Best summer books of 2023: Travel

Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life on the Road by Sara Wheeler (Abacus)

The writer looks back on a lifetime of travel, journeying from “pole to pole, via Poland” while “launching at Nubility and voyaging, via children, to the welcoming port of Invisibility”. She reveals the misogyny encountered on a remote Antarctic research station, and bemoans how environmental concerns and voice appropriation mean that today it’s “flat-out bad to take off”. Mainly though, it’s a joyous, funny and honest ride. Why travel? “Perhaps one wishes to leave the Fairy Liquid more urgently than anything.”

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey by Tim Hannigan (Head of Zeus/Apollo)

This deep dive into Cornwall’s history, landscape and identity should be stacked on service-station counters all along the A303 this summer, a primer for the county’s 5mn tourists. Hannigan walks coast to coast, and from River Tamar in the east to his family home near Land’s End, interrogating the romanticised versions of Cornwall created by visiting artists and writers, while seeking out the contemporary reality.

Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time by Kapka Kassabova (Jonathan Cape)

After a decade living in the Scottish Highlands, Kassabova returns to her native Bulgaria, travelling up the Mesta valley, a place rich in forests and flora and a magnet for those hunting medicinal plants. The book follows her education in herbalism and the valley’s folk traditions, but above all it’s a reminder that, even in Europe in 2023, travel can still offer a glimpse of very different worlds.

Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church by Peter Ross (Headline)

Britain apparently has more churches than pubs; most are freely open and their ancient stained glass offers a window on the country’s past. “That smell they have is not just damp and dust, but faith and time,” writes Ross, who undertakes an epic church-crawl from ancient village chapels to mighty city cathedrals. Nor is it simply an architectural history: Ross’s enjoyable meetings with bell-ringers, steeplejacks and sightseers illustrate the nation’s deep and ongoing relationship with its churches, even as it grows increasingly secular.

American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal by Neil King Jr (Mariner Books)

Probably not a journey you would want to replicate on holiday — 330 miles on foot from Washington DC to New York City, including a stop-off at a landfill site — but this is fertile territory for a travelogue looking for the soul of America in the aftermath of the 2021 Capitol attack. Neil King, a former Wall Street Journal staffer and a cancer survivor, is an engaging companion, his pilgrimage perhaps surprisingly uplifting.

Summer Books 2023

All this week, FT writers and critics share their favourites. Some highlights are:

Monday: Environment by Pilita Clark
Tuesday: Economics by Martin Wolf
Wednesday: Fiction by Laura Battle
Thursday: Politics by Gideon Rachman
Friday: Critics’ picks
Saturday: History by Tony Barber

Tom Robbins is the FT’s travel editor

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