The World Traveler Recommendations
Winter Book Releases 2025-2026
Even if your passport is tucked away for the winter, your imagination doesn’t have to be. The World Traveler’s picks for this season will transport you from remote islands to bustling cities, offering cultural depth and wanderlust-worthy storytelling without ever leaving your favorite reading nook.
february books:
Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire
by Julian Sancton
The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Colombia with over $1 billion in gold and silver--and one man's obsessive quest to find it--from the New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth
"Splendid . . . Sancton is an expert guide through eighteenth-century European geopolitics [and] modern marine archaeology."--The Wall Street Journal
Roger Dooley wasn't looking for the San José. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive led him to the story of a lifetime, the tale of a great eighteenth-century treasure ship loaded with riches from the New World and destined for Spain. But that ship, the galleon San José, met a darker fate. It was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena, and when the smoke cleared, the San José and its bounty had disappeared into the ocean, its coordinates lost to time.
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown (Original)
by Ann Foster
*A Washington Post Notable Book for February!*
The dramatic, absolutely outrageous story of Caroline of Brunswick, a beloved icon of the Regency era, who uplifted the voice of the public and unabashedly defied society's expectations, yet was shockingly robbed of her crown, from the host of the Vulgar History podcast.
Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, Princess of Brunswick, was born in the northern German town of Braunschweig. Her mother and father, the duke and duchess, instantly knew one thing: there was something irrefutably untamable about their daughter. She grew up a wild child, sequestered from others to protect her family's reputation--an 18th-century Rapunzel.
Bottom Shelf: How a Forgotten Brand of Bourbon Saved One Man's Life
by Fred Minnick
"This book ain't just about whiskey. It's about heart, healing, and finding meaning in the most unexpected places." --Terry Bradshaw, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback
A forgotten bottle. A buried legacy. And one man determined to uncover the truth about his favorite bourbon.
Before he became one of the most influential voices in American whiskey, Fred Minnick was a combat veteran wrestling with the invisible wounds of war. What started as a quiet exploration of taste and ritual soon became something more--a way to calm his mind, reconnect with his senses, and slowly rebuild a life.
Today, Fred's palate shapes the industry. His reviews move markets, his instincts set trends. So when he casually named a dusty 1969 bottle of Old Crow as his all-time favorite in an interview, the response was seismic: prices soared from $40 to $3,000 almost overnight. But behind the buzz was a deeper mystery. Once revered by presidents, poets, and distillers alike, Old Crow had been stripped of its legacy and banished to the bottom shelf. Why was one of bourbon's most iconic brands abandoned--and what really happened to the whiskey itself?
American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology
by Jon Meacham
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of America unites centuries of essential American voices to understand our national debates and divisions from 1619 to the present, with his signature commentary on the consequential speeches, letters, and essays that led us to this moment.
"Jon Meacham has done it again. If there is a soul in American history, it emerges--indeed, explodes--from these pages."--David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
In a polarized era, history can become a subject of political contention. Many see America as perfect; many others argue that the national experiment is fundamentally flawed. The truth, Meacham shows, likely lies between these extremes. America has had shining hours, and also dark ones.
In American Struggle, Jon Meacham illuminates the nation's complicated past. This rich and diverse collection covers a wide spectrum of history, from 1619 to the twenty-first century, with primary-source documents that take us back to critical moments in which Americans fought over the meaning and the direction of the national experiment. From the founders to Lincoln to Obama, from Andrew Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, from Seneca Falls to the March on Washington, this chorus--sometimes discordant and always fascinating--tells the story of the country and of its people.
Kennedy's Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent Into Vietnam
by Jack Cheevers
Combining the dark intrigue of a Cold War thriller and the propulsive writing of a novel, Kennedy's Coup is a landmark work that will change your understanding of America's involvement in one of the most controversial and consequential wars in our history.
Based on a decade of research and writing, enriched by eyewitness interviews and revealing documents obtained through dozens of freedom of information requests, Kennedy's Coup vividly recreates the Kennedy Administration's secret encouragement of the fatal 1963 military coup against South Vietnam's defiant president.
The brutal assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem by his own generals--which capped weeks of bitter White House infighting amid JFK's wavering--led to dreadful consequences for the United States, opening the door to nine years of costly and futile warfare in Vietnam.
The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster
by Shelley Puhak
A March Indie Next Pick * A Barnes & Noble Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of 2026 * A Barnes & Noble Reads Best Book of February 2026
From the author of the national bestseller The Dark Queens, an incandescent work of true crime and feminist history about Elizabeth Bathory, the woman alleged to be the world's most prolific female serial killer.
