I have seen the future!
My girlfriend and I love to travel. Whenever we’re getting ready for a trip, I saturate myself with literature from the areas we’re going to be visiting. Before London, I brushed off my Charles Dickens and some stories of Jack the Ripper. Before Prague, I picked up Kundera’s “Unbearable Lightness of Being.” What I’d love is to have my literature come to me based on where I want to go, or where I happen to already be. With phones and internet connected devices being all the rage, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a reality. Believe it or not though, I haven’t been able to find any good resources that organize great literature by geo-location. I’m sure there’s a business in there somewhere for any of you upstart entrepreneurs.
Imagine tipping back pints at your local in London and discovering that it served as inspiration for a famous local writer, or that it served as the location of shooting for “Sean of the Dead.” Wouldn’t that be fun? It could also be great fun to make books that are designed to be read in stages at different areas. You start in downtown Vienna, read a section, and then follow the instructions to the next location. Each location would be selected as a good place to stop and read, where the events and scenery around you can be filtered through by the words you read. This sort of multi-sensory reading experience could add a lot to your interest and recall of a certain work.
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Along the same lines: I once saw–in one old bookstore or another–a book called something like A Guide to Literary London, essentially a lit. nerd travel guide.