Here at The Uncorked Librarian, we love books about time travel. While I have a list of my personal favorite time travel books, with an emphasis on contemporary fiction, Uncorked Reader favorites, and classics, these are just a few more that you may not have heard of or have forgotten about. Some are wonderfully unique.
Additionally, our original time travel reading list was becoming pretty lengthy, so it was time to split it up without leaving off these gems. Be sure to let us know your favorites in the comments. 💜 Christine
Afterward, you might enjoy watching movies with time loops. P.S. To save money on ebooks, along with your local library and indie bookstores, try Amazon Prime or Audible.
An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim
An Ocean of Minutes is one of the most original takes about time travel’s effects on alternate history.
Polly and Frank are deeply in love in 1981 when a pandemic devastates the planet. By the end of 1981, time travel (invented in this alternate reality in 1993) had been made available.
Because of this invention, individuals can sign on to work for the TimeRaiser corporation to escape or save their loved ones in the present. Due to a flaw in the technology, though, they can only transport people for 12 years. This prevents them from stopping the pandemic by just 6 months.
When Frank gets ill, Polly signs up, agreeing they will meet back up in 1993. Now, alone in the future, Polly has to learn to navigate a world she has less than zero preparation for. In this world, she is a time refugee, bonded to TimeRaiser without a physical cent to her name.
Lim uses the time travel mechanic to cleverly explore the subject of immigration, forcing the reader to follow Polly blindly into a world they should know, but don’t. This is what makes An Ocean of Minutes one of the most unique time travel novels on this reading list.
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How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is one of the most unusual books about time travel out there. Our protagonist, Charles Yu, lives in a world where time travel exists and is readily available to the average person. And yes, he is named after the author, and yes, it is as meta as it sounds; and yes, this is just the beginning of this speculative fiction time travel book.
Charles Yu’s day job is spent repairing time machines for Time Warner Time. But, in his free time, he tries to help the people who use time travel to do so safely and to counsel them if things have gone wrong.
It’s no surprise that Charles’s entire life revolves around time travel since his father invented the technology many years ago. And then he disappeared. In fact, Charles is also trying to find out just what happened to his dad, and where – or when – he’s gone.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe won’t be for everyone, but it’s one of the best time travel books if you want delightfully meta, fantastically non-linear, and very, very weird.
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The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
For beautiful, lyrical time travel novels about found family and love, The Vanished Birds is a must-read. Nia Imani exists outside of time and space. She travels in and out of the world through a pocket of time with her space crew. They emerge to trade or sell goods every eight months. But eight months for them is 15 years for everyone else.
She has lived this way for hundreds of years. Though she has her crew, and there are people she shares connections with sporadically throughout their lives, Nia is lonely. And although she barely ages, she watches friends and lovers grow old and die.
Kaeda is one such person who meets Nia for the first time when he is 7. The next time he sees her, he has aged 15 years, while she is only months older. She continues to come every 15 years of his life, always looking the same.
One day, a mysterious, mute boy falls from the sky into Nia’s life. His name is Ahro, and there’s something extra special about him. Something that could revolutionize space travel forever. And now there might be people after Ahro who won’t love him the way Nia does.
If you love a character-driven book with exquisite prose – and a few time warps – The Vanished Birds is one of the best books featuring time travel for you.
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Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Night Watch is one of the most fun and thrilling fantasy books that is also a bit ridiculous and very, very British.
Why can’t policing just be simple? All Sam Vimes wanted to do was capture and arrest a dangerous murderer. But thanks to those damned wizards and their experiments, he and the killer have both been accidentally thrown back in time thirty years.
And to top it off, the man who would have become a mentor to young Sam Vimes in the past has been killed in the process! How’s Vimes going to get this all sorted out?
At this point, the City Watch he has spent years improving is just a bunch of semi-competent volunteers. He’s got no money, no clothes, and no friends. But at least he’s making enemies fast. Can he catch the killer, stop history from not repeating itself, and get home to his family? Oh, and the city’s about to dissolve into civil war. Typical.
Night Watch is perfect if you prefer your time travel books to be fantasy-based.
P.S. There may be mild spoilers for previous books in the Discworld series, but this can be read as a standalone. And if you only ever read one Discworld novel, this is one of the best there is – and so far the only one of the Discworld books with time travel!
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The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
The Future of Another Timeline is one of the few unique books about time travel to explore history through a feminist lens: In 1992, Beth – a high school senior – and her friends Heather, Lizzy, and Soojin attend a riot grrl concert with Heather’s boyfriend Scott. But afterward, one of Scott’s not-so-funny sexist jokes gets out of hand, and Lizzy accidentally kills him. Now they’re on the run, and the bodies just keep piling up.
Meanwhile, in 2022, Tess is part of a group of women and non-binary people working together to change history. They have the use of five time devices which only allow them to travel backward and back to the present day – but never forwards.
