Skip to main content

MEMBER LOGIN

Departures Logo Created with Sketch.

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER

Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design
Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design

FOLLOW US

LOGIN

NEWSLETTER

More In City Guides

How to Spend a Perfect 24 Hours in San Francisco

You could spend a lifetime exploring all the streets in San Francisco and still not see it all.

Sleep Under the Stars in This Glass Lodge in Iceland
Take the Ultimate African Safari on This 20-Day Adventure With Stops in 7 Countries
An Exclusive First Look at Mekong Jewel Sailing the Rivers of Vietnam and Cambodia

More In Travel

  • Hotels
  • Travel Guides
  • Restaurants

To Celebrate Harry Winston’s 125th Birthday, the House Debuts the Winston Pink Legacy Ring

What better way to honor the King of Diamonds than a record-breaking pink diamond? 

Hermès Launches First New Men's Cologne in 15 Years
From Bright Orange to Dusty Pink, These Are the Best Colors to Wear for Spring 2021
17 Slipper Shoes You Can Wear Around the House Year-Round

More In Fashion

  • Style
  • Shopping

Stanley Tucci: Prolific Actor, Pandemic Mixologist, and Now Sex Symbol at 60

The actor dishes on his life in film and food. 

Is Your Life Story a Work of Art? Then You Can Hire a Professional Writer to Pen Your Autobiography
13 Architectural Salvage Stores Where You Can Buy Gorgeous Reclaimed Pieces
New Floating Ring-Shaped Hotel Coming to Saudi Arabia

More In Art + Culture

  • Books
  • Philanthropy
  • Film

A Guide to Healing Crystals—And How You Can Incorporate Them Into Your Home Décor

Crystals can affect the energy in your home resulting in a more harmonious environ

Design Your Home Like a Cartier Boutique As the Famed Jewelry House Puts Its Most Iconic Furniture up for Auction
Luxury Linens That'll Make You Never Want to Leave Your Bed
Everything You Need to Know About Japandi

More In Home + Design

  • Art + Design
  • Architecture
LOGIN
NEWSLETTER
  • City Guides
  • Travel
    • Hotels
    • Restaurants
    • Travel Guides
  • Fashion
    • Style
    • Shopping
  • Art + Culture
    • Books
    • Film
    • Philanthropy
  • Home + Design
    • Art + Design
    • Architecture
  • MEMBER LOGIN
  • JOIN OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
  • Contact Advertise Sitemap
Home / Art & Culture / Books
Books

7 Books to Pack for End-of-Summer Travel

By John Connolly on August 03, 2017

John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker series of mystery novels, shares his end-of-summer literary to-do list with DEPARTURES readers.

SHARE:

I have a confession to make: I’m not a summer person. It’s just too darned sunny and warm. Me, I’m all about cold and damp. After all, I come from a small, rainswept island off the coast of Western Europe. I’d like to believe my ancestors were Vikings, but I suspect, given my ingrained love for the great indoors, they were probably the kind of people who stayed at home with a nice parchment and a glass of mead.

In winter, I have an excuse to remain inside with a book in hand. In summer, I have to make excuses. But I’ve grown very good at it. You can tell by the pallor of my skin. So, as a gift to my fellow insiders (oh, all right, and to you odd folk who are prepared to venture out to squint at small print by a pool), here are seven books to while away a summer’s day or to pack for your end-of-summer travel.

 
Courtesy Penguin Random House

A Book to Read While Drinking Your Way Through Wine Country

Captain Fantastic: Elton John's Stellar Trip Through the ’70s
by Tom Doyle (Ballantine Books)

I’m not the world’s biggest Elton John fan, but Doyle wrote a fantastic book about Paul McCartney entitled Man on the Run, so I was primed for this one. Quite frankly, after reading Captain Fantastic I can only conclude that it’s a wonder Elton John is still alive... but it’s also a reminder of just how extraordinarily successful he was, how much great music he made, and how much more colorful the world is for having him in it.

A Book to Read with Your Teenager on a Trip Together

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager)

I rather enjoy reading books that my sons have also read, or passing on to them a book I think they’ll enjoy, especially on vacation. This debut novel is science fiction for people who don’t think they like science fiction: it’s charming, funny, thrilling, and an argument for tolerance in an increasingly intolerant world. The sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit, is very good too, but read this one first.

