The book (or rather series of books) that transport me the most to another place (and time) is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Her series takes you to 18th century Scotland and later to North Carolina and makes you feel like you actually lived there.

Zoya by Danielle Steele is my favorite book, and on that transports me all over the world.

For me, it's Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence!

I love Donna Leon's mystery series about Venice. I can cuddle up with one those and be lost among Venice's canals and bridges with Commissario Brunetti for a few hours.

The Red Thread by Ann Hood. It really portrays Chinese adoptions well and what it's like for those living in the Far East.

I recently finished Blue Lightning
by Ann Cleeves, the last book in her Shetland series.
I have never been to the Shetlands, probably never will, but after reading these books, I really want to!

Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is so illustrative and evocative that you can't help but be instantly transported to the setting. It is as if you are in Japan watching the white makeup being applied and the colorful robes during tea service.

Love the tongue-in-cheek french series by Stephen Clarke, Talk to the Snail, etc. Also LOVE Shreve!!!

I just finished a book that took me to South Africa during apartheid. This book, January Sun~One Day, Three Lives, A South African Town was written by the author (Richard Stengel) who collaborated with Nelson Mandela to write Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. In fact, it was this book that caused Mandela to want to pick Stengel for his collaborator.

The author writes about what a small town in South Africa is/was like in the late 1980s. The setting is in Brits, South Africa where tourists would never go. It was when apartheid still existed, some 20 years before freedom. The reader learns of the feelings and perceptions of an Afrikaaner family, an Indian family and a Black family (with some Coloured--mixed race--that identify as Black). While reading each person's opinions, it often reminded me how complex issues are and how each of us percieves things differently.

There were opinions stated by the community members that were so varied even within their own families. Stengel was able to make the reader see this by simply writing what he saw and heard. I highly recommend this book as it really makes one realize those truths stated above: issues are complex, each of us lives in his or her own world.
(I am an avid reader of Anita Shreve. I would love to win/read her recent book.)

@ mrsshukra: I felt the same way about Mayle's book, and have qlways felt that he helped invent the "year in/of" genre.

@Denah: Many people have told me that they were amazed that Golden also was able so convincingly to get into a woman's skin.

I am struggling my way through Jenna Blum's Those Who Save Us which swings back and forth between 1939-40 Germany and the young German woman who sneaks off in the evening for Chess and conversation with the middle-aged Jewish Doctor and "current" day, when the young woman has become an unpleasant old woman in Minnesota who has just burried her beloved-by-the-town husband who, unless he changed his name to Jack, doesn't seem to have been the Doctor. I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be Happily Ever After and I do not wish to be transported!

I love Eat, Pray, Love....it really takes you through the 3 countries. A great book to get lost in...

I absolutely loved The Linnet Bird by Linda Holeman. Fascinating story about a young girl forced into prostitution by her step father after the death of her mother. Linny eventually escapes this life and sails to India on the “fishing fleet”, a ship full of young women going to India in hopes of finding a wealthy English husband.

Mozart's Blood by Louise Marley transported me back centuries in time to Italy, Prague and other places. Wonderful read.