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Show HN: Destination Reads – Find the best books set in cities around the world

8 points by xenophon 9y ago

xenophon 9y ago
Hi HN! Whenever I travel to a new city for work or fun, I like to read a book set in that place, or about that place, to set the mood and build a rapport with my new environment before I arrive. After a conversation with one of my friends, I realized that many frequent travelers do this, and thought I'd make a website to curate and collect "destination reads" -- novels, memoirs and other long-form works of fiction and creative non-fiction that capture the character and essence of a city. I plan to add more cities over the next few weeks, and hope for nominations and contributions from the community. This is the first webapp I've ever built (I used Webflow) -- would love feedback on design, content, and anything else that I can improve!
Ryel 9y ago
Looks really cool! Congratulations on shipping. Looking forward to reading some of the NYC books =)
christudor 9y ago
This is something I’ve been interested in for ages. I recently went to India and the first thing I Googled was “best books set in India” (answers: Shantaram, A Fine Balance, Midnight’s Children, God of Small Things). So definitely something I would use. Some comments from me: 1. Needs to be much bigger. You currently have four books recommended for London, both fiction and non-fiction. But there are hundreds and hundreds of books set in London, which leads me on to ... 2. Needs to be curated. When I was searching for the best books set in India, I was looking for the most popular, critically-acclaimed, ‘important’ books, not just any old book set in India. Some sense of priority would be useful. 3. Needs to include more than just cities. Could you also include regions and countries, too? If you’re travelling in the Deep South, for example, you’ll want to be recommended things like Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc. even though these books aren’t always set in specific cities. (I think Faulkner set lots of his books in a fictional county somewhere in the Deep South). 4. UX. I don’t need photos of cities on the buttons. If this is a site that might be used by people on holiday = people with really slow internet, you might want to think about getting rid of needless graphics, or offering a low-bandwidth version. Again, to return to the India example, the Internet here (and lots of other places I’ve been) is woeful. Some services (e.g. Reddit, WhatsApp) do really well in those circumstances, others (e.g. Twitter) not so much. Great idea, however. Looking forward to see how it grows!
- xenophon 9y ago
  Apologies for the belated response - this is incredibly helpful! Thanks a ton for taking a look - prioritization in particular, figuring out how to highlight the "best of the best" as the amount of content on the site grows, feels key to me as well.

8 points by xenophon 9y ago

Hi HN! Whenever I travel to a new city for work or fun, I like to read a book set in that place, or about that place, to set the mood and build a rapport with my new environment before I arrive. After a conversation with one of my friends, I realized that many frequent travelers do this, and thought I'd make a website to curate and collect "destination reads" -- novels, memoirs and other long-form works of fiction and creative non-fiction that capture the character and essence of a city. I plan to add more cities over the next few weeks, and hope for nominations and contributions from the community. This is the first webapp I've ever built (I used Webflow) -- would love feedback on design, content, and anything else that I can improve!

Ryel 9y ago

Looks really cool! Congratulations on shipping. Looking forward to reading some of the NYC books =)

christudor 9y ago

This is something I’ve been interested in for ages. I recently went to India and the first thing I Googled was “best books set in India” (answers: Shantaram, A Fine Balance, Midnight’s Children, God of Small Things). So definitely something I would use. Some comments from me: 1. Needs to be much bigger. You currently have four books recommended for London, both fiction and non-fiction. But there are hundreds and hundreds of books set in London, which leads me on to ... 2. Needs to be curated. When I was searching for the best books set in India, I was looking for the most popular, critically-acclaimed, ‘important’ books, not just any old book set in India. Some sense of priority would be useful. 3. Needs to include more than just cities. Could you also include regions and countries, too? If you’re travelling in the Deep South, for example, you’ll want to be recommended things like Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc. even though these books aren’t always set in specific cities. (I think Faulkner set lots of his books in a fictional county somewhere in the Deep South). 4. UX. I don’t need photos of cities on the buttons. If this is a site that might be used by people on holiday = people with really slow internet, you might want to think about getting rid of needless graphics, or offering a low-bandwidth version. Again, to return to the India example, the Internet here (and lots of other places I’ve been) is woeful. Some services (e.g. Reddit, WhatsApp) do really well in those circumstances, others (e.g. Twitter) not so much. Great idea, however. Looking forward to see how it grows!

xenophon 9y ago
Apologies for the belated response - this is incredibly helpful! Thanks a ton for taking a look - prioritization in particular, figuring out how to highlight the "best of the best" as the amount of content on the site grows, feels key to me as well.