Beth and Tess come from two wildly different times (1992, and 2022, respectively). But while Beth is busy making history, Tess is quite literally trying to change it. However, both of them want the same thing: a better world. When their worlds collide, will they be able to save each other – and the world?
The Future of Another Timeline is a time travel fiction celebration of feminism and queerness with lots of sci-fi and punk rock thrown in. This is one of the best time travel novels for those who enjoy stellar women making history.
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The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
The Kingdoms is wildly imaginative and sure to enchant fans of time travel books, alternative history stories, and tales about parallel universes.
In 1898, Joe Tournier steps off a train and suddenly can’t remember anything that comes before that moment. The world he now finds himself in is as foreign to him as it is to us: an alternate history/reality where the UK lost the Battle of Trafalgar and is now a French colony.
In this world, the British are kept as slaves. Napoleon is a popular name for pets, and tartan is outlawed. Since Joe arrives on a train from Glasgow, speaking English and wearing tartan, there is some speculation that he might be from The Saints, a terrorist group based in Edinburgh fighting for freedom.
But all Joe remembers is the fading image of a woman and the name Madeline. Although he is identified by his owner and brought “home,” Joe is determined to find this Madeline. And his resolve is only strengthened when he receives a postcard signed ‘– M’ and dated 90 years in the past.
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Discover even more books about Scottish culture, history, and everyday life. Or, read these great books set in Scotland to transport you there.
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
The Light Brigade is one of the best time travel stories for anyone who loves character-driven tales or books about war and conflict.
As war wages on Mars, the military has devised the perfect soldier to fight on the frontlines: being made of light. The Light Brigade, as they’re called back home, is made up of soldiers who have undergone a procedure that breaks them down into atoms capable of traveling at the speed of light. They are the perfect soldiers, but broken people.
The book follows one such soldier, Dietz, an eager recruit who is experiencing battle out of sync with everyone else. Because of this, she – and we – see a different reality of the war than the one presented by the Corporate Corps. As Dietz becomes more and more unstuck in time, she becomes more and more unsure of her own sanity and the role she is playing in this war.
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The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
For magical books about time travel – and our romance lovers – The Seven Year Slip is one of our favorite magical realism novels.
When Clementine’s aunt dies, she inherits her fancy New York apartment on the Upper East Side. Although Clementine would rather have her aunt back and can’t imagine living in her home, she eventually forces herself to move in and inhabit her aunt’s space.
And not long after, she wakes up to discover a strange man in her living room… except it’s not her living room, it’s her aunt’s… from seven years ago. Clementine’s aunt always said her apartment held a touch of magic; sometimes it created time slips that brought two people together when they were at a crossroads.
But what happens when you start to fall for someone stuck seven years in the past? Clementine knows there’s no future together, but she also can’t let go of this link to her aunt.
Like her previous speculative fiction romance, The Dead Romantics, Ashley Poston’s unique time travel tale is full of heartache and grief. However, it will also make you swoon.
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The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way | Illustrated by Gabriel Ba
You Look Like Death Volume 1 | Now a popular (and excellent) Netflix TV show, The Umbrella Academy is one of the best time travel books of all time.
One day, forty-seven children are suddenly and inexplicably born to women who were not previously pregnant. Eccentric millionaire Reginald Hargreeves goes around the world buying as many of the surviving children as he possibly can. He is able to get seven.
These children, it turns out, all have superpowers (except, it seems, for the unremarkable Number Seven aka Vanya). They become the crime-fighting group: The Umbrella Academy.
Fast forward several years, and Number Five, whose special power is traveling in time a few seconds or minutes per go, has mysteriously appeared after Hargreeves dies. And now he brings warning of an apocalypse – one which he insists none of his siblings will survive.
The Umbrella Academy series is packed with tales of time travel, parallel worlds, family drama, and lots of epic battles. We’ve loved this time travel book series so far; we can’t wait to see what Gerard Way does with future installments.
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Discover even more great books with music, musicians, and bands.
Orange by Ichigo Takano
Translated by Lasse Christian Christiansen and Amber Tamosaitis | This YA sci-fi romance manga is one of the most endearing time travel books you’ll ever read.
On the first day of 11th grade, Naho oversleeps for the first time. She also receives a letter that claims to be sent from herself 10 years in the future. The letter tells her two big things that will happen to her that day as proof of sender: she will be late, and there will be a new kid in class named Naruse Kakeru from Tokyo, who will sit next to her.
Naho is unsure if she trusts the letter, or whether or not she should heed its warnings – especially since it talks about past regrets and trying to undo them.
Orange is an adorable, but heartbreaking time travel manga that teaches us the meaning of friendship, love, regret, and so much more. If you’re looking for the best books about time travel for teens, Orange is the perfect option (and adults will love it too).
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Let us know your favorites in the comments, as we are always updating our reading lists.