Your Favorite Novel About....Running Away

Elias Graves · May 31, 2011

Running from home, love, the mob, aliens, police, men in black, vikings, sea monsters, etc?

Some books are all about running away from something. What's your favorite?

EG

Purple Rose · May 31, 2011

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I like the reason for the girl running away and the adventure that follows.

blacbird · May 31, 2011

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

johnbriner · May 31, 2011

Stardust by Neil Gaiman. The lead character was compelled to leave his home in order to search for the star to give it to the woman he liked.

Brett Marie · Jun 1, 2011

I go for The Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux. It's easily in my all-time Top Five.

Allie Fox uproots his family and brings them to the jungles of Honduras to escape modern Western society. It doesn't go so well for them.

Elias Graves · Jun 1, 2011

Good titles!
Running covers a lot of ground

I'll add Grapes of Wrath.

EG

Calla Lily · Jun 1, 2011

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.

Vito · Jun 1, 2011

blacbird said:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

Yes! Floating away...

The Resurrectionist · Jun 8, 2011

E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Chris1981 · Jun 8, 2011

For me, it's a tie between "Huck Finn" and "Maniac Magee."

MsGneiss · Jun 8, 2011

Of Human Bondage, by W.S. Maugham.

Wayne K · Jun 8, 2011

I wrote one when I was 13. I wish my sister could find it

CaroGirl · Jun 9, 2011

Water for Elephants. What better thing to do when you run away than to join the circus?

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 9, 2011

blacbird said:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

The best! Some more:

My Side of the Mountain

Escape to Witch Mountain

The Hundred and One Dalmations

What can I say? I loved running away stories in childhood.

DO NOT watch the movies of them. The books are infinitely superior.

Purple Rose · Jun 9, 2011

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

I'd forgotten about this book. A clever plot and very well-written. Won the Booker a few years ago. So much better than the one I posted above.

AKyber36 · Jun 13, 2011

Sarah1981 said:
For me, it's a tie between "Huck Finn" and "Maniac Magee."

I was going to say Maniac Magee. One of my favorite books since I was a kid and what that story was trying to tell still resonates with me today. That, and the images and sensations of him enjoying his butterscotch Twinkies is a bittersweet memory.

We had to read it in elementary school. That was one heck of a book. (Much like How the Bumblebee Flies Anyway).

Maryn · Jun 14, 2011

Trying not to repeat any titles already mentioned is difficult.

I'll add "The Big Picture" by Douglas Kennedy, in which an amateur photographer commits a (well-deserved) murder and fakes his own death so he can run away. But things go awry...

Maryn, jotting down other people's titles

MsGneiss · Jun 15, 2011

Not my favorite, but up there -- "Beat the Reaper" by Josh Bazell. Really good stuff.

Chris P · Jun 15, 2011

One of the first books I ever read all the way through: The Runaways by Victor Canning. A boy runs away from his boarding school at the same time a cheetah runs away from the zoo.

One of the more recent runaway books I read was And You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers. He's not running away in the conventional sense, but travels the world with the object of giving away a certain (and largish) amount of money.

And Huck Finn is one of the best novels ever.

AinSoph · Jun 24, 2011

It's not a novel, but a collection of short stories on the theme - Runaway by Alice Munro. Gorgeous literary fiction that is also accessible to people who don't normally like literary fiction. I loved every word.

Your Favorite Novel About....Running Away

Elias Graves

Unrealistically Optimistic

Purple Rose

practical experience, FTW

blacbird

johnbriner

Brett Marie

Slayer of Adverbs

Elias Graves

Unrealistically Optimistic

Calla Lily

On hiatus

Vito

Recalled to life

The Resurrectionist

New kid, be gentle!

Chris1981

Just Another Transman

MsGneiss

Wayne K

CaroGirl

Living the dream

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Purple Rose

practical experience, FTW

AKyber36

Maryn

I Tried

MsGneiss

Chris P

Likes metaphors mixed, not stirred

AinSoph

lost in lit land