Rail Journeys

Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie

No list on rail travel begins anywhere but here. Christie turns a snowbound train into a locked room and the Orient Express itself into a character as vivid as any detective, setting the tone for a century of railway fiction that followed.

Stamboul Train

Graham Greene

Greene follows the same Ostend to Istanbul route Christie made famous, though his rendering leans darker and more literary, thick with intrigue, romance and the particular tension of strangers confined together for days.

The Woman on the Orient Express

Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Ashford imagines Christie herself aboard the train that made her famous, traveling in the aftermath of her own marriage's collapse. The novel folds real biography into 1920s glamour as comfortably as two strangers sharing a compartment.

The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars

Maurice Dekobra

A 1927 bestseller largely forgotten today, this one supplies the decadent, espionage laced fantasy of Orient Express era luxury better than almost any book still in print, closing the collection's vintage fiction arc on its most extravagant note.

The Trans-Siberian Handbook

Bryn Thomas

For anyone contemplating the longest railway journey on earth, Thomas supplies the practical counterpart to the novels that came before, part planning tool and part travelogue, with enough color to reward readers who have no immediate plans to board.

The Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux

Theroux's account of riding the rails from London through Europe and Asia to Russia and Southeast Asia remains one of the great travel books of the twentieth century, less concerned with luxury than with the world revealing itself one train window at a time.

The Old Patagonian Express

Paul Theroux

Theroux rides south again, this time from Boston all the way to Argentina, letting the train carry him the entire distance. The result is immersive travel writing that finds its pleasure less in arrival than in simply letting the journey unfold.

Around the World in 80 Trains

Monisha Rajesh

Rajesh picks up where Theroux left off, circling the globe entirely by rail, from opulent named trains to ordinary commuter lines, and makes the case that rail travel's romance has only grown since his era, not faded.

Night Train to Lisbon

Pascal Mercier

A philosophy teacher boards a train on impulse and finds the journey rearranging his sense of who he is. Mercier closes the collection on its widest note, a reminder that the best rail journeys often carry travelers somewhere far more interior than any station on the map.