For decades, authors and readers have been asking questions about what we would do, or change, if time travel existed—and what we could change. Would the smallest change, one killed butterfly, alter the entire future? Or could we edit here and there, as long as we were careful? And if we did, and then returned to our time, would it really be our time?
Time travel and its potential paradoxes have sent us into delightful questioning, adventures and spirals, from Back to the Future to The Time Traveler’s Wife to Outlander. The genre explores some of our most intriguing questions as humans: what our future might look like, and how our history influences our present and future. With romance, grand sci-fi epics and more, our picks for the best time travel books explore the kinds of opportunities, disasters and battles that time travel could create for us all.
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589517" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/The-Future-of-Another-Timeline-by-Annalee-Newitz-best-time-travel-books.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1498" data-caption='<em>The Future of Another Timeline</em> by Annalee Newitz. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Tor Books</span>’>
Two groups fight across timelines for the future of women’s and queer rights. A team of cis male time travelers wants a timeline where women are never allowed to vote, ushering in an eventual male-supremacist future. Meanwhile, Tess and her squad want a future of reproductive justice and equality, and she heads back to World Fair-era Chicago to try to take down the Comstock Laws in this battle across history. A tantalizing mix of historical fiction and punk sci-fi.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589518" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/This-is-How-You-Lose-the-Time-War-by-Amal-el-Mohtar-and-Max-Gladstone-best-time-travel-books.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1455" data-caption='<em>This is How You Lose the Time War</em> by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Saga Press</span>’>
This epistolary novella is a series of love letters between two spies working for opposite sides of a war across time—nature versus science. It has garnered a cult following, thanks in part to a viral fan tweet. Short but dense with poetic prose, it’s a sapphic love story and an enemies-to-lovers tale as Red and Blue evolve from trying to one-up each other, to impressing one another, to risking the entire war if it means saving the other.
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589521" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Woman-on-the-Edge-of-Time-by-Marge-Piercy-best-time-travel-books.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1491" data-caption='<em>Woman on the Edge of Time</em> by Marge Piercy. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Ballantine Books</span>’>
This underrated feminist sci-fi classic from the 1970s follows Connie, a Chicana woman on welfare who is wrongfully institutionalized in a mental hospital determined to break her spirit. She begins to dream of a possible utopian future, only to realize she is the hinge between two timelines—dystopia and utopia. Her ability to endure and remain alive may be the key to everyone’s future.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589515" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/One-Last-Stop.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1488" data-caption='<em>One Last Stop</em> by Casey McQuiston. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Griffin</span>’>
The author of the smash hit Red, White & Royal Blue brings time travel into romance with the story of August, who falls for a mysterious stranger on the Q train. Except Jane’s look isn’t just vintage—she’s literally from the 1970s and is stuck in a subway time pocket. Part mystery, part romance and part found-family narrative, this novel weaves in themes of queer identity with McQuiston’s signature warmth.
All This & More by Peng Shepherd
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589513" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/All-This-and-More.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1465" data-caption='<em>All This & More</em> by Peng Shepherd. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy William Morrow</span>’>
Time travel was made for the choose-your-own-adventure format, and in this new release, the reader gets to make the decisions. Marsh, 45 and full of regrets, is chosen to compete on a reality show that lets contestants change their pasts. She is determined to fix her life one choice at a time, but as the reader directs her fate, Marsh begins to wonder whether the show is really what it claims to be.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589522" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Doomsday-Book-by-Connie-Willis-best-time-trsavel-books.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1455" data-caption='<em>Doomsday Book</em> by Connie Willis. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Del Rey</span>’>
Few books have won both Hugo and Nebula awards—this one has. Oxford student Kivrin sets out on a simple research project: travel back to the Middle Ages for an observational study. But a timing error sends her not to 1320 but to 1348—the year the Black Death arrived. Stranded in one of history’s darkest chapters, she must fight to survive and find her way back in this sci-fi classic.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589514" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Before-the-Coffee-Gets-Cold.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1470" data-caption='<em>Before the Coffee Gets Cold</em> by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Hanover Square Press</span>’>
In a small cafe in Tokyo, if you sit at a particular table, you can travel back in time to meet anyone you wish. The catch? You must return before your coffee gets cold. Rather than leaning on twisty sci-fi mechanics, this international bestseller focuses on emotional resonance. Simple yet cathartic, it follows four visitors as they step briefly into their pasts.
Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589519" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Thrust-by-Lidia-Yuknavitch-best-time-travel-books.jpg?quality=80&w=961" alt="" width="961" height="1500" data-caption='<em>Thrust</em> by Lidia Yuknavitch. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy Riverhead Books</span>’>
Fleeing a raid in 2079 New York City, Laisve discovers she can use small, meaningful objects to travel through time. Over the course of the novel, she connects with the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty, the iron workers who built it, a whale named Bal and others. Together, their stories form a meditation on climate change, exploitation and the futures we may yet face.
Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1589520" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/Here-and-Now-and-Then-by-Mike-Chen-best-time-travel-novels.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="1455" data-caption='<em>Here and Now and Then</em> by Mike Chen. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy MIRA</span>’>
Kin, a secret agent from the future, becomes stranded in the 1990s. Eighteen years later, he has built a new life and raised his daughter Miranda, only for a rescue team to arrive and attempt to return him to 2142—erasing her in the process. Torn between timelines, Kin refuses to let his daughter disappear, even if it means breaking every rule of time travel.
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