The best books to read in one-sitting on your next flight
Whenever I go on an airplane, I always bring a book to keep me company. There’s no better feeling than being so engrossed in a great read that you barely look up from the page, and somehow, you’ve already arrived at your destination. We’ve got plenty of fast-paced, jam-packed books to hold your attention, from gripping whodunnits to real-life tales of crime and deceit. These are books that read quickly—and give you something to talk about once you land. While you’re here, check out the Best Books of the Month.
For an engrossing friends-to-lovers romance No one does summer romance like Carley Fortune, and this is her most transporting novel to date, which I didn’t think was possible! This gorgeously rich best-friends-to-lovers romance follows Frankie and George, who have been inseparable since they became neighbors at eight years old. But life has pulled them apart, and now Frankie is getting married and George doesn’t approve. When Frankie’s fiancé leaves her the night before their wedding, she’s suddenly adrift until George suggests they take her honeymoon trip to Tofino together to get reinspired. Alternating between present day and key moments from their shared history, every single detail of this love story comes vividly to life, from the breathtaking setting to the incredible food to George and Frankie’s delicate, tender bond. Every moment is divine. —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
For an electric, hilarious, and shockingly quick thriller This is one of my favorite books of all time and it never disappoints. My Sister, the Serial Killer follows Korede, a nurse living in Lagos, who is fed up with her beautiful, younger sister Ayoola. And it’s not because of Ayoola’s looks. It’s because she keeps murdering her boyfriends and Korede is the one who has to clean up the mess. When Ayoola falls for Korede’s crush, things get even more complicated. I read this book in a single sitting and have been absolutely obsessed ever since. It’s perfect for anyone looking for a laugh—and for cutting observations on sisterhood, loyalty, and heartbreak.—Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
For a slim novel that packs a big punch With Proustian transitions and Knausgaardian ruminations, Ben Lerner (The Topeka School, 10:04, Leaving Atocha Station) tackles the slippery illusions of memory, man’s self-inflicted foibles, our intentions, and our histories that morph and mutate in communication, and the complexities of modern parenthood. What good is a recording if we don't remember it? What if you're desperate to get your child to eat so you put out bowls of candy? Both literary and accessible, uncanny and prescient, Lerner's short novel (144 pages) is perfect for this moment, with our obsession with our phones and how we present ourselves to the world. To read this is to be enveloped in a Dali painting, where facts, like the clocks, melt, molding to their new realities. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
For stories that deliver sharp humor There aren’t many people who have a keener appreciation of the absurd than David Sedaris. His ninth collection of essays delivers on what readers can always expect from one of America’s favorite curmudgeons: ample belly laughs. But he is also skilled at toggling between the playful and the poignant—his humor always hiding, and not terribly well, a tender wisdom that has given his oeuvre staying power. The Land and Its People is no exception. Whether he’s talking about caring for his long-time partner (sort of), confiding in impudent Duolingo avatars about his family, having a custom cassock made because (maybe) he’s moved on from culottes…Sedaris’ musings on mortality, travel, family, and McNuggets will have you laughing, and crying. Usually at the same time. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
For a sweet, romantic escape Every time I think I’ve read my favorite Annabel Monaghan novel, she writes a new one. This is such a wonderful problem to have! Dolly All the Time is rom-com perfection—charming, transporting, swoony, kind, and delivering my new favorite book boyfriend. Dolly is a hardworking single mom who moves back to her small Rhode Island hometown with her son to help save the family home where her dad and brother still live. Through a series of delightfully fortunate events, she crosses paths with local scion Stewart Whitfield, who proposes a fake-dating arrangement for the summer to help with his image. But what starts as a business deal quickly becomes something deeper, and for the first time, Dolly wonders if she can share the burdens she’s been carrying all by herself. The genius of Monaghan’s writing, beyond it being simply delicious to read, is that she elevates the romance tropes we love and creates endearing, complex characters who feel so real. And in Stewart’s case, she wrote the dreamiest leading man. I’m jealous of everyone who gets to read this book for the first time. —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
For a riproaring (and true) tale you could hand to literally any type of reader The Art Thief is a blast to read—but also horrifying when you realize what the maniac at the center of the story is up to, and what his mom did to $2 billion worth of art to protect her son. Stéphane Breitwieser can’t resist filching priceless pieces from museums, or, as he calls them “prisons for art.” As Breitwieser’s compulsion grows, readers are left agog wondering how he’ll up the ante, and soon enough he’s dodging guards to throw an ancient tapestry through a window, hiking through a forest to retrieve it, realizing he doesn't have 100 feet to display it in his tiny attic apartment, and then stuffing it under his four-poster bed. Gasp! This true crime tale (one of our Best Books of 2023) is gateway nonfiction, and, at just a smidge over 200 pages, easy enough to devour on a short flight. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
For twists and turns that will keep you turning the page My favorite domestic thriller of the year so far, Kimberly McCreight's latest is sure to keep you entertained. In fact, I read the whole thing on a cross-country flight and barely looked up from my book. Someone Else’s Husband begins with Gretchen, a posh, happily married New York City mom whose world is rocked when her husband is charged in the murder of a younger woman he met on a climbing expedition. McCreight flips through the intertwined lives of both Gretchen and the younger woman, Frankie, an artist who is on the cusp of a career breakout before she vanishes without a trace. It kept me guessing until its final pages.—Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
For a book—and bad guy—that you'll want to discuss One of our Best Books of July is newly out, and it's a real page-turner. Paul Skalnik seems too good to be true: he’s a former cop who finds himself on the wrong side of the law but is still determined to do right by coaxing confessions out of his fellow jailmates. “As the old saying goes, ‘You’ve got to make a deal with a sinner to catch the devil,’” prosecutors say, relying on Skalnik’s sworn testimony to tie men to murders across America. But all is not as it seems with the shape-shifting Skalnik, who is exposed as a ruthless conman willing to do whatever it takes to bend the law to his whims and work the systems upon which America’s “land of the free” are built. Skalnik leaves a trail of victims in his wake—men sentenced to lifetimes behind bars, women reeling from his broken promises and charm twisted into violence, neighbors and businessmen who trusted him with their fortunes and their futures. In this ripped-from-the-headlines narrative nonfiction that reads like a real-life thriller, Pamela Colloff unspools a dizzying story of deceit, exposing how one man with nothing to lose is able to fool everyone. Even, perhaps, the reader who held this man up as a hero at the beginning of the book. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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