Expat books for the new season of Emily in Paris

Listen, I don’t watch Emily In Paris (it’s back Aug. 15), but I might be convinced to try it soon, given how many of y’all seem to love it. There’s just something about being whisked away from your problems through travel… only to find a new set of problems abroad. If this is your vibe, you might also enjoy one of these books featuring expats getting in all sorts of trouble in other countries.

THE CLASSICS

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (Italy)

Yossarian is a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy — it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

Democracy by Joan Didion (Indonesia and Vietnam)

A bitingly funny, cumulatively devastating post-mortem of our national mores and institutions set against the historical backdrop of the final withdrawal from Vietnam. A U.S. Senator, his wife, senatorial groupies and international arms dealing intersect with one another in this blistering indictment of American amnesia.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (Paris)

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

NONFICTION

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle (southern France)

A couple buys a 200-year-old home in southern France and experiences the culture shock and growing pains of a new life outside England. Mayle documents the first year of their life in Provence, including the amazing cuisine, strange local customs, onslaught of wanted and unwanted house guests, and the peace he and his wife manage to find despite their struggle to learn the language and establish themselves as permanent residents. 

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (Paris)

A correspondent for the “Toronto Star, ” Hemingway arrived in Paris in 1921, three years after the trauma of the Great War and at the beginning of the transformation of Europe’s cultural landscape: Braque and Picasso were experimenting with cubist form; James Joyce, long living in self-imposed exile from his native Dublin, had just completed “Ulysses; ” Gertrude Stein held court at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and deemed young Ernest a member of “une gneration perdue; ” and T.S. Eliot was a bank clerk in London. 

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell (Denmark)

Keen to know their secrets, Helen gave herself a year to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From childcare, education, food and interior design to SAD and taxes, this is a funny, poignant journey, showing us what the Danes get right, what they get wrong, and how we might all live a little more Danishly ourselves.

Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad by Tamara J. Walker

Drawing on years of research, Walker takes readers from well-known capital cities to more unusual destinations like Yangiyul, Uzbekistan, and Kabondo, Kenya. She follows Florence Mills, the would-be Josephine Baker of her day, in Paris, and Richard Wright, the author turned actor and filmmaker, in Buenos Aires. Throughout “Beyond the Shores,” she relays tender stories of adventurous travelers, including a group of gifted Black crop scientists in the 1930s, a housewife searching for purpose in the 1950s, and a Peace Corps volunteer discovering his identity in the 1970s. Tying these tales together is Walker’s personal account of her family’s, and her own, experiences abroad—in France, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, and beyond.

YOUNG ADULT

Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali (Qatar)

But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry. When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar. Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a “nicer” version of herself. Then her path crosses with Adam’s. Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Adam’s stopped going to classes. He’s intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister, and his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father. Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals. 

A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey (England)

A summer in England was never part of Lila’s plan. She was supposed to take over her abuela’s role as head baker at their panadería, move in with her best friend after graduation, and live happily ever after with her boyfriend. But then everything fell apart. So her parents make a new plan: spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. Lila is unhappily stuck in a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), until she meets a tea shop clerk with troubles of his own. Orion is determined to help Lila out of her funk, and appoints himself as her personal tour guide. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila’s mind.

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean (Tokyo)

Izumi Tanaka has never really felt like she fit in — it isn’t easy being Japanese American in her small, mostly white, California town. It’s always been Izumi — or Izzy, because “It’s easier” — and her mom against the world. But then Izumi discovers her father is the Crown Prince of Japan and travels to discover the country she always dreamed of. There are conniving cousins, a hungry press, a scowling but handsome bodyguard, and thousands of years of tradition and customs to learn practically overnight.

HISTORICAL FICTION

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (Madrid)

Under a fascist dictatorship, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother’s birth through the lens of his camera. Photography — and fate — introduce him to Ana, whose family’s interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War — as well as chilling definitions of fortune and fear. 

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (West Africa)

Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI during the Cold War. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a task force aimed at undermining the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the work he is doing for his country. Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American.

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros (Mexico City)

Every year, Ceyala “Lala” Reyes’ family — aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala’s six older brothers — packs up three cars and drives from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother’s house for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother’s life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. 

CONTEMPORARY

The Vacationers by Emma Straub (Mallorca)

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island also promises an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell (Bulgaria)

On a warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns again, drawn by hunger and loneliness and risk, and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he’s forced to grapple with his own fraught history, the world of his southern childhood where to be queer was to be a pariah. n narrative, his private history of illness, exploitation, and want.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)

At a café in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. He begins to tell the story of a man named Changez, who is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. His budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into elite Manhattan society. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

THRILLERS

The Searcher by Tana French (Ireland)

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets.

Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon (Ireland)

With few other options, African-American classical musician Gethsemane Brown accepts a less-than-ideal position turning a group of rowdy schoolboys into an award-winning orchestra. Stranded without luggage or money in the Irish countryside, she figures any job is better than none. The perk? Housesitting a lovely cliffside cottage. The catch? The ghost of the cottage’s murdered owner haunts the place. Falsely accused of killing his wife (and himself), he begs Gethsemane to clear his name so he can rest in peace. Gethsemane’s reluctant investigation provokes a dormant killer and she soon finds herself in grave danger. 

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Luxembourg)

Kate Moore’s days are filled with playdates and coffee mornings, her weekends spent in Paris and skiing in the Alps. But Kate is also guarding a secret that’s become so unbearable that it begins to unravel her newly established expat life. She suspects that another American couple are not who they claim to be; her husband is acting suspiciously; and as she travels around Europe, she finds herself terrified that her past is catching up with her. Kate finds herself buried in layers of deceit so thick they threaten her family, her marriage, and her life.