Reading Is Fundamental

We’re working to diversify our bookshelves to get alternative perspectives on the world, insight into various environments and cultures, and knowledge about experiences that are very different from our own.

We are keeping tabs on new releases and asking our network of travel writers to share what they are reading lately:

African Proverbs For All Ages, by Johnnetta Betsch Cole

Powerful proverbs compiled by a notable anthropologist Betsch Cole, and beautifully illustrated by Nelda LaTeef, encourage kids of all ages to explore the complexities of the human condition.

Borealis, by Aisha Sabatini Sloan

Nature, art, culture, queerness, and Blackness come together in a vivid pocket essay about navigating space in the unique Alaskan landscape.

Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova

Not new, but with new heft in today’s context. The personal travelog explores the social history of the border zone between Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and the anxieties that arise from it.

Cheyenne and the ABC Travel Greenbook: The Americas, by Martinique Lewis

An introduction to Black communities of the African Diaspora for young, curious travelers in the making.

Gastro Obscura, by Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras

A culinary deep dive into food and drink across all seven continents.

In Every Mirror She’s Black, by Lola Akinmade Akerstrom

The debut novel from a Nigerian photographer and travel writer chronicles three Black women and their everyday experiences living in Stockholm.

Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez

A romantic comedy rich in Puerto Rican culture and history with NYC as its backdrop.

Planet Palm:How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything—and Endangered the World, by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman

A James Beard Award-winning journalist investigates an industry ravaging the environment and human health.

The 1619 Project: Born On the Water, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson

A beautifully illustrated children’s rendition of the moving 1619 Project — a chronicle of the Black experience before and after the slave trade.The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World, by Jessica Nabongo

Pre-order the traveler’s collection of fascinating stories as the first Black woman on record to visit all 195 countries on Earth. Jessica told us, “At a time when it feels like there is only bad in the world, my book touches on the kindness of strangers, the beauty of places that typically are not celebrated and my love of humanity and the planet.”The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow

A dramatic new perspective on human history upends many of the theories that we consider facts, from the capabilities of hunter-gatherer tribes to the origins of farming.

The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania, and Mutiny in the South Pacific, by Brandon Presser

A travel journalist pieces together the devastating true story about bounty mutineers marooned on an uncharted island in the South Pacific.There and Back: Photographs from the Edge, by Jimmy Chin

“The Academy Award-winning filmmaker, photographer, and professional climber has risked his life to explore some of the most raw and beautiful parts of our planet — and tell moving stories about them through images and film,” says travel writer Jennifer Flowers, who points out some of the epic people and places captured by Chin: “In one spread, Alex Honnold is literally hanging off a rock face in Yosemite National Park. Another image depicts the late conservationist Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face, at the summit of Chilean Patagonia’s Cerro Kristine — which he named after his wife. Next to him is accomplished climber and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and mountaineer Rick Ridgeway — living legends among adventurers.”