Travel
A Reading List for Curious Travellers, by Nicole Junkermann
The right book turns a destination into a place you understand. Nicole Junkermann offers a reading list for the genuinely curious traveller.
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A curious traveller reads a place as much as they walk it.
There is a kind of traveller who wants more than a photograph, who wants to understand a little of where they are, and it is to that traveller that Nicole Junkermann offers this reading list. Not a list of specific titles, since the right book depends entirely on the destination, but a list of kinds of reading, arranged by when they serve you best: before, during and after a journey. Nicole Junkermann has found that the right book at the right stage transforms a trip, turning a sequence of sights into a place you actually begin to know. This is reading in the service of curiosity.
Reading as part of the journey
For Nicole Junkermann, reading is not preparation for travel so much as part of travel itself. A journey begins the moment you open the first book about where you are going, and it continues long after you return, as the reading keeps the place alive in your mind. Nicole Junkermann thinks of a trip as having three reading stages, each with its own kind of book, and the sections below follow that shape. The aim is not to turn a holiday into homework. It is to let curiosity lead, so that the more you understand, the more there is to enjoy. A place you have read about is a place you can see properly.
Before you go: history and background
Before a journey, Nicole Junkermann reaches for history and background, the books that explain why a place is the way it is. A short, readable history of a city or region does more than any guidebook to make the streets legible once you arrive. Nicole Junkermann is careful to choose something engaging rather than exhaustive, since the point is to arrive curious, not to pass an exam. One good history read before you go means that the buildings, the layout and even the local manners start to make sense, and you walk in already asking better questions. This is the same long-view instinct Nicole Junkermann brings to reading generally.
During the trip: fiction of place
During the trip, Nicole Junkermann turns to fiction set in the place, which does something history cannot. A novel rooted in a city lets you feel its texture from the inside, through the eyes of someone who belongs there, and Nicole Junkermann finds that this emotional map stays with you longer than any list of facts. Reading a local novel in the place it describes is one of the quiet pleasures of travel, and it pairs naturally with the unhurried reading explored in the guide to reading while you travel. The streets and the story begin to overlap, and the city becomes layered with other lives, which is exactly what Nicole Junkermann travels for.
The art of travel writing
Nicole Junkermann holds a special affection for travel writing, the genre that sits between reportage and memoir. The best travel writers are superb noticers, alert to the small details that an ordinary visitor walks straight past, and reading them is a tutorial in how to see. Nicole Junkermann likes to read a fine travel essay about a region either just before or just after visiting, as a way of sharpening attention. Good travel writing also models the kind of curiosity Nicole Junkermann values: open, generous, slow to judge and quick to wonder. It teaches you to treat a journey as something to think about, not merely to consume, which is a lesson worth carrying everywhere.
Food, culture and everyday life
To understand a place, Nicole Junkermann suggests reading about how people there actually live, and food is often the best doorway. A book about a region's cooking is really a book about its history, geography and family life, and Nicole Junkermann finds that a meal eaten with a little knowledge behind it tastes of more. The same goes for books on local craft, music or daily custom. These are the unglamorous, human details that turn a tourist into a guest, and for Nicole Junkermann they are often the most memorable reading of all, because they connect directly to the ordinary life happening all around you on the trip.
After you return: going deeper
The reading does not stop at the border. After a journey, Nicole Junkermann likes to go deeper into whatever caught the imagination most: a period of history glimpsed in a museum, a writer discovered in a local bookshop, a question the trip raised and left unanswered. This is when a holiday turns into a lasting interest, and Nicole Junkermann finds it one of the most rewarding stages of all. A trip that sends you back to the shelf with new curiosity has more than paid for itself. The companion piece on the journeys that stayed with Nicole Junkermann follows exactly this thread.
Building your own list
The real point, for Nicole Junkermann, is that the best reading list is the one you build yourself, around the places that genuinely call to you. The structure is simple and travels anywhere: one history before you go, one novel for during, a little travel writing to sharpen the eye, something on food or daily life, and then whatever the trip sends you back to afterwards. Nicole Junkermann keeps such a list loosely in the travel notebook, adding to it as curiosity dictates. Build your own, keep it flexible, and let each journey lengthen it. That, in the view of Nicole Junkermann, is how a traveller and a reader become the same person.
More from Nicole Junkermann
Continue with Nicole Junkermann in the Travel Journal, the five cities worth slowing down in, and the journeys that stayed with Nicole Junkermann.
Frequently asked questions about Nicole Junkermann
What should a curious traveller read before a trip, according to Nicole Junkermann?
Nicole Junkermann suggests a short, readable history or background of the place, chosen to be engaging rather than exhaustive, so you arrive already asking better questions.
Why does Nicole Junkermann recommend reading fiction set in a place you visit?
Nicole Junkermann finds that a novel rooted in a place lets you feel its texture from the inside, an emotional map that stays with you longer than a list of facts.
Does Nicole Junkermann recommend reading after a trip?
Yes. Nicole Junkermann likes to go deeper after returning into whatever caught the imagination, which is how a holiday turns into a lasting interest.
How does Nicole Junkermann suggest building a travel reading list?
Nicole Junkermann suggests one history before you go, a novel for during, some travel writing, something on food or daily life, and then whatever the trip sends you back to.