A Scottish wedding led this Malaysian family on an unexpected literary trail

HAVE you noticed how kind people in bookstores are? They talk to one another, ask for book recommendations, help each other find a title or feel compelled to commend a good book or choice.

I never really noticed it until I made it a point to visit as many bookstores as possible on a recent trip.

A year ago, my daughter Iman announced her Scottish wedding plans. She gave us plenty of warning to start saving for the trip.

The original idea was simply to celebrate her wedding and be with her on this most important day of her life, as she married Scotsman Lewy Rutherford in the United Kingdom.

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We are not avid travellers, so my husband Rudy and I began preparing for the family trip a year in advance, making sure we could work within a budget.

Iman's younger sisters would be experiencing Europe for the first time, so it would also be the first time all of us were together on the continent.

Somehow, the plans grew.

We had to fly earlier than originally planned when Kak Ngah Inas suggested, "Why don't you all come with me to the south of France, Mak? Before the wedding?"

Crazy, but after some quick calculations, I said "yes" for many practical, and impractical, reasons.

That set the mood for the entire journey: impromptu amid planned budgets.

Driving in the United Kingdom, riding trains in the south of France. Airbnb stays and caravans, as well as longer ones with well-equipped amenities.

Dining was mostly home-cooked meals, with a few splurges along the way — tea and ginger ale, and cakes at Cafe de la Rotonde in Monte Carlo, Monaco, where we sat in a plush corner beside elegant windows, served by a charming and eccentric maitre d' named Daniel.

I had never been to France. Staying in Nice was actually more affordable than we expected, and the regional transport network made it easy to explore the French Riviera.

It was also a wonderful opportunity to put my basic French and long-forgotten Italian to the test.

Finally, August arrived.

BOOKSTORE TRAIL

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Books have always been a family thing, so over 22 days, we took flights, trams, trains and cars through five countries, stopping at bookstores wherever we could.

Big bookstores, ancient bookstores, established ones, independent ones and even closed bookstores!

Farmhouse service stations… museums… markets… Everywhere, there were books.

Booksellers welcomed us with smiles and shared laughter — over words lost in rapid questions and translation, bookish jokes and that unexpected camaraderie between people who simply love books.

Amid picnics, markets, sea views and beach days for the girls, the journey quietly became our very own bookstore trail, carefully folded into the travel budget.

For the first leg, we returned to familiar London haunts: Hatchards and Waterstones on Piccadilly.

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Hatchards, founded in 1797, is London's oldest bookshop and its booksellers are known for their expertise and friendly conversation.

These traditional bookstores were natural places for us to explore ideas for our book gallery Hikayat Fandom as well.

The Notting Hill Bookshop, made famous after its interior appeared in the 1999 film Notting Hill — starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant — was packed to the brim on a Tuesday, with barely room to manoeuvre.

Apparently, it would be even more crowded at weekends.

We also visited the Tintin Shop in Covent Garden, which, sadly, had just closed by the time we arrived.

That was all right. We wanted to find Tintin, a treasured family favourite, in both French and Italian versions and knew we would have other opportunities.

At the British Museum Bookshop, of course, we found books, including the beautifully illustrated Timeline.

The museum's bookshop is part of a wider collection of shops serving its visitors.

At the Natural History Museum, I discovered a copy of The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, a particularly meaningful find for me.

Wallace spent eight years exploring Southeast Asia between 1854 and 1862, and his work in the Malay Archipelago remains an important part of the history of natural science in the region.

One simply cannot visit a museum without disappearing into its bookshop afterwards.

EUROPEAN SOJOURN

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After a week, we headed to sunny Nice, where we found Librairie Masséna. Here, my French was truly put to the test, and everyone seemed to love us for trying.

Between Inas and me, we left with loads of French books and card games.

My favourite finds included Bonjour Tristesse, Lupin, Tintin, poems by Victor Hugo, La Mer and a lovely collection of quotations from Jane Austen and Alice in Wonderland.

While the girls explored street markets and the Picasso Museum in Antibes, Rudy and I took the train to Marseille, travelling as far as Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles.

Along the way, we enjoyed the shimmering blue Mediterranean on one side, with the dramatic red porphyry rocks of the Massif de l'Esterel adding a fiery contrast to the landscape.

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On our final day in France, we crossed into Italy and discovered Libreria Pinocchio in Ventimiglia, a delightful children's bookshop every bit as charming as its name.

The shop, now part of the Ubik network, is on Via Roma, close to the French border.

I studied Italian more than 30 years ago, so I bought yet another Tintin, this time in Italian, along with more books and card games.

I also introduced the bookstore to the Italian edition of my own book, BENTALA — Regnata dei Naga: Una Leggenda Mak Yong.

Inas found a gorgeous book on Maradona for her husband Khairul, a Miss Marple puzzle and other treasures. We left with an armful of beautiful complimentary gifts and bookish treats.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

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We returned to London for the akad nikah at the London Central Mosque.

