50 Books That Travel 2020

This true account of a pianist’s escape to Germany from wartorn Syria offers a deeply personal perspective on the most...

This true account of a pianist’s escape to Germany from wartorn Syria offers a deeply personal perspective on the most devastating refugee crisis of this century. Aeham Ahmad, a second-generation Palestinian refugee, was born to a blind violinist and carpenter who taught him from an early age to love music and play the piano. After being forced to flee the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Aeham’s family had built a new life in Syria, in Yarmouk camp, home to more than 160,000 Palestinian refugees. Before they could return to their homeland, another fight overran their asylum. Their only haven was in music and in each other.

Forced to leave his family behind, Aeham sought a safe place for them to call home and build a better life, taking solace in the indestructible bond between fathers and sons to keep moving forward. Heart-wrenching yet ultimately full of hope, and told in a raw and poignant voice, The Pianist from Syria is a gripping portrait of one man’s search for a peaceful life for his family and of a country being torn apart as the world watches in horror.

When Gilbert Silvester, university lecturer, wakes one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him, he flees...

When Gilbert Silvester, university lecturer, wakes one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him, he flees – immediately, irrationally, inexplicably – to Japan. In Tokyo he discovers the travel writings of the great Japanese poet Basho. Suddenly, Gilbert finds a purpose in his directionless crisis: a pilgrimage following in the footsteps of the poet to see the moon rise over the pine islands of Matsushima.

On the way he falls in with another pilgrim, Yosa, a young Japanese student, clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide. Together, Gilbert and Yosa travel across Basho‘s disappearing Japan, one in search of his perfect ending and the other a new beginning. Serene, playful and profound, The Pine Islands is a story of the transformations we seek and the ones we find along the way.

The year is 2031. There are extreme weather events: storms, floods and intense heat. A rejuvenation pill has been developed,...

The year is 2031. There are extreme weather events: storms, floods and intense heat. A rejuvenation pill has been developed, but no one is going to enjoy eternal youth for long: The experts forecast that the world‘s eco-systems will collapse in five years‘ time. Women are now in power and trying and save the world from the mess the men have left it in. But there is opposition in the form of the MASCULO movement, which aims to reassert male dominance – by violent means if necessary.

Sebastian seems to be one of the good guys. A Greenpeace activist in his youth, he now has an important position in the Democracy Centre. But in his private life he is attempting to restore his male pride: For the last two years he has kept his wife locked up in the cellar. But his attempts to do away with her so he can live with his new love lead to disaster.

In Vienna just after the First World War, the grandeur of the Habsburg Empire is a fading memory. Most of...

In Vienna just after the First World War, the grandeur of the Habsburg Empire is a fading memory. Most of the people are hungry. They survive by their wits, living hand-to-mouth in a city rife with crime, prostitution and disfigured beggars. There are shakedowns on every street corner, the black market is the only market and the shortage of essential goods creates countless opportunities for unscrupulous operators. Into this cauldron of vice comes Inspector August Emmerich, a veteran himself, whose ambition leads him to break the rules whenever necessary.

His abiding wish is to join the Vienna’s major crimes unit. Then a corpse is found in the woods outside the city and immediately labelled a suicide. But Emmerich is convinced it was nothing of the sort and sees a chance to prove his mettle. His investigations point to an insidious, homicidal power hidden in the city.

The Sex of the Angels is a playful, often ironic take on the breviary. It is in the form of...

The Sex of the Angels is a playful, often ironic take on the breviary. It is in the form of a collection of letters that begins by looking at early Christian cosmology and follows the Biblical mutations of the angel, from Babylon to the present day.

As it progresses, Raoul Schrott weaves in accounts ranging from ancient Greek legends of the origin of light to the medieval darkness of the eclipse. But there is more here than meets the eye: The letters are addressed to an unnamed “other” and chart the course of an elusive affair. They are, we come to realize, a declaration of love – or, more accurately, of yearning. But they are also a far-reaching poetic essay which moves between etymological history, anthropological anecdote, philosophy and disquisition on the nature of art. The text is supplemented by sumptuous illustrations by Arnold Mario Dall’O that chart the stories of the saints, and the result is a unique dialogue between literature and art: an extraordinary and rare book about love.

Samir leaves the comfort of his family’s adopted home, Germany, for volatile Beirut in an attempt to find his missing...

Samir leaves the comfort of his family’s adopted home, Germany, for volatile Beirut in an attempt to find his missing father. The only clues Samir has are an old photo and the bedtime stories his father used to tell him. With this moving novel about family secrets, love and friendship, Pierre Jarawan does for Lebanon what Khaled Hosseini did for Afghanistan with The Kite Runner. He pulls away the curtain of grim facts and figures as presented by the media and shows us intimately what it means to come from a country torn apart by civil war. With this beautiful and exciting story rich in imagery, Jarawan proves himself to be a masterful storyteller.

A quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you’ve heard before, The Zookeepers’ War is an epic tale of...

A quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you’ve heard before, The Zookeepers’ War is an epic tale of desperate rivalries, human follies and an animal-mad city, where zoos became a focus of politics by other means. Berlin’s two zoos quickly became symbols of the divided city’s two halves. So it was not very surprising when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms race, stockpiling pandas and hippos rather than nuclear warheads.

Soon, state funds were being quietly diverted to give new animals lavish welcomes worthy of visiting dignitaries. West German presidential candidates talked about zoo policy on the campaign trail. And politicians on both sides of the Wall became convinced that, if their zoo was proved to be inferior, that would mean their country’s whole ideology was too.

Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. His...

Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. His retelling of the seventeenth-century vagabond performer and trickster, Tyll Ulenspiegel, begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a travelling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade.

So begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll, as he travels a continent devastated by the Thirty Years’ War, encountering a hangman, a fraudulent Jesuit scholar and the exiled King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, along the way. Tyll displays Kehlmann’s remarkable narrative gifts and confirms the power of art in the face of the senseless brutality of history.

In Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on...

In Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on frozen terrain where famous explorers perish. Icicles reach deep underwater, then explode. Rooms warmed by crackling fires fill with scents of cinnamon, cloves and pine. Skis carve into powdery slopes and iceboats traverse glacial lakes.

This lovingly illustrated meditation on winter intertwines the spectacular with the everyday, expertly capturing the essence of this beloved yet dangerous season – all the more precious in an era of climate change.

A family is torn apart by their dream of a better future in the West. A true story narrated through...

A family is torn apart by their dream of a better future in the West. A true story narrated through the eyes of a child. West Germany in the early 60s: A little girl arrives with her parents from East Germany in a camp for displaced people. The girl‘s father is abusive, the mother ignores her. She is soon to celebrate her seventh birthday and all she wants is a cat. Instead, she receives an illuminated globe. The girl can‘t hide her disappointment – but then she discovers that the globe offers her a way to escape the misery of the camp.