Books for different travel scenarios

When traveling, we tend to pack clothing first – dresses for dinners on the patio, snowpants for powder days, shoes for sightseeing. Then, the essentials: passport, dopp kit, chargers. After that, it's off to the races, envisioning the activities and entertainment that give the days their shape, the novelty you can't get anywhere else. But what about the in-between moments – waiting for a friend to meet us for drinks? The time spent on the metro, nursing a cappuccino, or sprawled out on the beach?

If good travel is about curating a feeling, books are what enhance that experience – the connector that gets you into the headspace of your escape. Here are our recommendations for what to read in six travel settings.

For slow mornings, pastoral vistas, and relaxing afternoons

Abstractly put, these books are a light breeze, the scent of dewy freshly-cut grass in the early-morning sun, and a day stretching ahead of you. Ann Patchett's Tom Lake paints a picture of family, sisterhood, and nostalgia, set against the backdrop of a Michigan cherry farm and fond reminiscences of a summer fling. Angle of Repose, often cited as Wallace Stegner's most famous novel, is a modern classic filled with the American west at its most evocative. Beyond his career as a writer, Stegner was an historian and environmentalist, and the care with which he describes nature and the passage of time is abundant, suffusing this immersive novel with a calming tenderness.

• Tom Lake — Ann Patchett
• Angle of Repose — Wallace Stegner

Short reads to devour in an afternoon at a café

Both New York Review of Books-vetted, these short novels are the perfect accompaniment to a leisurely sit with cappuccino in hand, perhaps a pastry nearby. J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country and Dorothy Baker's Cassandra at the Wedding, tallying 160 and 256 pages respectively, slot easily into any bag, ready to be cracked open at a café's small table. Though at times they deal with heavy themes like World War I and depression, these serve not as points of friction, but rather as backdrops to poetic (in the case of A Month in the Country) and funny (Cassandra at the Wedding) novels with young, observant narrators effortlessly drawing you into their world.

• A Month in the Country — J. L. Carr
• Cassandra at the Wedding — Dorothy Baker

Impressionistic and evocative books for sun-soaked beach days

Call these elevated beach reads: instead of the standard low-brow plot characterizing the genre, these books retain their intellectual core and easy-reading quality by virtue of their pleasantly meandering musings, non-linear plots, and personal writing style. Outline, the eponymous first book of Rachel Cusk's acclaimed trilogy, captivates with its unique style and discrete interpersonal vignettes. Talk finds author Linda Rosenkrantz directly immortalizing her friends as characters through taped conversations over the course of a summer, rendering a hilarious, candid, and sometimes lurid time-capsule of 1965. The Dharma Bums is a young Jack Kerouac exhibiting the spontaneous prose, stream of consciousness, and small observations he does best while roaming the high Sierras, seeking truth, and drinking wine.

• Outline — Rachel Cusk
• Talk — Linda Rosenkrantz
• The Dharma Bums — Jack Kerouac

Los Angeles-centric narratives for southern California hedonism, culture, nostalgia, and escapism

Whether planning a trip to southern California or just dreaming of one, these transportive books are immediate in-roads to the California of the last century. In Eve's Hollywood, Los Angeles cultural mainstay and bohemian muse Eve Babitz drops you into a glowing world of celebrities dining at the Chateau Marmont, ingenues with their stars quickly rising, and '60s Tinseltown at its most entertaining. In Acid for the Children, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea recounts his adolescence roaming the streets of Los Angeles and getting into trouble with an earnestness and passion that drives the memoir.

• Eve's Hollywood — Eve Babitz
• Acid for the Children — Flea

Page-turner mysteries to tear through on a train or while waiting for a friend to meet for a drink

While traveling, hitting periods of dead time can feel like an opportunity wasted. Luckily, these books make the wait thrilling. A is for Alibi is the first in Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series, taking us along with spunky narrator and protagonist Kinsey Milhone, a 30-something private investigator with a penchant for lock picking and her neighbor's baked goods. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth's '70s political thriller, is centered around an elusive master of disguise and an assassination plot against Charles de Gaulle. With these in tow, the train will never feel too long.

• A is for Alibi — Sue Grafton
• The Day of the Jackal — Frederick Forsyth

For urban brooding, exploring, and feeling alive

Cities are inherently exciting. To further amplify the electricity of a city's spirit, consider picking up Patti Smith's Just Kids and finding inspiration in the scrappiness of Smith herself on the path towards punk-rock stardom, her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and their artistic milieu in the heyday of New York's Chelsea Hotel. For a more tragic yet impossibly romantic take on city life, consider James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, an intimate portrait of love, life, and loss with Paris at the fore.

• Just Kids — Patti Smith
• Giovanni's Room — James Baldwin