This will be a bucket list of the places I want to visit, activities I want to do, meals I want to eat, shops I want to visit etc, that all have a literary theme (and also some that were unofficially on my list for years and have since been completed).
1. Visit City Lights Bookshop in San Francisco- this is an iconic book store that was heavily involved in publishing and promoting the works of Beat poets and writers. The store gathered infamy due to an obscenity trial for their publication of Allen Ginsberg Howl & Other Poems.
2. Drink coffee at Le Select cafe in Paris- this establishment was the haunt of Hemingway, Picasso and Henry Miller during the decadent era at the turn of the century. I first came across it in Miller's Tropic of Cancer.
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| I actually photographed Le Select cafe in 2009 but I didn't get the chance to go in |
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| To say that visiting this building was humbling would be an understatement |
6. Sip champagne at the infamous Plaza Hotel in NYC a la The Great Gatsby (you know the bit where Gatsby and Tom have a barney on one of the hotel rooms?).
Hangout for the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald and publisher of previously banned books such as Joyce's Ulysses back in the day, this place was an absolute literary treat (I seem to have no photographic evidence of this visit, with an ink stamp in the front of my copy of Tropic Cancer that I bought from the shop being the only evidence that I was there. I guess I'll have to go again?!).
8. Visit Salvation Mountain in Southern California, as Chris McCandless did and as is subsequently detailed in Into the Wild.
9. Have a picnic by the Irati river in Spain with red wine & freshly caught fish as the expats did in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
10. See one of my favourite Shakespeare plays at The Globe theatre in London (TRIVIA: The Globe has the only permitted thatched roof in London).
11. Eat at the bizarre Alice in Magic Land restaurant in Tokyo- not really difficult to guess but this restaurant has a menu and decor to match that are completely inspired by Alice in Wonderland.
12. Take a boat trip up the River Congo like Marlow did in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (ideally without the insanity and death as detailed in the book).
13. Visit the British Library in London- it happens to be the biggest library in the world, its a Grade 1 listed building and it's so very close in a little place called London.
Hello and welcome to This Ruth Is On Fire, a UK blog which is a haven for random thoughts and sarcastic observations.
I'm also into books, clothes and visiting places too.
