One of the must-haves that I ensure to pack when traveling is a good book for the road. I’m a pretty voracious reader, or I try to be, and I generally have a few things going at once; an audiobook on my Overdrive app, an ebook on my Kindle, and a physical hard book. The upside to this is that whenever I travel I am never without something. Let me let you in on a few of my favorite recent reads.
- The Lilac Girls
Some might feel a little turned off by this book, as it goes back and forth between the perspectives of the three main characters, but for me I thoroughly enjoyed it. It takes place during, and in the aftermath, of the Holocaust. There are elements of the French resistance, but overall it is a wonderful story of how the lives of the three women (Carolina Kasia, and Herta) are intertwined by the events of the Holocaust. - The Alice Network
I REALLY enjoyed this one! It’s a gripping story based on a real network of all-female spies that operated in German-occupied France between WWI and WWII. I loved the characters and that there were some real hero’s mentioned, like Louise Marie de Bettignies. I had no idea that such that had gone on to such an extent. - Lethal White
What can I say about this one? It’s the fourth installment of the Cormoran Strike detective series, by J.K. Rowling, under her nom-de-plume Robert Galbraith. It was wonderfully thrilling, as usual. If you haven’t read the first three (The Cuckoo’s Calling, Career of Evil, and The Silkwork) I highly recommend them as well! The audiobooks for this series is really nice too. - Becoming by Michelle Obama
This new autobiography by former (sadly) first lady Michelle Obama was a wonderful insight into an amazing woman. You would think it would be all about what it is like to be the first lady, but as its title suggests this book is really about her becoming. It is all about her upbringing in urban Chicago, her determination to excel and do good work in her legal career, how she met Barack, raising their family, and what it was like for them as he rose to the presidency. - The Shadow of The Wind
I have read many “good” books in my time, but I don’t think I have been so enthralled reading a book since Harry Potter as I was reading this one. Having lived in Spain, I read, Barcelona, 1945, after the Spanish Civil War, and I was hooked. It’s the story of Daniel Sempere, who is taken by his father on his 10th birthday to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where he is allowed to chose a book to adopt. He finds The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, and falls in love with it. But as he tries to learn more about Carax and read his other works he discovers that someone is going around destroying all copies of Carax’s work. Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest turns into a tale of gothic intrigue, murder, mystery and doomed romance. What’s not to love!? - I recently listened to an audiobook on a car trip, John Sanford’s Dark of the Moon and I would highly recommend the Virgil Flower’s series, as well as Sanford as an author.
I recently joined a sort of pen-pal exchange book club, so I am looking forward to my next read, which is The Martian. It’s totally out of the norm of what I normally read, but we are gonna give it a shot.
There are of course many, many choices out there. What are your favorite go-to books for the road?
Buen viajes!
Colleen