I am lucky to have visited a fair few foreign lands, but my ambitions to travel have left a great many destinations unharmed by my presence. These books have taken me to places in such vivid and all-encompassing detail that I forget I was just sat on a sofa. <span>This </span><span>got me reading again after a three-year hiatus. I was 15</span><span>, I wasn't enjoying teen fiction and my peers weren't </span><span>talking about reading</span><span>. My mother's appeals to lose myself in Thomas Hardy led to a self-imposed exile from literature</span><span>. This was broken by my trip to 1970s Chile, living in a grand old house, with </span><span>women with green hair</span><span>, amid political turmoil.</span> I don't recommend huge books to people due to the ratio of time invested to perceived gain but <em>Shantaram</em> is an exception. I long to visit India and Gregory David Roberts takes the sting out of never having done so. I believe I've already been transported to the vibrant cityscape of 1980s Bombay, heard the vendors selling their wares and smelt the street food wafting over children and motorcycles. I hope to visit again someday. This book was recommended to me by a neighbour knocking on my door and insisting I read it. Suspicious, I gave it a try and there I was sailing the seas to Ethiopia. It is a beautiful and gripping story that captures a small section of a country with such a long, fascinating history. I am desperate to go to Addis Ababa, the hunger only contained by my feeling that I feel like I have. This book transported me at the first sentence. It is an account of a girl growing up in Japan and being sold to a geisha boarding house. The writer interviewed geishas for his research and then built up a story that took me to what I thought was Japan just under a century ago. The ensuing lawsuit, accusations of Orientalism and white male privilege meant perhaps it was not. But it’s still such an amazing read. This is the odd one out; a non-fiction book that transported me to a different time. I picked up this book in a tiny, definitely enchanted shop outside the Lahore Museum in Pakistan. Having been given a tour of the Lahore Fort, I was already halfway to the 14th century. The Lahore I know is a completely different place to the opulent life at the seat of the Mughal Empire. This book has it all: harems, jewels, astrology and details of the rulers’ preferences, passions and wars. <strong>_________________</strong> <strong>Read more:</strong> <strong><a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/booker-prize-2019-night-boat-to-tangier-by-kevin-barry-is-a-gangster-tale-with-heart-1.890652">Booker Prize 2019: 'Night Boat to Tangier' by Kevin Barry is a gangster tale with heart</a></strong> <strong><a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/your-ultimate-guide-to-the-2019-booker-prize-longlist-1.890302">Your ultimate guide to the 2019 Booker Prize longlist</a></strong> <strong><a href="https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/five-brilliant-works-written-by-authors-under-the-age-of-30-1.887924">Five brilliant works written by authors under the age of 30</a></strong> <strong>_________________</strong>
