11 Exciting New Titles for Your Summer Travels

You pack different shoes for city trips and beach vacations — why not do the same for books? A batch of excellent new releases set around the globe will meet you at your final destination.

You’re Going to … Fire Island

Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It, by Greg Marshall

A daring, wild, sharp new memoir centered around family, resilience, disability, and homosexuality. It's about a young man coming to grips with coming out of not one, but two, closets.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to ... Los Angeles

Open Throat, by Henry Hoke

A queer and very hungry mountain lion wandering around the Hollywood Hills listens in on the conversations of hikers, protects an encampment for people experiencing homelessness, and grapples with gender identity.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to …. India

Loot, by Tania James

An entertaining novel set in 18th-century India, England, and Rouen, with fabulously rich settings and an array of compelling characters that cross paths with the protagonist, a promising young woodcarver who is apprenticed to a French sculptor and clockmaker.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to … South Africa

Innards, by Magogodi Oamphela Makhene

Set in Soweto, Johannesburg, during apartheid South Africa, the short story collection runs the gamut of topics political, personal, sacred, and profane with startling lyricism and a dash of Zulu.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to … the English Countryside

Weyward, by Emilia Hart

Three narratives of women in northern England intersect across five centuries. All three are faced with challenges from the men in their lives (ie: one is accused of murder via witchcraft); all find solace in nature.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to …. Morocco

Watch Us Dance, by Leïla Slimani with translations by Sam Taylor

The second installment of a planned trilogy regarding a family life inspired by the author’s own. This one begins in Morocco in the stylish 1960s and follows a Moroccan and French couple and their biracial children. It’s a tense page-turner swept up in the country’s new independence, complete with the realities of corruption, racism, influence, celebration, and American hippies practicing free love and drugs.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You're Going to …. Greece

Clytemnestra, by Costanza Cosati

Do not get on the wrong side of this queen. Complex and fascinating women of Ancient Greece are the focus of this novel. Fans of mythology and historical fiction will eat up her passion and fury.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to …. the Philippines

Forgiving Imelda Marcos, by Nathan Go

A meditation on forgiveness and regret told through the story of a Filipino chauffeur nearing the end of his life churns up topics like poverty, ambition, alternative history, and loyalty to a famous employer.

Buy on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to …. China

Beijing Sprawl, by Xu Zechen with translations from Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang

One of China’s most dynamic writers connects stories of characters living ordinary lives as workers, students, and drifters and the ways that they make their way through pitfalls and struggles of everyday activities: jogging and herding pigeons and playing cards — and keeping each other company in the big city of Beijing.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going to … the North Pole

Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media, by Darrell Hartman

A thoughtfully researched literary history of big egos and words — those of rival explorers vying to be the first man at the North Pole, and those of rival newspapers intent on getting the scoop.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

You’re Going on … a Cruise

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, by David Grann

A gripping work of narrative nonfiction set in the 18th century: a multilayered history of racism, greed, imperialism, empire building, and survival. The book tells the story of 30 men marooned for months on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. More drama ensues when they are joined by a boatload of mutineer castaways.

Buy it on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

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