Armchair Tourist-Fiction That Travels So You Don't Have To

Updated April 20, 2023
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Dear fang, with love
Thorpe, Rufi
A bold, spellbinding novel featuring one of the most fascinating protagonists in recent memory, Dear Fang, With Love tells the story of seventeen-year-old Vera--ravishing, troubled, wildly intelligent--who travels to Europe with her estranged father, hoping that an immersion in history might...
The coroner's lunch
Cotterill, Colin.
"The Coroner's Lunch is marvelous. The setting may be unique in Western fiction, and the characters are unique to themselves. Sweet but not sappy, offbeat but not self-conscious about it, this book doesn't so much pull you in as open a door and let you walk happily through. Fans of Alexander McCall...
The blood strand
Ould, Chris
Having left the Faroes as a child, Jan Reyna is now a British police detective, and the islands are foreign to him. But he is drawn back when his estranged father is found unconscious with a shotgun by his side and someone else's blood at the scene. Then a man's body is washed up on an isolated...
A rising man
Mukherjee, Abir
In the days of the Raj, a newly arrived Scotland Yard detective is confronted with the murder of a British official--in his mouth a note warning the British to leave India, or else . . .  Calcutta, 1919. Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival...
The old drift : a novel
Serpell, Namwali
"A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage."--Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Dwight Garner, The New York Times * The New York Times Book Review *...
An uninterrupted view of the sky
Crowder, Melanie
Modern history unearthed as a boy becomes an innocent victim of corruption in Bolivia's crime world, where the power of family is both a prison and a means of survival. It's 1999 in Bolivia and Francisco's life consists of school, soccer, and trying to find space for himself in...
The other Einstein : a novel
Benedict, Marie
"Superb...the haunting story of Einstein's brilliant first wife who was lost in his shadow."--Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times bestselling author of The Invention of Wings, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Mermaid Chair "The Other Einstein takes you into Mileva's heart, mind, and study as she...
Live from Cairo : a novel
Bassingthwaighte, Ian
*A PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FINALIST *A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR From a hugely talented, award-winning young author, a brilliant, lively debut novel about an impulsive American attorney, a methodical Egyptian translator, and a disillusioned Iraqi-American...
A small death in Lisbon
Wilson, Robert
1941. Klaus Felsen, forced out of his Berlin factory into the SS, arrives in a luminous Lisbon, where Nazis and Allies, refugees and entrepreneurs, dance to the strains of opportunism and despair. Felsen's assignment takes him to the bleak mountains of the north where a devious and brutal...
Finding Nouf
Ferraris, Zoe.
Zoë Ferraris's electrifying debut of taut psychological suspense offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there. When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a desert...
Khan : empire of Silver : a novel of the Khan empire
Iggulden, Conn.
The Great Khan is dead. His vast empire hangs in the balance, an empire he forged with raw courage, guile, tactical brilliance, unswerving dedication to his people, and the force of his own indomitable will. Now the very qualities that united the fierce Mongol tribes threaten to tear them apart,...
A single breath
Clarke, Lucy
From the celebrated author of Swimming at Night, a powerful and moving saga of one woman's struggle to overcome her husband's death and uncover his dark, mysterious past. A young widow discovers her husband was not who he claimed to be--and finds herself falling in love...
Rainbirds
Goenawan, Clarissa
Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister, Keiko's, sudden death. She was viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister's affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to...
Bruno, chief of police
Walker, Martin J.
Walker pens the first in a wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoit Courreges, affectionately nicknamed Bruno, the chief of police in a small French village in the South of France where the rituals of the caf still rule.
The orphan master's son : a novel
Johnson, Adam
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times betselling novel of North Korea: an epic journey into the heart of the world's most mysterious dictatorship. "Imagine Charles Dickens paying a visit to Pyongyang, and you see the canvas on which [Adam] Johnson is painting...
The thrall's tale
Lindbergh, Judith.
Set in Viking Greenland in AD 985, this dramatic historical novel focuses on the intertwined lives of three women straddling the pagan past and Christian futureA vividly imagined chronicle of love, hatred, and revenge at a time when the Vikings were exploring to new worlds, Judith Lindbergh’s...
The diver's clothes lie empty
Vida, Vendela.
From the acclaimed author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers comes a taut, spellbinding literary thriller that probes the essence and malleability of identity. In Vendela Vida's taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on...
Encircling : a novel
Tiller, Carl Frode
The brilliant first novel in the Encircling Trilogy, a searing psychological portrait of a man by his friends David has lost his memory. When a newspaper ad asks his friends and family to share their memories of him, three respond: Jon, his closest friend; Silje, his teenage...
Child 44
Smith, Tom Rob.
A propulsive, relentless page-turner. A terrifying evocation of a paranoid world where no one can be trusted. A surprising, unexpected story of love and family, of hope and resilience. CHILD 44 is a thriller unlike any you have ever read. "There is no crime." Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a...
Claire of the sea light
Danticat, Edwidge
From the best-selling author of Brother, I'm Dying and The Dew Breaker: a stunning new work of fiction that brings us deep into the intertwined lives of a small seaside town where a little girl, the daughter of a fisherman, has gone missing. Claire Limyè Lanmè--Claire...
The shadow of the wind
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos
"Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "Wondrous...masterful...The ...
The Ministry of Special Cases
Englander, Nathan.
The long-awaited first novel from the author of the sensational short-story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a stunning historical tale set at the start of Argentina's Dirty War, a hallucinatory journey into a forbidden city and a world of terror.
District VIII
LeBor, Adam
Set in the long, hot Hungarian summer of 2015--and revealing the hidden, criminal world beneath Budapest's glittering facade--District VIII is the first novel in the new Detective Balthazar Kovacs mystery series. Life's tough for a Gypsy detective in Budapest. The...

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