Susanna Hoffs’ debut novel, This Bird Has Flown, is a charming love story between a flailing musician and a literature professor. The California-based singer-songwriter (of the Bangles fame) set the book in Oxford, a city she’s loved exploring.
Less“I recommend stopping here for a meal, snack, or tea. The location is picture-perfect, with views of the iconic Radcliffe Camera building and stone colleges. It has indoor and outdoor dining with a delightful patio and a lawn strewn with several ancient gravestones that give one a sense of the history of this storied place. If you come here for lunch, the carrot, ginger, and coriander soup with artisan sourdough bread and butter is delicious, as are the mixed salads! AND tea!”
“If you enjoy shopping, a trip to the Covered Market is a must. Fun fact: In This Bird Has Flown, the Cake Shop at the Covered Market is where Tom buys a cake for an anxious student. And if you’re nearby the Covered Market at lunchtime, another great option is Pieminister: I loved their Christingle pie (vegetarian): parsnip, chestnut, cheddar, and leek.”
“Right nearby the Covered Market, this is a favorite establishment of mine. It’s practically an art museum of simple but useful household and gardening objects.”
“I could spend hours perusing the artworks at Sanders, which is known for its antique prints and maps.”
“Come here and enjoy flicking through racks of vinyl! Jane Start’s love interest, Tom Hardy, is obsessed with records, and I imagine him spending hours in this shop.”
“I recommend a trip to the Oxford Museum of Natural History with its soaring ceiling of glass, beneath which skeletal sea creatures suspend like mobiles. In my novel, this is where Jane’s London friends visit her when they come to Oxford.”
“In This Bird Has Flown, Tom and Jane go up the steps into the top row at the chapel. Jane mistakes the velvet kneeling prayer cushion for a footrest.”
“This place is iconic—it’s where authors Thomas Hardy and Ernest Hemingway famously drank, and where Bill Clinton famously didn’t inhale! To get here, I recommend you go under the Bridge of Sighs and get lost on narrow stone alleyways until you find yourself on the St. Helen’s Passage, and then you arrive. I recommend the Great British cheese toastie and the butternut squash soup for lunch.”
“The patio at the Folly, by the stone bridge on the river, where boats and crew boats go by, was the inspiration for where Tom and Jane had their first date. For lunch, I recommend the butternut soup and miso-charred aubergine.”
“I love the high tea here! It comes with smoked-salmon sandwiches, scones, jam, clotted cream, petit fours, and your choice of coffee or tea.”