https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/03/japan-paris-syndrome-best-books-wanderlust

Rob Doyle chooses his favourite books about the will to travel, including famous female flâneurs and Henry Miller’s holiday in Greece

I almost never read books that sit in the travel writing section of a bookshop, yet many of those I love share a sense of place – in particular the mystique of places beyond wherever one happens to be from. How nice to be a reader of books, so that one can indulge a lifelong wanderlust without even bothering to get out of bed.

One lustful and wandering writer who did get out of bed was Henry Miller. For those in need of literary vitamin D to counter the winter gloom, I recommend his sun-blessed The Colossus of Maroussi. At the onset of the second world war, Miller found himself in Greece – a period of his life that left him spiritually transformed. Reading his account of those few months is like bathing in supernal light. Everything resplends. He doesn’t even bother to chuck in the sex scenes that made his other books notorious – there’s too much going on in the Aegean sky, the wine-dark sea and the Homeric landscapes.