2017 Books for the Holidays: Travel Books

This curated collection of the New York Times‘ travel column, “Footsteps,” explores iconic authors’ relationships to landmarks and cities around the world. From the streets of Naples, the setting for Elena Ferrante’s famous Neapolitan novels, to the arches and paths of Oxford, the backdrop for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Footsteps takes a fresh approach to literary tourism.

In warm, precise prose, Thad Carhart reconstructs the wonders of his childhood as an American in postwar France. His firsthand account brings to life France in the 1950s, from the parks and museums of Paris to the vast château of Fontainebleau and its villages. Finding Fontainebleau is for those captivated by the French way of life, for armchair travelers, and for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a place they want to visit over and over again.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nell Stevens won a fellowship that would let her live, all expenses paid, anywhere in the world to research and write a book. Nell picked Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock in the Falklands.  In this witty and genre-defying memoir, Nell slowly reveals details of the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her writing.

In Bangkok, award-winning author Leela Punyaratabandhu offers 120 recipes that capture the true spirit of the city—from heirloom family dishes to restaurant classics to everyday street eats to modern cosmopolitan fare. Beautiful food and location photography will make this a must-have keepsake for any reader who has fallen under Bangkok’s spell.

Holly FitzGerald and her husband, Fitz, set out on a yearlong honeymoon adventure of a lifetime, backpacking around the world. Five months into the trip their plane crash lands in Peru at a penal colony walled in by jungle, and their blissfully romantic journey turns into a terrifying nonstop labyrinth of escape and survival.

With boundless curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Bianca Bosker takes the reader inside underground tasting groups, exclusive New York City restaurants, California mass-market wine factories, and even a neuroscientist’s fMRI machine as she attempts to answer the most nagging question of all: what’s the big deal about wine? What she learns will change the way you drink wine.