal challenges - reading all the novel and fiction Pulitzer Prize winners).  The story is about Pak Jun Do, a North Korean orphan turned professional kidnapper, who loyally serves the "greatest country in the world" and the "supreme leader", Kim Jong-il . The book has plunged me into the mysterious and horrifically dark world of North Korea, and as far as I know, a book is probably the only look (difficult as it is) that I will ever get. 

As it is now, North Korea is not on my list of places to visit, but the book's explicit description and the author's attention to detail makes me think about some other books that have done the same thing: taken me to another place or time.  Unless I win the lottery or achieve immortality (I wonder which is more likely?), I will not be able to visit all the places in this world that fascinate or interest me.  There are not enough resources to make that happen.  However, books can get me close.  Isn't it amazing how we can take each other places, by accurate details and description of a setting?   

So anyway, this post might seem random, I am going from Pulitzer Prize winners to North Korea to descriptive settings.  I can tie this back to economics, I know it!  Here we go...My point, readers, is that you can travel into the library and use books to take you places, free! (P.S. I also checked the book out for free---saving myself around $14. Just thought I'd throw that in there too.) 

Here are some suggestions from library staff:

Ulysses by James Joyce (June 16, 1904 Dublin, Ireland)

My Antonia by Willa Cather (late 19th Century, Nebraska)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (The Great Depression)

Fires of London by Janet Law ("You feel like you are walking through the suffocating and confining blacked-out streets of WWII London during the 1939 Blitz. It also evocatively explores the seeding underground of London life." available through Link Plus)

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Texas, late 19th century)

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer (Mount Everest)

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende (19th century Chile and San Francisco)

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (17th Century Delft)
Winter of the World by Ken Follett ("I have been in Germany as Hitler takes power, in the homes of the rich and famous in the U.S.  I have been in the Parliament of Great Britain.  And, unfortunately, the brutal chambers of the SS.  The world is changing right before my eyes and the way people and nations are impacted takes your breath away")

Redwall by Brian Jacques This is fantasy, but here's a great quote from the author.

"In our imaginations we can go anywhere. Travel with me to Redwall in Mossflower County."