Welcome! I’ve traveled extensively in India on several lengthy trips, and I’ve taken thousands of photos there. I’ll share some of those here, as well as some general tips on traveling in that fascinating country.
My emphasis in this web site is on the colorful Rajasthan region and on other popular places in northern India, such as Agra, Delhi, and Varanasi (though I enjoy southern India, too, which is quite different from the north).
I also have a passion for historical fiction — reading it, as well as writing it.
On this site I’m suggesting historical novels set in India and elsewhere that I personally think are worth reading, including my own, which are set mainly in Rajasthan and north India.
Travelers to India especially appreciate learning about the culture and its history through my novels.
Even if readers initially have no particular interest in India, many of them tell me the stories drew them into the exotic settings and they learned a lot in the process about India’s history, culture, and religions.
In addition, historical Fiction is good for your soul, plus it can be fun!
Life is a school, and one of the main ways we learn is through stories.
As Jonathan Gottschall points out in his captivating and perceptive book The Storytelling Animal, stories have been an integral part of what makes us human ever since the earliest eras of our species. (In societies before literacy was wide-spread, of course, the stories were passed on verbally.)
Studies have shown that people who read good fiction are often more empathetic and compassionate than those who don’t. By reading fiction, we can, in effect, live other people’s lives, feel what they’re feeling, share in their joys and sorrows, meet their challenges, experience their triumphs and defeats.
And in well done, sufficiently researched, historical fiction, we can experience what it could have been like to have lived in another, culturally different, time — facing the unique challenges of that era. Historical fiction may be as close as we’ll get to traveling in a time machine.
So please take a tour around the site, enjoy the photos, and then immerse yourself in some of the suggested books — and maybe even plan your travels!
Happy Reading!
Gary Worthington
