Breaks for bookworms

GO LITERARY BREAKS:What's the story? Well, if you reckon holidays represent an opportunity to catch up on your reading, it might be time to graduate to a more bookish kind of break. SANDRA O'CONNELLrounds up a few to get you started

Antigua

Bibliotherapy

What do you get if you mix such characters as long haul specialist Kuoni, Elite Island Resorts and book publisher Penguin? Bibliotherapy, of course.

This particular book lover’s paradise, which takes place in the first week in May, will see you stay at the St James’s Club in Antigua, hosted by playwright Damian Barr.

In his spare time Barr runs a literary salon at London’s Soho House and Shoreditch House members clubs, where authors from Jenny Colgan to Louis de Bernières regularly rock up to read previews of new works.

In Antigua he'll be providing the services of a real live, professional bibliotherapist to help you get out of whatever reading rut you're in while Penguin author Julia Llewellyn, author of The Love Trainerand Amy's Honeymoon, provides sunset storytelling.

Cost:prices start at £1,665pp (€1,934) for seven nights all-inclusive, including flights from Gatwick.

* kuoni.co.uk

France

Writing course

For readers who fancy taking their literary activities to the next level, how about combining a holiday in France with a little creative writing?

French House Party runs writing courses led by poet and writer Sarah Hymas. Her workshops aim to expand the imagination using writing games and exercises that rely on play, memory and, she says, a sense of adventure.

She will also cover the business side of being a writer – such as it is – as well as guidance as to the best publications to target for various types of work.

Cost: the residential starting to write course, running from June 29th to July 3rd, staying in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Carcassonne, costs £765 (€888) excluding flights.

* frenchhouseparty.eu

Stockholm

Stieg Larsson trail

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogyis busy doing for Stockholm what Dan Brown's Da Vinci Codedid for Rome and you can get in on the act with a suitably jam-packed thriller of an itinerary.

This trip starts with a guided coach tour of the city and is followed, on day two, with a Stieg Larsson walking trail, stopping for coffee (latte, obviously) at the Melqvist Kaffebar, followed by dinner and a talk by screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, who adapted the books for film.

Spend your days following in the footsteps of investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, starting with both their home addresses and ending at the Millennium Trilogyexhibition at the Stockholm City Museum.

Take brunch at the Kvarnen Bar, also a feature in the books, enjoy a cruise around some of the city’s more traditional tourist sights that afternoon, and finish off with a visit to Stieg Larsson’s Publishers, Norstedts, to meet the person responsible for all of Larsson’s overseas sales, all 26 million of them. He’ll be the guy smiling.

Cost: the Stieg Larsson Millenium Trilogy trail in Stockholm runs from September 16th to 19th and costs £969pp (€1,126) sharing a twin, or £1,099pp (€1,268) staying in a single room, including flights to and from London.

* arenatravel.com

Spain

Writing workshop

The Literary Consultancy (TLC) runs writing holidays and workshops at its base, Casa Ana, in the Alpujarras mountains of Andalucia, Spain.

Spend your holiday in the creative company of tutors Rebecca Abrams and Jacob Ross, while enjoying guest speaker authors such as Chris Stewart ( Driving over Lemons) and Margaret Drabble ( A Summer Bird-Cage, The Pattern in the Carpetand editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature) as well as travel writer Michael Jacobs.

Participants (maximum of 12 in each) are promised not just top notch tutelage but a chance to work, read and relax in beautiful surroundings.

The week long workshops start on March 26th and April 2nd, and participants can stay for one or two weeks.

Morning workshops provide a range of idea-generating exercises and address areas of writing craft, such as dialogue, narrative voice and sense of place. Afternoon sessions provide a chance to ask questions and share creative thoughts, with time to write in between. Lunch is in the house and dinner is in the local vegetarian restaurant a short walk away.

Cost:TLC's literary adventure at Casa Ana costs £695 (€808) in a shared room, including breakfasts, lunches and two evening meals. A limited number of singles are available at a supplement of £120pp (€138.50). Flights (to and from Malaga) extra.

