If you’re not spending autumn fulfilling your wanderlust, you’ll want to be transported by a good book. This roundup of new releases explores the centennial of a dramatic race you never heard of, the discovery of dinosaurs, and the singular magic of a great bookstore. Even if you’re traveling this fall, you still need a good book for your flight, ride, or cruise.
Courtesy of Mariner
Into Unknown Skies by David K. Randall
- Location: Northern Hemisphere
- Type: Nonfiction/adventure
- Buy now
Note the subtitle: An Unlikely Team, a Daring Race, and the First Flight Around the World. One of the big international news stories of 1924 has since disappeared like a contrail. Fortunately, Randall has rescued the tale of American underdogs competing against their European rivals to see who can circumnavigate the globe by air, and he delivers a fascinating account of the challenges of early long-distance flights and the urge to set new aviation records. You might never complain about airline service again after reading what it was like to travel in open cockpits in planes made largely of wood and canvas in uncharted territory and during horrendous weather. The race, which involves pilots from several nations, is full of near-death experiences. You will cheer for the unlikely winners.
Courtesy of Scribner
Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party by Edward Dolnick
- Location: England
- Type: Science history
- Buy now
No special interest in dinosaurs is necessary to enjoy this entertaining history of the prehistoric animals’ “discovery” and subsequent impact on the 19th century. The time-travel tale starts with the popular activity of fossil hunting on the Jurassic Coast of southern England and ends with a stranger-than-fiction dinner party in London with an iguanodon. Along the way, Dolnick brings to vivid life an engaging assortment of characters, most scientists, with clever descriptions. He likens Darwin’s theory of evolution to “a high-stakes game of musical chairs” while clearly conveying the scientific—and cultural—revolution that fossilized bones launched.
Courtesy of Graywolf Press
Anima: A Wild Pastoral by Kapka Kassabova
- Location: Bulgaria
- Type: Nonfiction
- Buy now
The people and region of Europe explored here are so off the beaten path that any tracks made are by sheep and goats. Kassabova, a native of Bulgaria now living in Scotland, gives an account of the months she spent among shepherds. Her tale is one of an almost vanished world of transhumance and the interdependence of special breeds of animals and hard-working, isolated people. Among the cast of characters: a group of rare Karakachan dogs, which guard the herds. The author is a poet, too, and it shows in her attention to words. Interspersed among details of a seldom-depicted subculture are her observations, such as “wilderness is sophisticated. . . . It has all the components of civilization.”
Courtesy of Harper Perennial
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
- Location: Tokyo
- Type: Fiction
- Buy now
This slender novel is the follow-up to Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, also translated by Eric Ozawa. Both, perhaps not surprisingly, feature several of the same characters, including Satoru, the shop’s owner. And because U.S. publishers are usually slow to translate foreign language books, this “new” book was first published in Japan in 2011. More Days continues the story of Takako, who works in her uncle’s secondhand books shop, despite scant interest in the written word. Yagisawa’s fiction is like comfort food. And maybe the best aspect of these novels (ideally read in order) is their celebration of Tokyo’s Jimbocho neighborhood, a real-deal location packed with some 200 bookstores.
Courtesy of Pantheon
Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist by Jasmin Graham
- Location: Florida
- Type: Memoir
- Buy now
In this engaging autobiography, the protagonist aims to change dysfunctional systems in academia and marine science. As a Black woman scientist, Graham empathizes with her subjects—sharks—who happen to have a “super-bad reputation in popular media.” She makes a compelling case for the importance of diversity in both science and in ocean life with this memoir. At the narrative’s start, Graham leaves her Ph.D. program to follow her own path. When the pandemic rolls in, she launches Minorities in Shark Science (MISS) with three other women marine scientists. Alternating chapters present her education (in school and elsewhere) and the first field season of MISS and its young students. It’s a forthright journey of overcoming adversity on land and sea.
Courtesy of Princeton University Press
Literary Journeys ed. by John McMurtrie
- Location: International
- Type: Nonfiction/short essays
- Buy now
This handsomely illustrated compilation of essays and illustrations about travel-related novels will inform and inspire armchair travelers who like to explore beyond bestseller lists and must-see sites. More than 30 countries appear among these 75+ essays exploring the role of travel in world literature. Ranging from old to contemporary—Don Quixote, Dirt Music, Americanah—most books date from the 20th century onward. All feature actual locales, so Gulliver’s Travels isn’t included. Novels you might not connect with travel include Dracula, which gets an intriguing interpretation. Among classics like Heart of Darkness are less-familiar titles: Journey by Moonlight, Exit West, Train to Budapest. One caveat: Some of the collection’s essays recount far too much of the plot. (No) spoiler alerts!
Courtesy of Soho Press
Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime by Leonie Swan
- Location: Cornwall, England
- Type: Murder mystery
- Buy now
Sleuthing British elders of varying levels of competence. A classic “locked room” setting of a hotel isolated by bad weather. Toss in a savvy pet boa constrictor and red herrings galore and you have the setup of Leonie Swann’s offbeat, often funny mystery. You probably won’t guess who is responsible for killing various guests at this upscale eco-friendly hotel; you definitely won’t guess the motive. And if you enjoy this quirky set of six seniors who find their vacation turned into an investigation, also read 2023’s The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp, translated from German by Amy Bojang.
Courtesy of Godine
Ike’s Road Trip by Brian C. Black
- Location: United States
- Type: Nonfiction/history
- Buy now
American road-trippers take the U.S. interstate highway system for granted. Time for a little history: The system partly began in 1919. That’s when the First Transcontinental Motor Train, a convoy of 85+ U.S. Army trucks, drove cross-country on a route that was largely unpaved, partly to see if it could actually be done. Among the young officers along for the long ride was a certain Ike Eisenhower. There are numerous historical nuggets about the pioneering drive pit-stopped across this book—and plenty of competition for the country’s worst “roads” (Utah’s salt flats may take first place). How we got from dirt and gravel roads to President Eisenhower’s 1956 federal interstate plan is a plenty interesting journey all by itself.
