April 2025 List of the Month: Book Worlds We'd Like To Visit

Some fictional worlds are so vividly realized and so wholly engrossing, that we feel as if we have lived in them. This month's List of the Month is devoted to the Book Worlds We'd Like To Visit.

Each participant may vote on ten titles. Given the subjective nature of the topic, downvoting is not allowed.

For a complete list of topics covered so far in our project, please see the new section for Lists of the Month on the Zeitgeist page

We would welcome suggestions for future lists. Please add them here, and we will keep them in mind, going forward.

Fun! There are many I have enjoyed visiting, but to live in them, I require indoor plumbing and modern (or better) medicine :)

I ran out of slots before I ran out of worlds I'd like to visit...

Fun idea for a list. (For those who voted for Green Knowe, I wanted to point out that the real house on which it was based is open to visitors: https://www.historichouses.org/house/the-manor-hemingford-grey/visit/.)

And for the James Herriot books, they are non-fiction, you can visit Yorkshire. Of course they were set in Yorkshire of the past; I don't know how much it has changed. And maybe it's not the just the world you want to visit, but the characters you would like to meet.

>5 konallis: Yes! It is one of my ambitions to visit Hemingford Grey. Although somehow I suspect it won't be quite the same... no ghosts, for one! :)

>7 AbigailAdams26: I live just up the road! Despite the Green Knowe series being a favourite of mine, I've still never managed to visit the house. I keep meaning to book when the Nunkie Theatre (performances of https://www.librarything.com/author/jamesmr-1) have a performance but keep missing out.

>6 al.vick: yes, the number of people who come to PEI because of Anne of Green Gables. And the number of people who are disappointed to discover she wasn't real.
I'm the same though as I would love to visit Sicily and follow the Inspector Montalbano trail in Vigata and eat in his restaurants!
Literary tourism is a thing.

I'd like to visit the Boar's Head Inn in Eastcheap, preferably as a fly on the wall. It was where Prince Hal, Falstaff and their entourage got up to their many antics. Not sure what the sack was like but the entertainment was first class.

Honestly? My wife and I have been on a Moomins kick. So I would definitely say Moomin Valley. But moreso from the books/comics or 90s anime, not the newer show. Also, the Shire. Most other things I read are just...living their is not advisable.