Flights of Imagination Picks for Adults

The color of one’s skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life.

In 1919, in Newfoundland, four teams of aviators came from Britain to compete in “the Big Hop”: an audacious race to be the first to fly, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. One pair of competitors was forced to abandon the journey halfway, and two pairs never made it into the air. Only one team, after a death-defying sixteen-hour flight, made it to Ireland

This book explores: Both the natural history of birds and that deep cultural connection. From their evolution and anatomy to their behavior and diversity. Hawks, finches, swans, or birds of paradise, moving the focus away from a predictable species-by-species account and allowing for truly global coverage.

Newly-divorced, almost-empty-nester Celeste is finally seeking adventure and putting herself first, cliches be damned. So when a friend asks Celeste to “partner” with his buddy John for an event, Celeste throws herself into the role of his temporary girlfriend. But quiet cinnamon roll John isn’t looking for love, just birds-he needs a partner for Tucson’s biggest bird-watching contest if he’s ever going to launch his own guiding business.

Jai lives as a royal hostage in the Sabine court ever since his father, Rohan, leader of the Steppefolk, led a failed rebellion and was executed by the emperor whom Jai now serves. When the emperor’s son and heir is betrothed to Pricess Erica of the neighboring Dansk Kingdom, she brings with her a dowry: dragons.

Velma Frye is many things. A pilot, a former bootlegger, a well-seasoned traveler, a jazz pianist…and a wielder of celestial magic. She’s also a member of the mystical Rhodes family as well as an investigator for arcane oddities for a magic rights organization, dealing with both simple and complicated cases. And when a pocket watch instigates a magical brawl after one of her flight shows, things become very complicated.

“Kinning,” the sequel to Nisi Shawl’s acclaimed debut novel “Everfair,” continues the stunning alternate history where barkcloth airships soar through the sky, varied peoples build a new society together, and colonies claim their freedom from imperialist tyrants. The Great War is over. Everfair has found peace within its borders. But our heroes’ stories are far from done.

Explore 50 of the most unique libraries located in unknown spaces across the world in this book for travel-loving bibliophiles. From China’s lonely library on a secluded beach to a roving military tank filled with 900 novels in Buenos Aires, this inspirational guide celebrates the great lengths humans will go to to assure access to books.

Jennifer Neal was born in the United States to a family that moved continuously for their own survival and well-being–from the Great Migration to the twenty-first century. As an adult, she has continued to travel the world as a Black queer woman, across two decades and four countries–from Japan to the US and then Australia to Germany, where she has settled for now.

Ocean Yoon has never felt very Korean, even if she is descended from a long line of haenyeo, Jeju Island’s beloved female divers. She doesn’t like soju, constantly misses cultural references, and despite her love of the game, people still say that she doesn’t play Hwatu like a Korean. Ocean’s also persona non grata at the Alliance, Korea’s solar system-dominating space agency, since a mission went awry and she earned a reputation for being a little too quick with her gun.

The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes–and here, for the first time, is the inside account of how the mission originated, how it performs its miracles of science, and what its revolutionary images are revealing.

The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the most dangerous aircraft of World War II through the treacherous skies of Britain.

In 1987, when she inherits a piece of land, Emma finds a small plane in disrepair and her great uncle’s journal that tells the story of Livy Jones, the woman who piloted his plane when he fell ill, and, with new purpose, works to secure Livy’s place in the aviation hall of fame.

A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets–and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop.