Literary Blog Hop: Fantasy Settings

This blog hop, hosted over at The Blue Bookcase, is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion. This week's question is: What setting (time or place) from a book or story would you most like to visit? Eudora Welty said that, "Being shown how to locate, to place, any account is what does most toward making us believe it...," so in what location would you most like to hang out?

That is a fine question, and one without any easy answer. So many settings in my favorite (and not so favorite) reads sound absolutely fascinating. While I'm reading, I envision myself in the story and things are all hunkydorey. I am flying on my broomstick alongside Hermione, walking the streets of London with Mr. Holmes, walking through books with Thursday, fighting the system with my fellow orphans, and the such not. But when I really think about it does anyone really want to be in the ring with Katniss or stuck telling stories due to the plague (Decameron anyone?) Much of what I read involves some pretty serious conflicts, and who needs the stress?

My favorite part about reading is the escape. I get to suspend my disbelief, take off my big boy pants, relax, and enjoy. If I were to be smacked down into the middle of one of my favorite stories, my life would take quite the awful turn. More than likely I would lose all leisure time, have to work on my fighting skills, go without pizza, and hope I didn't die (like from a vampire bite or an arrow or the chopping block or a concentration camp or the opposing army or...).

So then I tried to think of some more peaceful settings I could be a part of and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came to mind. The characters in that novel are so wonderfully eccentric and the island they live on seems like one a person could really enjoy. But there's still drama and heartache and all those other things that make a story interesting.

So I am totally going to cop out here and say that while I love many fictional settings, I am perfectly happy where I am, admiring the action from the comfort and safety of my big red couch in the basement of my heated and air conditioned house.

I am just too much of a softie to live anywhere else.