Around the world in a book

Growing up in a crowded house with a thousand siblings (well, nine, anyway), I was drawn, as a child, to stories about orphans and runaways. I'd lie on my top bunk and block out the din by opening a book. The right book, and I was transfixed, didn't hear the telephone, didn't hear the radio, didn't hear the 11 other people in the house talking, coughing, laughing, slamming doors, getting ready for dinner, getting ready for bed.

Instead, I was hiding in a creepy old house in County Cork with the Gareth children in Noel Streatfeild's "The Magic Summer," or rummaging through the dump with Gertrude Chandler's orphaned boxcar children, or wandering the Scottish Highlands with Kelpie, Sally Watson's witch of the glen.

I wanted to be all of them, live all of their lives. And through books, I could.

As I grew, the books changed, grew more complex, took me farther afield. But always, they did what good books do: They transported me. They took me away from the noisy crowded house on the northern Minnesota tundra, and they dropped me in the middle of the Australian outback ("Tracks" by Robyn Davidson) or Russia ("Anna Karenina") or New Orleans ("A Confederacy of Dunces").

When I asked readers for recommendations of summer books that transport them, they -- you -- replied in droves. Messages came in from all over the country, suggestions accompanied by mini-reviews, dotted with exclamation points and humming with enthusiasm. All of us, it seems, cherish a book that will whisk us away to another time and another place.

Lynne Day of Brooklyn Park suggested "A Moveable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway. "Paris in the 1920s came alive for me, reading this book," she wrote. "The cafes, streets, living quarters and people. If books were drinks, I'd say this gateway to Paris hit the spot."

To Italy, minus the airfare

Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series received a number of recommendations; her time-traveling books take readers to Scotland in two different centuries. "It takes me away to another country and its past," said Anita Guillotel of Savage. "I love historical fiction, and this is one of the best."

Curt Lund of Minneapolis recommends "The Time Traveler's Wife," by Audrey Niffenegger. The book "doesn't transport me to a different time or place; rather it absolutely jogs my real time and place into an alternate reality," he wrote. "I'm not a huge fan of fantasy, and this really isn't, but I've never had a novel make something so far-fetched seem so feasible and so believable."

Per Petterson's "Out Stealing Horses" is the recommendation of Chuck Leddy of Boston. "An evocative summer journey through the natural beauty of Norway and into the fragile history of one man trying to reconstruct his past," he wrote. "Petterson's prose is a marvel."

For some, the time and place were less important than vivid characters. "I strongly recommend 'A Taint in the Blood' by the mystery writer Dana Stabenow," wrote Brad Larson of St. Paul. "It's not the plot details I remember but the fascinating characters, including Kate Shugak, a very capable heroine. It is extremely well-written and a joy to read."

Knight in tarnished armor

Euan Kerr of Minneapolis sent his recommendations via Twitter. Pieced together, they read: "Spanish Armada book: 'The Confident Hope of a Miracle,' by Neil Hanson. Hanson's exploration of dysfunction in the royal houses of Europe is fascinating, particularly as the Armada changed history.

"'The Avignon Quintet' by Lawrence Durrell. Durrell's five books delve into fascinating, uncomfortable period in pre- and post-war France. Books great alone -- together, amazing!"

Some of you dug back to childhood favorites for your recommendations -- the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "A Girl of the Limberlost" by Gene Stratton-Porter, and Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland."

"I discovered 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' by Betty Smith the summer before sixth grade when I was in a gifted program and had access to the high school library," wrote Nancy Pate of Orlando, Fla. "Francie Nolan was 10, like me, and reading a book on a balcony, while I was reading in a tree in my back yard. We seemed destined for each other. Some of it went over my head, of course, but I reread it every summer all the way through high school. The two other books I reread every summer were 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee and 'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith. In high school, I added Reynolds Price's 'A Long and Happy Life.' These are still my favorites that I associate with summer reading and trees and PBJ sandwiches and sweet tea."

A book that transports you back to your own childhood -- in some ways, perhaps, the best kind of summer book of all.