If you purchase something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. There's no better way to settle into the new year than with a fresh reading list—and we couldn't be more excited to share ours in this winter edition of the Women Who Travel book club. For your next snowy Sunday or chilly night in, we have reads that tour you through rural France side-by-side with a spy, drop you into otherworldly landscapes one gorgeously illustrated comic panel at a time, let you in on Ina Garten's life beyond Barefoot Contessa , and more.
And just in case you might have trouble deciding where to start, we've organized our list by theme so you can pick up just what you're in the mood for. After you're done, we'd love to hear your thoughts on our picks—and which fantastic reads we might've missed—on Instagram or Facebook. The culinary queen chronicles her long and winding road to Barefoot Contessa fame. Lola Kirke was raised in the kind of family most of us only hear about—rocker dad, vintage fashion boutique owner mom, famous siblings, London to West Village upbringing, big-name actors randomly popping over for dinner—and she really spills the ink on all of it in her new memoir.
This book is a snacky read that I inhaled during multiple sauna visits over a wintry week in New York. I loved every minute of it. The Pairing can best be described as the sexy, food-filled Euro-trip you always wanted. The book follows Theo and Kit, two estranged exes who are now forced together on a European food and wine tour they once booked when they were together.
Like a good eclair, I inhaled this book as fast as I could and craved more. But it is also tender, hopeful, and oddly poetic, as an unseen-before queer coming of age manifesto. From New York to LA and back again, Emma Specter lets you peek behind the scenes to get a raw and unfiltered look at what it feels like to live with a binge-eating disorder while discovering oneself, and how the two feed off each other.
But I also loved following the woman lead, a spy whose head you really get into when nobody else can. Reviews of the book describe it as a reinvention of the spy novel. My first introduction to the inimitable Louise Erdrich and her writing came when my high school English teacher made the brilliant call of including The Round House on our syllabus.
