7 Books to Pack for End-of-Summer Travel

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.