* literaryconsultancy.co.uk

Jamaica

Writer’s house

We journalists have an understandable soft spot for those of our own who manage to haul themselves out of the bear pit on the back of a bestselling novel and few did it with more aplomb than Ian Fleming, former Reuters stringer and creator of one James Bond.

Fleming, whose own exploits could give his protagonist a run for his money, spent part of the second World War in Jamaica investigating U-boat activities in the Caribbean as part of a naval operation entitled Goldeneye.

So enamoured of the place was he that he bought a parcel of land, built his dream home and stayed there ever after, keeping himself busy penning his Bond novels.

When he got bored, he could always call over to neighbour Noel Coward’s retreat, Firefly, for company which, over the years, included everyone from Patrick Leigh Fermor to Truman Capote and Cecil Beaton.

Today you can add your own no less lofty name to the literary list by renting out the Fleming Villa at Goldeneye, now a resort made up of luxury villas, each with its own tropical garden, private pool and beach.

Cost:the Fleming Villa has three bedrooms, each with outdoor garden bath and rain shower, plus two guest cottages. In all it sleeps 10, with prices ranging from $5,500 (€3,933) to $8,500 (€6,079) per night.

* goldeneye.com

England

Hardy country

Gloriously gloomy Thomas Hardy is one of the stalwarts of English literature and anyone looking to follow in his footsteps can, with Wessex Discovery Tours.

Many of the places that feature in works such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowdand The Mayor of Casterbridge,look much the same as they did in Hardy's time.

The tours also include places associated with Hardy himself, such as the thatched cottage outside Dorchester of his childhood and Max Gate, the house he designed and where he lived in later years. Dorchester Museum has a collection of Hardy memorabilia, including a reconstruction of his study.

You’ll also, of course, visit the little churchyard at Stinsford where Hardy’s heart lies alongside his first wife, Emma (the rest of him is in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey). If you’re lucky, it’ll be raining and you can watch the rain drop down his carved name with some satisfaction.

Cost:a five-night Thomas Hardy tour, staying in mid-level accommodation, costs around £975pp (€1,125), including BB plus dinner.

* wessexdiscoverytours.co.uk

Lake District

If awards were given to the “most literary” place on earth, the Lake District would surely win out.

While other literary luminaries were succumbing to Stendhal syndrome around Italy, Thomas Grey put the Lake District on the grand tour map closer to home.

What with Wordsworth, Coleridge and Robert Southey following suit, it’s become a place of literary pilgrimage ever since. Thomas Arnold put in an appearance here, as did, Ruskin, plus assorted visiting scribes from Shelley to Scott, Hawthorne, Keats and Tennyson.

If you’ve got kids, both Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome lived here too, so there’s literary connections for every member of the family. And, of course, it’s beautiful too.

Cost:a return fare for two adults and two children plus car with Irish Ferries comes in at €363 in early June with Irish Ferries. The drive to Windermere takes about three-and-a-half hours.

* irishferries.com

Oxford festival

As if Oxford’s buildings alone weren’t enough to get your literary juices flowing – all those quads, those dreaming spires – the city is also home to the Oxford Literary Festival.

Between April 2nd and 10th there’ll be so many big words in use here that you can expect shortages elsewhere.

In all, more than 550 speakers will take the stage over nine days at Christ Church, Corpus Christi and Merton colleges.

Star billing this year goes to Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, authors of The King's Speech. Others speaking include Man Booker Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, AC Grayling, Michael Frayn, AS Byatt, David Lodge, Ben Okri and Edna O'Brien.

Novelists Fay Weldon, Penelope Lively and David Nicholls will be there, as will historians Niall Ferguson, Simon Sebag-Montefiore and Orlando Figes, biographers Michael Holroyd and Simon Winchester and crime writers PD James and Colin Dexter.

There'll be scientists, dismal scientists and cookery writers, as well as uncategorisable writers such as Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes.

There’s a full festival programme of breakfast briefings and literary dinners with literary tours of the city by day and, no doubt, of its literary hostelries by night.

Cost:some events are free while most author sessions cost £10 (€11.50) with tickets available on the web. For the full Oxford experience, stay in rooms at one of the colleges via oxfordrooms.co.uk. Prices start at £40 (€46) a night.

* oxfordliteraryfestival.com