The feeling you get buckling your seatbelt with a car full of snacks and travel partners while steering onto the highway and hitting the open road is unbeatable. Road trips are an opportunity to escape everyday life and zone out, alone in your thoughts, as the highway trails before you.
But we think the best part of any road trip is the opportunity to read or listen to a book as the miles turn over on the odometer. If you have a plan to travel cross-country this summer, we recommend one of these three books for your upcoming summer road trip.
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
Before the days of the CIA, there was the OSS, or Office of Strategic Services—a division of 13,000 members, a third of which were women, who gathered intelligence to bring down the Axis powers throughout World War II. After the war was won, in true Mad Men fashion, men climbed the corporate ladder of the newly founded CIA while female OSS members, like characters Sally and Irina, were relegated to be typists and secretaries. Until one fateful day, when they are called back into duty for a particular and secret mission - to travel to the Soviet Union to find and transport the manuscript of the natively banned Dr. Zhivago back to the US. The book is to be distributed among visiting Russian dignitaries who will use it to inspire other Soviets to rise up against the communist regime.
While The Secrets We Kept has its fair share of love, loss, and intrigue, what makes it unique is the underlying pain of oppression the main female characters experience compared to their male colleagues—even though they all feel the equal weight of secrets. The meticulous research and exciting plot will have you ripping through the pages so quickly, you’ll arrive at your destination in no time. The Secrets We Kept is one of the newest books on BookClub, and an early arrival means you’ll have plenty of time to learn more about the story (and her writing process) from author Lara Prescott.
Kings of Crypto by Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts’ Kings of Crypto is all about that money, honey. Roberts, eager to tell the story of how Coinbase took Bitcoin from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, wrote an in-depth look at cryptocurrency and how it could disrupt high finance, complete with memes, shady investors, government investigations, and hacking (a lot of it, apparently). Whether you’re a cryptocurrency veteran or brand new to the world of Bitcoin, Roberts’ book is a must-read—plus, once it’s too dark to read on your road trip, you can join the conversation about the book on BookClub.
After devouring Kings of Crypto and diving deeper into the book via BookClub, you’ll be the person on the road trip telling everyone to stop buying snacks and buy Bitcoin instead.
Midnight in Broad Daylight by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto
Midnight in Broad Daylight is the true story of Henry Fukuhara, a Japanese-American whose family is in Hiroshima when he is sent to the US Internment camps— and then later joins the US Army to work as an interpreter. An intricately woven tale of family, honor, and loyalty, Midnight in Broad Daylight is the perfect road trip book to lose yourself in. While the treatment of Japanese-Americans might upset you, the way author Pamela Rotner Sakamoto tells this powerful story will keep you reading all trip long.
When you’ve returned home, BookClub can offer you the opportunity to dive into the story and learn even more about the Fukuharas. Sakamoto also shares how she put the story together, including how she gathered so many personal stories. It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss.
No matter where you’re headed this summer, one of these books is bound to be the perfect companion. Before you hit the road, be sure to join BookClub so you can get all the information about the book that you could ever want. After all, we don’t think there’s anything better to do while driving cross-country! Reading a BookClub book on your road trip? Have another book you’re reading instead? Tell us what your road trip reads look like at @bookclubdotcom on Twitter and Instagram!
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