Courtesy Atlantic Books

A Book to Read When You’re Sick of the Sunshine

God's Wolf: The Life of the Most Notorious of All Crusaders: Reynald de Chatillon
by Jeffrey Lee (Atlantic Books)

Reynald de Chatillon was the crusaders’ crusader: ambitious, conniving, and sadistic, but also undeniably brave, passionate, and clever; a man who survived more than a decade of imprisonment in a Muslim pit to emerge even more dangerous than before. Lee’s book is populist non-fiction at its best, but also, in these troubled times, a reminder that, as William Faulkner put it, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Courtesy Penguin Random House

A Book to Read When You Want the Flight to Pass Quickly

Here and Gone
by Haylen Beck (Crown)

Haylen Beck is the pseudonym of Stuart Neville, whose debut, The Ghosts of Belfast, remains one of the finest thrillers to have emerged from post-Troubles Northern Ireland. This book finds him exploring new territory in the form of present day Arizona. A woman fleeing with her children from an abusive marriage is taken into custody, only to be informed by police that they never saw any children with her. After that, the novel gets really interesting. Open the book, start reading, and you’ll be at your destination before you know it.

Courtesy Wordsworth Classics

A Classic Book to Read on a Classic Countryside Trip

The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas

So many new titles are published each week that it’s easy to be overwhelmed, and a struggle to keep up with them all. But as I get older, I’ve become more aware of the gaps in my reading knowledge, and so I try to read a couple of classics every year. The Three Musketeers may be one of the greatest adventure novels ever written, but it’s also perceptive, joyful, tragic—and, in its depiction of the historical figure of Cardinal Richelieu, boasts one of literature’s great villains.

Courtesy Penguin Random House

A Book to Read When You Want to Be Seen Effortlessly Perusing a Prize-Winning Novel

Days Without End
by Sebastian Barry (Faber and Faber)

The Costa Book of the Year in the U.K., and certainly a contender for this year’s Man Booker prize, Barry’s novel concerns the adventures of two young men, Thomas McNulty and John Cole, who sign up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s and go on to fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War. So it’s a beautifully written western, but also a celebration of love and loyalty, and the kind of book that makes you feel happier for having read it.

Courtesy Atria/Emily Bestler Books

A Book to Read if You Are Traveling to the East Coast

A Game of Ghosts
by John Connolly (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

I chose to colonize Maine for my Charlie Parker novels, and A Game of Ghosts is the latest. I was fascinated by the state’s early violent history, the contrast between the tourist-friendly east coast and the rather more hostile interior, the dramatic changes of its seasons. Perhaps, being Irish, I looked upon it with an outsider’s eye, because that is another thing writers do: we create our own versions of the landscapes we love, and we people them with specters of our own creation.

Explore More in Books

tout-img

Is Your Life Story a Work of Art? Then You Can Hire a Professional Writer to Pen Your Autobiography

tout-img

Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Hungry Ghosts’ Graphic Novels in Development as TV Series

tout-img

CNN's New Book "Anthony Bourdain Remembered" Celebrates the World Traveler One Year After His Untimely Death


Marketing Events & Promotions

Become a DEPARTURES VIP

Join our Weekly Newsletter

Privacy Statement
Join our Weekly Newsletter
Departures Logo Created with Sketch.
  • City Guides
  • Travel
  • Fashion
  • Art + Culture
  • Home + Design
FOLLOW US
Other Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group websites: 
  • Travel + Leisure
  • Food & Wine
  • Wallpaper
Related Websites for DEPARTURES International Editions:
  • DEPARTURES-International.com
Learn more about the American Express Platinum Card® benefits

View Terms of Service  and  Privacy Statement.   Ad Choices EU Data Subject Requests All users of our online services subject to Privacy Statement and agree to be bound by Terms of Service. Please review.

© 2021 American Express Company. All rights reserved. Departures® is published by Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group, a subsidiary of Meredith Corporation. Departures is a trademark of
American Express Marketing & Development Corp. and is used under limited license. Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group is not affiliated with American Express Company or its subsidiaries.

  • RSS
  • Advertise
  • Advertise
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Promotions
  • Site Map

Member Login

The current issue of DEPARTURES is available exclusively to American Express Platinum Card® Members.

Cancel