Books that inspire travel: readers' tips More feed back from our readers The Miniaturist So many books have inspired me to travel, such as The Beach by Alex Garland (Ko Phi Phi/Thailand) and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (Mumbai). These whetted my appetite for reading books that evoke locale, both past and present. The most recent book that helped me imagine the echoes of footsteps past is The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, set in late 17th-century Amsterdam. It motivated me to explore the canals and visualise past lives, what it might have been like to live in those grand houses. The author's imagination was fired by Petronella Oortman's Cabinet House in the Rijksmuseum, and visiting it brought the world of the book and the city to potent life. Tina Hartas, London The 8.55 to Baghdad This book by Andrew Eames filled me with enthusiasm for both train travel and Agatha Christie, inspiring me to make the journey via Istanbul to Aleppo. The restaurant in the Sirkeci station, Istanbul, is filled with Orient Express memorabilia and fading photographs of Agatha and her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. We followed in the footsteps of Eames and Christie, crossing the Bosporus and mooring up outside the imposing Teutonic exterior of Hyderapasa station, where we caught the night train to Eskisehir. In Aleppo, the Hotel Baron was a favourite of Agatha and T E Lawrence, but in 2010 the antithesis of modernity. My laundry was returned wrapped in Christmas paper. Liz Fosbury, Bristol The Scatter Here Is Too Great I would like to nominate The Scatter Here Is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer, a very impressive book. Tanweer was born and raised in Karachi...and it shows. The city comes through powerfully on every page - the filth, the mass of humanity, the constant traffic jams, the charm of many of its people, and the nastiness of others. You really feel you are there, from the garbage-strewn beach at Sea View to the throbbing streets of the markets. So vivid and convincing is Tanweer's portrayal of the place and its inhabitants, it is hard to believe that this is his first book. The people he writes about are real (if flawed) and Karachi is at the heart of the narrative. It's not a city that I have visited, but I now feel I have a (no doubt naive) understanding of parts of it. Tony Geary, Northumberland The Master and Margarita My interest in history took me and my friends to the palaces of St Petersburg, but the excitement I was feeling in the cramped third-class train carriage to Moscow came from my love of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. We made sure we included the famous structure of St Basil's Cathedral in our holiday itinerary. And, of course, we set time aside to shuffle around the motionless body of Lenin in silence. Our travelling stories, however, came from exploring the unconventionally squashed-together cafés and bars, where we met fascinating people who welcomed us to share vodka and a soviet tale. Each night felt like it was being written by Bulgakov as his characters were brought to life. Like the novel, you walk the streets of Moscow with the feeling that something magical, mysterious, or even bizarre could be occurring behind any door; and we found out it very often was. Adam Jackson, Oxford The Railway Man Shortly after the 50th Anniversary of V-J Day, I read The Railway Man, written by Eric Lomax, who was a young prisoner of the Japanese, working on the Burma Railway. It was the most harrowing book I have ever read and I needed to see the place where all these horrors took place. At Kanchanaburi, we visited the beautiful war cemetery, where every grave has its own tiny flowering shrub; the replica bamboo huts at the Jeath War Museum; and the Kwai Bridge, on a long-tail boat ride. Then we took a journey on the "Death Railway." The beautiful scenery, and the delicious Thai meal served at the end, made it hard to imagine the years of cruelty and suffering. To anyone who has seen the film, I would say, read the book and understand the true story. Julia Ellison, Buckinghamshire Persuasion Visiting Lyme Regis, Tennyson went to the Cobb, to the "exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell." That fall, in Jane Austen's Persuasion, seems to bring impetuous Louisa and Captain Wentworth together but actually gives the older, wiser Anne Elliot a second chance. Austen's novel inspired me and my husband to stand in April sunshine on the Cobb: I did not fall. The French Lieutenant's Woman also features the Cobb, but Austen knocks John Fowles into a cocked hat. Her travelogue entrances: "the Cobb... and the beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better."Dorothy McMillan, Glasgow The Minaret of Djam Not many people get the chance to travel, let alone live in Afghanistan. After working within the private sector for 10 years out there, I found it an amazing location full of history. My main inspiration came from Freya Stark and her travels, and I followed enthusiastically in her footsteps after reading The Minaret of Djam and her other books. Things have changed dramatically of course, but the people are still the same - as is the spirit of adventure amid the threat of danger. Roger Lloyd, by email The Bronze Horseman Paullina Simons's novel The Bronze Horseman is beautiful, not only because of its phenomenal tales of love and loss, but her incredible descriptions of Russia. The book is set during the Second World War in St Petersburg, where people suffered to an unfathomable degree. But Simons's descriptions of the beautiful streets, country villages and parts of nature that managed to survive the war unscathed are so perfect they make you desperate to experience the country that her story's heroes loved so dearly. It is, perhaps, unusual for a novel filled with suffering to inspire someone to visit Russia, but this it did. Simons allows you to see the beauty of St Petersburg despite the immense death and destruction. Her words leapt off the page to me and made me want to visit Russia. Alexandra Gatfield, Edinburgh Dubliners James Joyce's compilation of short stories, Dubliners, captures many aspects of that great city but "The Dead" is the most evocative tale of them all. As a teenager at Oscar Wilde's old school, I was acutely aware of Dublin 100 miles away, but when I read the Joyce story I saw clearly the city in all its Georgian-housed, Edwardian-set yet modernist glory. The stay at the Gresham Hotel, the carriage drive along the beautiful Quays, the Epiphany Party in the spinsters" house upstairs on Ushers Quay, all come to life. You can smell the goose and hear the music as well as the bustle of skirts twirling round the room. But Gabriel's wife, Gretta, remembers only Galway and a lost first love, sees clearly the wild landscape among beautiful hills and heather, the achingly lovely scenery called "Joyce's Country," the tragic way her love ended his life when she turned him down. No book affects one more, no sense of place better told, no stopping the desire to be there. Ian Elliott, Belfast Eastern Approaches In 1952, at the age of 10, I was given a copy of Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean; I still have it, and sometimes I thumb through its battered pages. This is a rousing tale of adventure and intrigue, but, for me, it was the unveiling of exotic faraway places that caught my imagination; I really, really wanted to travel on the Silk Road, and visit Tashkent, Bokhara and Samarkand. I finally made it 45 years later; having gone straight from school to Sandhurst, and then spent the next 32 years serving in the Army. Now, after various recent trips to China and central Asia, I have achieved part, but not all, of my dream. Brian Robinson, Essex South from Granada Before my walking holiday in the Alpujarras last year, I stayed for a few days in Granada and made time to reread Gerald Brenan's classic South from Granada. This book, published in 1957, is an intoxicating account of everyday life, folklore, customs and history in a village in the Sierra Nevada in the Twenties. Much has changed in this area but his exquisite prose opens a window to a now all but vanished world. James Logan, Co Derry