There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady-a countess, from one of Europe's oldest families-is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king's men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her.
A Taste of Madagascar: Culinary Riches of the Red Island
by Emmanuel Laroche
Discover Madagascar's hidden food treasures from vanilla to caviar to unique spices--a food explorer's guide across the Red Island.
What's hiding in Madagascar's lush forests, vibrant coasts, and fertile soil that beckons culinary explorers worldwide?
A Taste of Madagascar: Culinary Riches of the Red Island takes you on a rare sensory journey of the island's flavors. From the world-renowned vanilla beans to the endemic voatsiperifery wild pepper, and more. Award-winning author and food podcaster Emmanuel Laroche unveils the island's extraordinary food treasures. Discover the inspiring stories behind both legendary and little-known ingredients alongside the Malagasy farmers, artisans, and chefs who cultivate and transform them.
January Picks:
Carthage: A New History
by Eve MacDonald
For six hundred years, the city of Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean. Founded in the ninth century BCE as a small colonial outpost, by the third, it had grown into the area's largest, richest empire. When, inevitably, it clashed with Rome for supremacy over the region, the conflict spanned over one century, three wars, and forty-three years of active fighting. After Carthage fell at last, the city was razed, and the tale of its defeat became a mere foundation stone in Rome's legend. But in this landmark new history--the first in over a decade--rising-star ancient historian Eve MacDonald restores the story of Carthage and its people to its rightful place in the history of the ancient world, reclaiming a lost culture long overshadowed by Roman mythmaking.
Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World
by Jane Ziegelman
A powerful exploration of the books created by Jewish Holocaust survivors to honor their lost world
By the close of World War II, six million Jews had been erased from the face of the earth. Those who eluded death had lost their homes, families, and entire way of life. Their response was quintessentially Jewish. From a people with a long-history of self-narration, survivors gathered in groups and wrote books, yizkor books, remembering all that had been destroyed. Jane Ziegelman's Once There Was a Town takes readers on a journey through this largely uncharted body of writing and the vanished world it depicts.
Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster
by Jacob Soboroff
A revelatory and searingly immediate report from the frontlines of the firestorm that consumed Los Angeles, from the MS NOW reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Separated, who covered the fires on the ground as an LA native.
On the morning of January 7, 2025, a message pinged the phone of Jacob Soboroff, a national reporter for MS NOW. "Big Palisades fire. We are evacuating," his brother texted within minutes of the blaze engulfing the hillside behind the home where he and his pregnant wife were living. "Really bad." An attached photo showed a huge black plume rising from behind the house, an umbrella of smoke towering over everything they owned. Jacob rushed to the office of the bureau chief.
"I should go. I grew up in the Palisades."
Soon he was on the front line of the blaze--his first live report of what would turn out to be weeks covering unimaginable destruction, from both the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, in Altadena. In the days to come, Soboroff appeared across the networks of NBC News as Los Angeles was ablaze, met with displaced residents and workers, and pressed Governor Gavin Newsom in an interview on Meet the Press. But no story Soboroff has covered at home or abroad--the trauma of family separation at the border, the displacement of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of order in Haiti--could have prepared him for reporting live as the hallmarks of his childhood were engulfed in flames around him while his hometown burned to the ground.
Junglekeeper: What It Takes to Change the World
by Paul Rosolie
Most people assume that the world has been explored and true adventure is dead: This book is one man's rebuttal. Explorer and conservationist Paul Rosolie shares his incredible life in the Amazon rainforest--and what we can learn from the people fighting to protect it.
"On behalf of the forests that I love, thank you, Paul, for writing this book."--Jane Goodall
Deep in the Peruvian jungle, there exists a corner of the world that remains untouched--one teeming with giant anacondas, where the haunting cries of howler monkeys send brightly colored macaws shooting across the canopy. It's an ecosystem of stupendous biodiversity, uncontacted tribes, and adventures that most people don't even dare to dream of.
Fly, Wild Swans Exercises: Practical Guide to Jung Chang Teachings
by Imogen Leigh
How do you carry history within your heart?
Fly, Wild Swans Exercises transforms Jung Chang's epic reflections on culture, womanhood, and memory into deeply personal exercises for rediscovering identity and resilience.
Imogen Leigh weaves together introspection and storytelling, guiding readers through heritage, freedom, and transformation.
It's a call to reclaim your narrative - and to fly with the wings of those who came before you.
