A bushel of books have sprouted to inspire a bout of warm-weather wanderlust.
There’s something here for fans of every genre: memoir, fiction, adventure, natural history, history, even poetry. But what binds each of these books together is a compelling tale and a great sense of place.
1. Paris Reborn: Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City (Stephanie Kirkland)
A vivid historical narrative about how the City of Light got its Second Empire good looks.
2. Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey (Simon Armitage)
A renowned English poet walks 256 miles in 19 days along Britain’s Pennine Way, giving a poetry reading in a different village each evening in exchange for a bed.
3. Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now (C.B. Bernard)
A reporter follows in the footsteps of an explorer ancestor who hiked, boated, and fished his way through Alaska, collecting Native artifacts along the way.
4. Gold Rush in the Jungle: The Race to Discover and Defend the Rarest Animals of Vietnam’s “Lost World” (Dan Drollette, Jr.)
A veteran science writer reports on the Southeast Asian region where scientists fight to protect rare and endangered animals like the barking deer and the Kouprey forest ox from poachers.
5. The Turk Who Loved Apples: And Other Tales of Losing My Way Around the World (Matt Gross)
This collection of never-before-published essays from The New York Times’s former “Frugal Traveler” columnist provides insight into the life and times of a professional travel writer.
6. Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West (Peter Hessler)
An anthology of essays by The New Yorker’s former Beijing correspondent on China, Japan, Nepal, and the U.S.
See more books at National Geographic Traveler
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