Check out this article on Salon: "Destination: Russia." It's about travel in Russia while reading the great literature of Russia - always a great combo, in my opinion.

A class I took in college first turned me on to the idea of reading literature based in the place you are visiting. I took a class called "British Writers and the British Landscape" as part of a short-term summer class, in which we read 10 or so novels as we traveled about England and Scotland. I loved that class. If I could spend my life doing that class (in different locations) I think I'd be in heaven.

We read Hardy in Dorset, the Romantic poets in the Lake Country, Kidnapped! near Iona, and a wonderful Scottish writer named Neil Gunn in the Highlands/fishing villages of Scotland.

Hmm. Maybe that is a business that needs creating? Literary tours of various locales? Travel and book group all in one?

When my husband and I went to Alaska on our honeymoon I prepared by reading Michener's Alaska, Two in the Far North, by Margaret Murie (which I HIGHLY recommend, by the way), and Last New Land: Stories of Alaska Past and Present. I felt like those books enriched my experience and gave me a sense of history.

But then again, I am a librarian, read: book geek.

When we were preparing to travel to Russia I tried to do this but honestly, there was so much else to do to prepare to meet our son I didn't have much luck. I did read a travelogue (the name of which I can't remember) about a woman who traveled through Russia in the early 90s, and I tried to read some contemporary Russian literature, but I really wish I'd read some of the old classics. Do you blame me, though, for not having time to re-readCrime and Punishment?

Although I do love me some Dostoevsky.

Anyway - read the article. It's a good one. It made me wish for time and money to travel and to read...oh well, only 30 years 'til retirement!