This week’s theme for Top Ten Tuesday is books for armchair travellers, and my take on that is probably idiosyncratic… but here we go.

1. Monsterland: A Journey Around the World’s Dark Imagination, by Nicholas Jubber. I actually just finished reading this last night, so it jumped to mind. Each chapter starts with a short retelling of a monster story, and then Jubber explores various landscapes that have housed the monsters, participating in local festivities, peeping at the dark places in our imagination. Sometimes it feels a liiiittle bit… white tourist gawking at the locals, but it’s still interesting. This is probably the book on my list that best fits the theme, and I didn’t personally love it, but I can see why other people would.
2. The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart. I would’ve picked my favourite Stewart, Madam, Will You Talk? — and it’s definitely hard to choose with Stewart’s work, because she’s great at evoking a sense of place — but I think the landscape and setting of The Gabriel Hounds stuck with me most of all, perhaps because it was one of the first of her books I read. The heat, the dusty roads, the dilapidated rooms of the palace of Dar Ibrahim, it all feels very real.
3. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Partly prompted by yesterday’s discussion post, of course, but I think I might’ve come up with this one anyway! It’s such a journey, with terrible and wonderful sights. You can even undertake it yourself by doing a Walk to Mordor challenge, if you get tired of the armchair.
4. The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman. The whole series, really — want to travel through various fictional worlds, on quests for rare and unique books? An alternate fae-touched Venice, in book two? Irene travels through various different worlds, and I for one loved traveling with her.
5. Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Fancy some trekking around Scotland? It’s possible, or at least was, to retrace some of the journeys taken by the characters in this classic mystery, and follow the story through the landscape. I can’t imagine the train times are the same anymore, but still…
6. A Gentle Noble’s Vacation Recommendation, by Misaki, Momochi & Sando. This manga series features a man from a fantasy world ending up somehow transported to another, different fantasy world — and deciding to make the most of it and have a bit of a holiday. Admittedly the main attraction of the story is his relationship with the friends he makes there, but we also get to see a bit of the world, learn a bit about magic, and see some cool monsters.
7. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. Space travel more your thing? This first book of the series hops around a bit, visiting a few different planets, though the setting is generally a bit more restricted in later books.
8. The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff. How about a trip to the past? A bit of Roman Britain, a trek through Scotland of the same period, and you can practically feel the chilly mist in places.
9. Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need Them, by Dan Saladino. I’m not actually a foodie myself, but I’m interested in food science and food history, so this was a much-enjoyed read of 2025. By necessity, the story of rare foods and local delicacies at risk of disappearing takes the author’s narrative all over the world.
10. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan. The whole series is a trek around a slightly-askew version of our world, with many locations and customs clearly based on/inspired by real-world locations, but also with scope for Brennan to imagine alternate histories, alternate mythologies, and, you know, the inclusion of dragons. The first book barely dips a toe in, but the whole series features perilous voyages, desert survival, tropical jungles, dangerous mountains, etc, etc. (And I will say that the author, if not always the narrator, stays aware of the issues of white people “exploring” and “discovering”.)

I’m not sure how other people are interpreting the theme, but I think maybe I cheated a little bit by offering travel to the past and to fictional planets… but hey, that’s where I like to “travel” in my books, so there!