Conde Nast Traveler picks Berlin, Dublin and Boston as the three best cities for bookworms to travel to
Berlin
Artists aren’t the only creative types flocking to Berlin, Europe’s new cultural capital. The city has been attracting both fledgling and established writers from around the globe, including Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides. And don’t forget the stars of Berlin’s lettered past: critic and writer E.T.A. Hoffmann; playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht; Alfred Döblin, author of the classic “Berlin Alexanderplatz”; and Herwarth Walden, editor of the avant-garde magazine Der Sturm.
Dublin
Dublin abounds with literary landmarks, from George Bernard Shaw’s birthplace, now a museum (33 Synge St.; 353-1-475-0854), to bronze statues of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan on North Earl Street, Merrion Square and the Royal Canal, respectively. McDaids was the drinking haunt of Behan, Joyce, and Sean O’Casey (3 Harry St.). Among the exhibits at the Dublin Writer’s Museum are a first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Samuel Beckett’s telephone
Boston
Many of the country’s most enduring writers lived and worked in Beacon Hill during the nineteenth century. Downtown’s Old Corner Bookstore, once the offices of the publisher Tick-nor and Fields, was the unofficial meeting place of writers such as Emerson and Hawthorne. The Boston Public Library, overlooking Copley Square, is the nation’s first (and still largest) municipal public library. Boston by Foot’s informative Literary Landmarks tour hits all the highlights
Tags: Berlin, Boston, Dublin, Travel books