Whether it’s a chance to peruse the past, go back to the future, or hit “restart” on your life, stories about traveling through time remain perennial favorites. Here’s a selection that will leave you wishing you could go back and experience them for the first time all over again!
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In this cozy and contemplative novel, customers who sit in a seat at a certain cafe can travel back in time – but only for as long as it takes for their coffee to cool. Poignant vignettes describe how various characters choose to make the most of this opportunity, whether that’s for closure or curiosity.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby and as an eBook and as an eAudio on Hoopla.
Pairing: Pour Over
This novel about a woman capable of traveling not only through time but also between fiction and nonfiction reads like the literary equivalent of an overstuffed stocking – Fforde has put a little bit of everything he likes into it. Mystery? Romance? References to classic novels? Satire? Slapstick comedy and terrible puns? You name it, this book’s got it. And has there ever been a more perfect name for a time travel protagonist than “Thursday Next”?
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby.
Charles Yu (yes, the author named his protagonist after himself) is the son of the man who invented time travel, and published a book about it called, yes, “How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe.” Then Charles’s father vanished. Now Charles is hopping back and forth in time, hoping to decode clues within the book to find his missing dad. Same family focus as Wrong Place Wrong Time – but with a lot more quantum physics!
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and as an eAudio on Hoopla.
The first book in this popular, comedic UK series about historians who do, let’s say, hands-on research is a madcap adventure in the tradition of the best silly British comedy. But you’ll learn a few things about the past on the way!
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby.
Butler’s sci-fi classic tells the story of a Black woman thrown backwards in space and time to the antebellum South. As she watches a white ancestor grow up, she experiences firsthand how the institution of slavery warps and torments everyone it comes in contact with.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby and as an eAudio on Hoopla.
Some people’s pen pals live in different countries. Annie’s pen pal lives in a different time. By exchanging letters that appear in her mail box as if by magic, she becomes acquainted with Eleanor, a woman from the past who’s about to run into some real trouble. The story has some elements of mystery or suspense but mostly focuses on the friendship between Annie and the much older (and much more, ah, sprightly!) Eleanor.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and as an eBook and eAudio on Hoopla.
Outlander fans who also enjoy a good whodunit will love the adventures of FBI agent Kendra Donovan, who must put her 21st-century investigative skills to work when she’s catapulted back into the 19th century. Can she figure out a way to get home – and why do the people around her keep turning up dead?
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby and as an eBook and eAudio on Hoopla.
Girl meets girl on the train. Girl discovers girl cannot get off the train. Girl has been on the train since the 1970s. Something has gone decidedly awry with time on the New York subway. This ebullient and steamy romance between women of two different eras is a perfect feel-good read.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby and as an eAudio on Hoopla.
Working security at a hotel for ultra-rich time-traveling tourists is never simple. Not only are the guests used to getting their way, this close to time travel tech, the laws of physics stop applying – and when people start dying in the hotel, well. January Cole is having a bad day that just might span all of time. This book manages to combine a mystery-thriller with a bendy psychological sci-fi twist.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby.
…and while we’re on the subject of comedy, Willis’s novel about researchers who rescue “doomed” objects from historical catastrophes is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. A send-up of academia, as well as anything else Willis can get her hands on, it’s a frothier read than her other time-travel novels, but all are well worth investigating.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook on Libby and as an eAudio on Hoopla.
If the ins, outs, and philosophy of time travel don’t interest you, but you’d rather read a story you can’t put down – don’t miss this harrowing story of a mother who watches her son commit a murder, only to wake up the next day and discover she’s gone two days back in time. Now , if she wants to understand and preserve her family, she has to race against the clock to keep the “future” from happening.
This title is also available for checkout as an eBook and eAudio on Libby and as an eBook and eAudio on Hoopla.