Review of Jennifer Laing and Warwick Frost, Books and Travel: Inspiration, Quests and Transformation (2012)

Jennifer Laing and Warwick Frost’s Inspiration, Quests and Transformation is a fascinating, well-written and well-planned book on literary tourism and on how literature influences the tourist experience, by framing it, building and transmitting the tourist gaze (Urry 2002), by constructing the destination itself (Reijnders 2011) and preparing contact with the visited. Authenticity and reality are also strengthened through literature as the tourist becomes acquainted with the destination and perceives it as more authentic and real. Moreover, this allows a deeper understanding of one’s own culture. The authors investigate many different genres, in diverse periods of time, along the concept of literary tourism as the main thread. They use many stimulating, catchy and smart, classic and modern examples of fictional narrative. The book tries to answer some main questions: why do books attract tourists to specific places? Why do books have a far greater influence on the motivations for travel and tourism?