Tuck Lincoln, Mozart, and Eleanor Roosevelt in your suitcase this summer
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Time travel is often the best kind of travel. Our picks for June include historical novels with settings ranging from 18th-century India to Ferdinand Marcos-era Philippines, with stops in 1850s Illinois and 1940s Italy. A mystery set in early 20th-century Fiji offers intrigue in a far-flung South Pacific locale.
Whatever the history of a particular place, periods of turmoil often accompany the human struggle for self-determination. Societies are frequently called upon to answer for past violence, greed, and displacement.
Why We Wrote This
June’s 10 best books make great travel companions. They plunge readers into Mozart’s glorious music, Abraham Lincoln’s fraught early career, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s pathbreaking friendship with a civil rights activist.
Through fiction, the characters’ courageous actions and hopes for a better life trace a pathway out of darkness.
Among the nonfiction titles is a highly idiosyncratic ramble through Mozart’s greatest works, in an attempt to explain – or at least contextualize – the composer’s enduring appeal. A scholar looks at the Enlightenment thinking that influenced Thomas Jefferson to write the indelible phrase “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” And Christian Cooper, a Black bird-watching enthusiast, writes about the pivotal role of birding in his life.
1 Loot, by Tania James
Tania James’ dazzling, richly embroidered historical novel imagines the journey of a life-size automaton of a wooden tiger – and those connected with it – from late 18th-century India to France and England over 65 years. “Loot” is about the spoils and displacements of colonialism and the quest for betterment, autonomy, and love.
2 The House of Lincoln, by Nancy Horan
Why We Wrote This
June’s 10 best books make great travel companions. They plunge readers into Mozart’s glorious music, Abraham Lincoln’s fraught early career, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s pathbreaking friendship with a civil rights activist.
Springfield, Illinois, in the 1850s served as the home, heart, and laboratory of Abraham Lincoln. Nancy Horan’s novel tells of the period’s political tumult, abolitionist fervor, and unchecked violence. With its smartly tuned dialogue and insistence on hope, the novel delivers a forceful, engrossing read.
3 The First Ladies, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
The friendship between first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune enriched both women, whose efforts set the stage for the modern Civil Rights Movement. The novel captures their invincibility and conviction.
4 Much Ado About Nada, by Uzma Jalaluddin
From the author of “Ayesha at Last” and “Hana Khan Carries On,” this modern-day romance reinvents Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” into a delightful illumination of Islamic faith, community, and culture in Toronto. It’s a charming tale of great substance.
5 Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith
This haunting novel visits an abandoned villa in Italy harboring World War II secrets. A historian arrives to spend summer with his aunts and grandmother, and discovers a female visitor claiming ownership of his cottage. Themes of loss and the burden of history are seasoned with grace and humor.
6 A Disappearance in Fiji, by Nilima Rao
Police Sgt. Akal Singh, dispirited and homesick, abhors Fiji. Reassigned to the “backwater colony” in 1914 following a career misstep in Hong Kong, the Sikh lawman drags through his days until an Indian indentured worker goes missing. Spurred to act, Akal uncovers suspects, secrets, and injustices among the sugar cane fields. Nilima Rao delivers a slow-boil, effective whodunit that exposes exploitive colonial practices.
7 Forgiving Imelda Marcos, by Nathan Go
Nathan Go’s splendid debut novel follows Lito, a Filipino chauffeur for Ferdinand Marcos-era opposition leader-turned-president Corazon Aquino. Winsome and wise, historical and original, the first-person account bounces among Lito’s childhood, his final outing with the retired Mrs. Aquino, and his contemplative present in a nursing home. The story plumbs the depths of forgiveness, and how cowardice can morph into bravery.
8 Mozart in Motion, by Patrick Mackie
Historians and musicologists have sought to explain Mozart’s genius and enduring appeal for more than 200 years. Poet and cultural critic Patrick Mackie tackles this topic with a beautifully written and insightful series of essays that connect the biographical details of Mozart’s life with some two dozen of his musical works.
9 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, by Peter Moore
Historian Peter Moore notes that Thomas Jefferson’s indelible phrase has had a vibrant afterlife, becoming shorthand for the American dream. But his stirring, stylishly written account focuses on its prehistory, tracing the phrase’s origins to British Enlightenment thinking.
10 Better Living Through Birding, by Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper, a Black birding enthusiast, received worldwide media attention when a video of him being falsely accused of threatening a white woman in New York’s Central Park went viral. In his delightful, edifying memoir, he extols the virtues of bird-watching and charts its decadeslong significance in his life.