That night, the girls decided to be adventurous and headed to Oxford Street on their own.

The Notting Hill Carnival was in full swing amid the Bank Holiday weekend, and I was relieved when they made it home without incident despite the many bus diversions and police patrols.

The next day, we let ChatGPT suggest some of the journey's little detours on the way to Scotland: driving to the off-the-beaten-track Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve and Christmas Common in the Chiltern Hills, followed by sunrise at Annandale Water, with swans and foxes upon a golden lake.

Aston Rowant, on the Chiltern escarpment, is known for its chalk grassland, woodland and rich wildlife, including red kites, butterflies and wildflowers.

Crossing into Scotland, the striking Queensferry Crossing greeted us. We soon reached Edinburgh and wandered through the gloriously crowded bookshelves of Armchair Books, filled with second-hand and antiquarian books in its West Port home, within sight of Edinburgh Castle.

We drove on to meet the rest of the party.

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In Aberfeldy, we dropped by the Watermill Bookshop, where a former oatmeal mill had been given new life as an award-winning independent bookshop, gallery and cafe.

The present mill building dates to the 19th century, while mills have stood on the site since at least the 1600s.

The Watermill opened in its current form in 2005 and was named UK Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2008-09.

Its original character remains part of the experience — stone walls, old machinery, nooks and crannies, and that warm independent-bookshop atmosphere that makes you want to linger.

We met Katarina, busy arranging books while reminding everyone to have tea downstairs before the cafe closed.

She suggested The Bookseller of Inverness, a historical mystery by S.G. MacLean, and naturally I picked up only books by Scottish authors here.

Katarina had travelled to Malaysia in her 20s and absolutely loved it.

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The next day, on my birthday, we drove further north to Inverness and explored Leakey's Bookshop, housed in the former Gaelic Church at Greyfriars Hall.

Established in 1979, Leakey's has been in the church since the 1990s and is now Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop, with around 100,000 selected volumes.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves, an old wood-burning stove and the church's character made it easy to lose track of time.

Situated near a cemetery, we even checked out the tombstones, looking for century-old stories of their own.

In Scotland, even the mystery of Loch Ness becomes part of a much bigger story. The legend of Nessie has intrigued visitors for centuries, with recorded stories dating back more than 1,500 years, while the modern monster legend took hold in the 20th century.

The experience made me think about how local lore can become a powerful tourism asset: the story attracts visitors, the landscape inspires them and the surrounding community benefits.

Books, storytelling, exhibitions and souvenirs all help keep that story alive — an idea that Hikayat Fandom already builds upon.

After the wedding at Blair Castle, on the way back to London, ChatGPT led us to the small town of Moffat, which became Europe's first Dark Sky Town in 2016 after changes to its outdoor lighting helped reduce light pollution.

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The Moffat Bookshop was already closed, but we found it anyway and photographed its distinctive green-and-white shopfront in the twilight.

BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER

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Small towns with bookstores spoke volumes about the importance of reading to their communities.

Even at Gretna Green, our final Scottish stop before crossing back into England, we somehow managed to leave with a Murdle book — 100 murder-mystery puzzles and riddles to solve.

Saving the best for last, our final day was spent in Stratford-upon-Avon, discovering a whole town dedicated to the 400-year legacy of the bard — William Shakespeare.

We stopped at the Shakespeare Bookshop, the specialist bookshop of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, on Henley Street, right next to Shakespeare's birthplace.

There was an entire street of souvenir shops, and the town had the unmistakable feeling of being lived through Shakespeare's legacy.

It was a Sunday, with more than 90 stalls and people from all over the world filling the streets.

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The riverside market, held every Sunday from March to December, draws visitors against the backdrop of the River Avon and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

The picturesque town was shaded by old trees, with seating encircling little spaces and birds, ducks and swans on the canal.

There was a charming sense of contentment in simply being there. It was the perfect end to an amazing visit before we drove on to Heathrow.

From London to Nice, Ventimiglia, Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberfeldy and Moffat, all the way to Stratford-upon-Avon, books became milestones of our journey across England, France, Monaco, Italy and Scotland.

Looking back, it was never really about how many bookstores we managed to visit or how many books we brought home.

It was about the conversations along the way, the unexpected kindness of strangers, the stories we discovered and the memories we made as a family.

Some people travel in search of monuments, landscapes or famous restaurants. We found our way through a little corner of the world by following our love of books — sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident, and occasionally after asking ChatGPT where to go next.

And perhaps that is what made the journey so memorable.

Wherever we went, books gave us a reason to pause, look, talk and to connect.

We may have started the journey to celebrate a wedding.

Somewhere along the way, we found something else to celebrate too: the simple joy of being together, discovering the world one bookshop at a time.