Top Ten Tuesday: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Planes, Trains & Automobiles/Books Featuring Travel (books whose plots involve travel or feature modes of transportation on the cover/title) (submitted by Cathy @ What Cathy Read Next)”.

I have listed below four books featuring planes, four with trains and two with automobiles!

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Planes

1. The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin – The story of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, and an accomplished pilot in her own right.

2. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson – I’ve just recently finished this one, so no review yet. A group of ladies in post-WWI England form a motorcycle club, then come up with the idea of expanding to offer flying lessons to women.

3. Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie – A Poirot mystery in which a woman is found dead on a plane flying between Paris and London. After landing in England, Poirot must decide which of his fellow passengers was responsible for the murder.

4. The Wild Air by Rebecca Mascull – I loved this novel about a young woman who decides she wants to become an aviator and sets out to pursue her dream.

Trains

5. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith – Only a small part of this psychological thriller is actually set on a train, but it’s the scene of a very significant meeting between a pair of strangers who find themselves discussing a plan to commit two perfect murders!

6. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie – Christie wrote several novels set, or at least partly set, on trains: Murder on the Orient Express and 4.50 from Paddington are two others. In this one, Poirot investigates the murder of an American heiress found dead in her compartment on the famous Blue Train.

7. The Venice Train by Georges Simenon – Another psychological novel in which a man travelling from Venice to Paris by train agrees to deliver another passenger’s briefcase to an address in Switzerland. I read an English translation by Ros Schwartz.

8. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks – An alternative history/fantasy novel set on the Great Trans-Siberian Express in 1899. A book that leaves us with lots to think about!

Automobiles

9. Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart – This suspense novel set in Provence is one of my favourites by Mary Stewart and features a very memorable car chase scene.

10. Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce – A sequel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, in which Harold’s wife, Maureen, travels by car from the south of England to the north to visit a garden containing a memorial to her son.

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Have you read any of these? Which other books can you think of featuring forms of transport?

21 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

  1. Janette says:
    Janette's avatar

    I really enjoyed the Cautioius Traveller’s guide to the Wastelands. Another series I’ve enjoyed is Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express set in Siberia (logically 😃)

    • Helen says:
      Helen (She Reads Novels)'s avatar

      Yes – and Christie also wrote Death on the Nile, set on a boat! Strangers on a Train is a fascinating book and Madam, Will You Talk? is one of Mary Stewart’s best, in my opinion. I would highly recommend them both.

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