By Carole Reedy

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
― John Muir

Not every novel that studies human behavior takes place in an overstuffed-chaired drawing room over tea and scones or the dark halls of a long-hallowed university. The pursuit of happiness and thoughts of things past are often found in the wild seas or calm pastures of the natural world.

Here are a handful of books that conjure thoughts of a daring yet sublime existence outside the home, office, or studio.

The Flaneur, by Edmund White (2001)

In the 70+ years during which I’ve turned to the written word for pleasure and knowledge, without a doubt The Flaneur is one of my favorite books.

Flaneuring itself is a favorite pastime for many dreamers and observers of human nature and culture. The term “flaneur” was first coined by the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) in his essay collection “The Painter of Modern Life” (1860). The flaneur is an observer, an explorer of the city and streets and is found in many impressionist paintings.

White takes us for a stroll through the myriad streets of Paris, home of the existentialists, poets like Baudelaire, the revered Colette, the famous Josephine Baker, and numerous museums. We never want the journey to end while walking with Edmund White. The goal? To observe and reflect.

There are details that can be discovered only while randomly and aimlessly walking the streets of a city. White describes this wandering as “that aimless Parisian compromise between laziness and activity.”

This is the Edmund White we have come to expect, who with each book gifts us pages of beautiful and descriptive prose, taking us beyond our self and into other worlds.

White has stated that the only thing Parisians will not tolerate is publishing a mediocre novel. I doubt he will ever prove to be guilty of that.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder, and Mutiny, by David Grann (2023)

The success of this newly published story may rest partly on the popularity of the blockbuster movie Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), based Grann’s 2017 book that bears the subtitle The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Both The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon depict actual tragic events that Grann has brought to our awareness.

The Wager is an adventure story that takes place on the high seas from Britain and Brazil to Chile during the 18th century. Human behavior at its worst and best is explored in this remarkable tale of the pursuit of a Spanish galleon filled with treasure … as well as the resulting shipwrecks. Heroes or thieves and murderers? It all ended in a court martial and trial that rivals a modern-day thriller.

The Shetland Series, by Anne Cleeves (2006-18)

Rich description of these remote northern Scottish islands is one of the delights of this Cleeves mystery series. Details of a quickly changeable climate color the text, allowing the reader complete immersion in the finely tuned crime story. Most of us feel compelled to get out an atlas to fully grasp the location and makeup of these surprisingly complex islands and their place in the historical and social context of the British Isles. Rumor has it that Shetland has had a desire to become a part of Norway.

This eight-book series (Anne Cleeves is also the prolific writer of several other series in various locations) stars a detective of Spanish descent, Jimmy Perez, along with a range of other characters who hail from the various Shetland Islands. Along the way we learn about fishing and knitting as well as the language and cultural differences of these communities.

I challenge you to guess any ending, which in each case provides the cherry on top of the author’s astute, carefully written, detailed style.

Dr. Ruth Galloway Series, by Elly Griffiths (2009-23)

The fifteen books that make up the Ruth Galloway mystery series become favorites of any reader who starts the first book, The Crossing Places. If you are anything like my friends, you will eagerly anticipate each of the following books in the series.

Ruth, an archeologist in Norwich, England, is beaconed by the local police whenever any human bones are discovered. If they appear to be recent deaths, the police take over, although somehow Ruth always finds herself entwined in the search for a solution to a perceived crime. If the bones are ancient, they become the impetus to investigate and open doors for Ruth and her archeological students, leading to discovering new theories about civilization.

The recurring characters in the book (Ruth, Nelson, Cathbad, Judy) will quickly become part of your friendship circle. The shifting environmental moods of the marsh where Ruth lives, along with the various surrounding English regions, establish a foreboding ambience for each of the novels, a perfect background for the eerie situations that confront Ruth (and her friends).

Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi with J.H. Moehringer (2009)

Most autobiographies of famous sports figures stand out as nothing more than facts and statistics about the sport with some color added regarding contributing characters.

This history, written by the controversial tennis star Andre Agassi (with ghostwriter J.H. Moehringer), breaks that mold.

Agassi opens his heart and soul to the reader as if he were sitting in a psychiatrist’s office. The pressure from his father an early age to play tennis permeates every decade of his life. Without revealing too much, I leave it to the reader to follow this emotional journey.

Tom Lake: A Novel, by Anne Patchett (2023)

Patchett has drawn on a vast repertoire for the subjects, locations, and characters of her previous novels. My favorite is one of her first, Bel Canto: A Novel (2001), which transplants the reader to a country in South America where an opera singer finds herself in a hostage situation at a birthday party for a Japanese businessman.

Since then, Patchett has explored a variety of scenarios. In this, her latest, a cherry orchard in northern Michigan provides the setting for a family saga that takes place during the COVID pandemic. A family of parents and their three grown daughters find themselves saving the family business by coming together to harvest the cherries. Over the course of months, they learn more about one another, especially about the mother’s life before her marriage to their father.

This is a sweet book, suspenseful enough to keep the reader’s curiosity piqued throughout. Unsurprisingly, you may not be able to stop thinking of Anton Chekhov’s classic 1903 drama, The Cherry Orchard.

Happy April reading!