I have always had somewhat of a ‘Marmite relationship’ with reading for pleasure. One month, I’ll be fully engrossed in a racy romantic thriller; the next, I’ll be struggling to read the blurb of a bestseller I’ve had my eye on for a while. 

But when it comes to the summer months, and I’ve got a holiday or two to look forward to, I always get a renewed sense of passion for reading. Travel and reading are some of my most pleasurable combinations. There’s something about stuffing a tote bag with a good novel or two ahead of alighting a train or boarding a plane. 

Perhaps it’s the joint creative buzz of going off into the unknown, taking ourselves on a journey to explore new and fascinating scenes of different places, faces, and everything in between. Whatever it is, I simply love reading on my travels. 

My love affair with this creative combination can be traced back to the long, hot train journeys (in the days when Greater Anglia trains had no air conditioning) I’d take from my childhood home in the West Country up to stay with my grandma in Norwich as a teen. With three changes, crossing seven English counties and a near enough non-existent Wi-fi connection, I suppose I had little other choice but to delve into the cedar-scented pages of a printed novel. 

As a teenager, I was fascinated by 20th-century cult classics and ‘alternative’ prose but often struggled to read them consistently during school term time. So, I remember throwing into my travel bag titles such as the mid-century classic, A Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, George Orwell’s 1984, and J.G. Ballard’s dark and dystopian High Rise. I suppose the notion of being ‘in-between’ physical places, alongside the twisted and alternate realities described so intricately in these novels, provided me with a glimpse of the new and more colourful lives we so often imagine during the depths of adolescence. 

A little later in life, on summer holidays with my large extended family, I would take myself off for some quiet solace to read about others in the form of an autobiography. With the sense of freedom and new perspective that travel can provide us, I loved hearing directly from big names across celebrity society about how they became who they were. The intricate detail of this form is often so much more raw and honest than the usual snippets of speculation and gossip we get day to day. Travel can sometimes help us be more honest with ourselves and those we love – being inspired by new people, cultures, tastes and natural beauty. 

This summer, I’ve tried out travelling with some ‘queer’ reads. I recently realised I have never read any explicitly queer-based novels ever since discovering my own bisexuality. Coincidentally, both of these books have been about individual journeys in discovering and navigating the freedoms and restrictions of sexuality from within oppressive societies.  

Many of us, I believe, travel in search of something. Whether that be personal solace, new places and faces to inspire and enlighten us, or perhaps simply the culinary delights of another culture. Whatever we travel in search of, a good book can always act as a reliable and reassuring accompaniment to guide us along the way—one that can often act as a pinpoint for new memories, eras, friends, and personal discovery. 

Feature photo credited to Unsplash