A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past
by Clyde W Ford
The author and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library Publishing Project gives voice to long silent African Americans from the past, allowing them to tell their own stories that shed new light on critical moments in the Black Freedom Struggle, challenging what we think we know about Black history.
History is at its best when new findings and perspectives challenge old ideas and notions about the past, and even overturn common wisdom.
What if a former enslaved man in Galveston, Texas, witnessed the first Juneteenth and told a completely different story from what most of us know about that day? Why were slave ships most prone to rebellion, including those carrying the most African women? How has Islam found its way into R&B, soul, jazz, and other American popular music? Who was Benjamin Banneker, really?
In A High Price for Freedom, historian Clyde W. Ford addresses these and other questions, amplifying little-known voices from the African American past. In this wide-ranging, impeccably researched book, Ford begins with the 1656 court case of a woman named Elizabeth Key, who won a verdict for her freedom against her would-be enslaver--a victory that would forever change the nature, brutality, and course of American slavery.
December Picks:
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
by Tilar J Mazzeo
The true story of the first female captain of a merchant ship and her treacherous navigation of Antarctica's deadly waters, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot
Summer, 1856
Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, were young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. It would mean freedom. And the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit--into the most treacherous waters in the world.
As their ship, Neptune's Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain and heartbroken about her husband, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew, and their future, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake's Passage.
Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, The Sea Captain's Wife finally gives Mary Ann Patten--the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain -- her due. Mazzeo draws on new archival research from nineteenth-century women's maritime journals and on her own expedition to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in search of Mary Ann's route. Thrilling, harrowing, and heroic, The Sea Captain's Wife is the story of one woman who, for love, would do what was necessary to survive.
Sharpe's Storm: Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of Southern France, 1813
by Bernard Cornwell
A gripping novel featuring the legendary Richard Sharpe from Bernard Cornwell, the internationally bestselling master of historical fiction widely recognized as "the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today" (Wall Street Journal).
The year is 1813. France is a battlefield, and winter shows no mercy. Amid brutal conditions, Major Richard Sharpe finds himself saddled with an unexpected burden: Rear-Admiral Sir Joel Chase, dispatched by the Admiralty with sealed orders, unshakable confidence, and a frankly terrifying enthusiasm for combat.
Sharpe's mission from Wellington is clear, yet anything but simple: Keep Sir Joel alive.
Sir Joel could hold the key to defeating Napoleon once and for all. But to pull off his audacious plan, he needs someone who knows how to fight dirty, think fast, and survive the impossible.
He needs Sharpe...
The Six Loves of James I
by Gareth Russell
A groundbreaking and insightful exploration of King James I, enigmatic successor to Queen Elizabeth I, from the "meticulous researcher" (The Wall Street Journal) and author of the "enjoyable and readable" (Philippa Gregory, #1 New York Times bestselling author) The Palace.
From the assassination of his father to the explosive political and personal intrigues of his reign, this fresh biography reveals as never before the passions that drove King James I.
Gareth Russell's "rollicking, gossipy" (Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets), and scholarly voice invites us into James's world, revealing a monarch whose reign was defined by both his public power and personal vulnerabilities. For too long, historians have shied away from or condemned the exploration of his sexuality. Now, Russell offers a candid narrative that not only reveals James's relationships with five prominent men but also challenges the historical standards applied to the examination of royal intimacies.
This biography stands as a significant contribution to the understanding of royal history, illuminating the personal experiences that shaped James's political decisions and his philosophical views on masculinity and sexuality.
Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It
by Samuel Miller McDonald
For readers of Thomas Piketty, David Graeber, and Jared Diamond: A bold, provocative, wide-ranging argument about the human idea of progress that offers a new vision of our future
Progress is power. Narratives of progress, the stories we tell about whether a society is moving in the right or the wrong direction, are immensely potent. Progress has built cities, flattened mountains, charted the globe, delved the oceans and space, created wealth, opportunity, and remarkable innovation, and ushered in a new epoch unique in our planet's 4.5-billion-year history.
But the modern story of progress is also a very dangerous fiction. It shapes our sense of what progress means, and justifies what we will do to achieve it--no matter the cost. We continue to subscribe to a set of myths, about dominion, growth, extraction, and expansion, that have fueled our success, but now threaten our--and all species'-- existence on a planet in crisis.
In Progress, geographer Samuel Miller McDonald offers a radical new perspective on the myths upon which the modern world is built, illuminating its destructive lineage and suggesting an urgent alternative. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across anthropology, history, philosophy and geography, McDonald argues that if humanity is to thrive, then we must dismantle, reimagine, and create anew what progress means.