Top 10 summer reads

National Geo lists its best books of the season and WideWorld throws in some of its own

Are you stuck for ideas about what to read this summer? Perhaps you're tired of sitting round the pool with the latest Ian Rankin or Cecilia Ahern, and you'd prefer something that will inspire you and ignite your sense of adventure?

National Geographic magazine has trawled through its travel library to come up with 50 must-read books all about travel, adventure and foreign climes for the summer.

There is a range of fiction and non-fiction works of different themes, from long-distance love affairs to epic journeys across whole continents.  The list has also been helpfully divided by area too, as the stories are always specific to one country, or continent in some cases.

Some of the authors are more familiar, such as John Steinbeck. In Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1961), Steinbeck documents a road trip from Maine to California with only his pet poodle for company.

Then there is the always-reliable Bill Bryson with two entries: Notes from a Small Island (1995) and In a Sunburned Country (2000), the first being about Britain, while the second describes Bryson’s journeys through Australia.

If you want something more unusual, there are several books that describe places that most people don’t usually go on holiday, such as Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (1959). This book is now widely regarded as one of the greatest pieces of travel writing ever – it's Thesiger's account of his adventures in Arabia among the Bedouin.

Further east, James Sullivan’s Over the Moat (2004), recounts his expedition through Vietnam, from Saigon to Hanoi, on his bicycle. Rather than just an adventure story, it also details the author’s real-life romance with a Vietnamese shop girl.

And if that's not enough to whet your literary whistle, here are a few of WideWorld’s own recommendations:

Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz (1991)

The journalist and writer describes his journeys through the middle east, including Afghanistan.

Blue Highways: A Journey into America, by William Least Heat-Moon (1982)

Just sacked from his job, Heat-moon goes on a 13,000-mile trip through America.

Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby (1966)

1,200-mile journey down India's enormous river.

Travels With My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago, by Tim Moore (2004)

Humorous story about a British man on a 500-mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee (1976)

Pulitzer-prize-winning writer captures the varied communities and landscapes of Alaska.

In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon, by Redmond O'Hanlon (1988)

Thrilling four-month trip through the wilds of the Venezuelan rainforests.

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (1978)

A strange journey through Nepal to find the Himalayan blue sheep, snow leopard and perhaps some spiritual enlightenment as well.