5 Books to Transport You to Another World

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In need of an escape? We’ve got you covered. From 40,000 years ago and the last family of Neanderthals to the glamour and danger of Prohibition-era crime in Detroit to Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War to recent-day Hong Kong and Korea, these books will transport you to another place and time.

 

THE LAST NEANDERTHAL (Doubleday) by Claire Cameron

From the bestselling author of The Bear comes this novel about the unlikely connection between two women, one who lived 40,000 years ago and the other a modern day archeologist. The story is inspired by the recent discovery that many modern humans have inherited DNA from Neanderthals.

 

MEN WALKING ON WATER (Knopf) by Emily Schultz

Gangsters like Al Capone may have given bootlegging its glamorous patina, but beyond the speakeasies and fizz-pop of champagne, it was, of course, as deadly dangerous as profitable. The story, based on Schultz’s own grandfather’s double-life and secret career as a rum-runner, follows the brutal realities of Prohibition-era Detroit.

 

IN THIS GRAVE HOUR (Harper) by Jacqueline Winspear

In the latest installment of the Maisie Dobbs inspector series, refugees are being killed across the country as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts Britain’s declaration of war with Germany.

THE BORROWED (Spiderline) by Chan Ho-Kei

Transport yourself to Hong Kong, past and present, with the story of a detective whose career spans fifty years of the territory’s history, from the Leftist Riot in 1967 to the Handover in 1997 to present day, when in 2013, a local billionaire is murdered in what is increasingly beginning to look like a police state.

 

THE ACCUSATION (Anansi) by Bandi

Even as tensions between North Korea and the U.S. continue to make headlines, The Accusation gives a grim and disturbing portrayal of living under Kim Il-sung’s dictatorial regime. Written by an anonymous author (his pseudonym, Bandi, means “firefly”), the book is the first ever work of fiction to be smuggled out of North Korea.