Culture
‘Reading the City’ Helps Travelers Find Books About Their Destinations
If guidebooks aren’t your thing, check out these stories to learn about the cities you’re visiting next.
If you’re planning a trip to Vienna, consider picking up Robert Seethaler’s book The Tobacconist. It follows the unlikely friendship between a tobacconist’s apprentice and the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Set in Austria’s capital in 1937—right before Nazi Germany annexed the country—the plot takes readers around the city, from the tobacconist’s shop in the ninth district to the nearby Votive Church, and to Freud’s office, which is now the Sigmund Freud Museum.
Or, if you don’t have a destination in mind, perhaps Trevor Noah’s autobiographical comedy book Born a Crime will inspire you to explore to his childhood home in Johannesburg, South Africa.