Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a Genre freebie, with the prompt: Pick any genre you’d like and build a list around it. You can even narrow the topic if you’d like, such as: thrillers with unreliable narrators, fantasy romance with fae characters, or historical romance with suspense elements.
I considered and discarded a bunch of options before settling on time travel as my theme for the week. I’m sure I must have covered this topic before — many times!! — but it’s just such a good one, and there are always more books to add.
Here are some favorite, beloved time travel books*… plus a smaller handful that I read but didn’t love, although in most cases, there were at least a few elements to appreciate.
*Technically, these aren’t all exactly time travel. Some just have time-related weirdness (such as extraordinarily long lives) that make me include them in this category!
LOVED:
Best of the best:
- Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (of course!)
- The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
- A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong
- A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
- A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers
- Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald
- Time Was by Ian McDonald
- Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan
- The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer
- The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway
- 11/22/63 by Stephen King
- Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson**
- The Hundred Loves of Juliet by Evelyn Skye
**Which I read because of my undying love for the gorgeous movie version! Which I really must watch again one of these days…
LIKED (or merely tolerated):
All of these have at least something interesting about them, but for various reasons, simply did not work exceptionally well for me.
- The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi
- The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
- The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Do you have any favorite time travel books?
What genre did you focus on this week? If you wrote a TTT list, please share your link!
Bookshelf Fantasies 
I know a few different people who loved Outlander.
It’s definitely popular, especially since it became a TV series!
I love time travel stories. Outlander is definitely on the top of the list and I loved Somewhere in Time too. Another one I enjoyed was The Time Traveller’s Wife (the book was so much better than the movie).
Oh yes, how could I forget about The Time Traveler’s Wife?? I loved the book, didn’t like the movie either, and the short-lived TV series version wasn’t very good either.
It’s not a story easily adapted to the screen I think.
I like the concept of time travel in books, but it can be difficult to get it right. The Chronicles of St Mary’s Series by Jodi Taylor is quite fun, I think.
I agree, it can be very hard to do time travel well! The Jodi Taylor series has been recommended to me over the years, and I do need to give it a try. Thanks!
Great list, Lisa. I still haven’t read Outlander or 11/22/63. Thanks for the reminder of them.
https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2025/08/top-ten-tuesday-top-ten-things.html
Very different books!! But both excellent in their own ways.
thanks for the recs if I ever veer out of my realistic fiction lane!
Haha, always good to venture into new territory once in a while!
I also didn’t love Ministry of Time and One Last Stop. Outlander and 11/22//63 are both great, and I really want to read the one by Andrew Sean Greer. I’d add to your list Kindred and the Oxford Time Travel books by Connie Willis.
Kindred, yes, 100%! Can’t believe I forgot to include it — I loved that book. I have copies of the Connie Willis book and still need to read them. Thanks for the reminder!
Ooh fun list! I adored Somewhere in Time (book and movie) and A Witch in Time!
I really do need to see that movie again!
Agreed about One Last Stop and The Ministry of Time – I didn’t quite vibe with those one either!
I will also sat that Shadow of Night was my least favourite of the All Souls trilogy!
I enjoyed Shadow of Night, but definitely struggled with it at first — felt like such a departure from the previous book!
I love a good time travel plot! I loved Outlander, and my current time travel favorite is the The Chronicles Of St. Mary’s series.
I keep hearing about the Chronicles of St. Mary’s books! I usually pick a couple of new-to-me series to try each year — maybe I’ll make that one a priority for 2026!
I’m so hit or miss on time travel books. I’ve enjoyed some and really disliked others.
For them to work for me, there have to be rules that make at least a bit of sense… and not all succeed.
Huge fan of the before the coffee gets cold series! And something about the witch in time title has me intrigued!
Ok just reread your review!! Definitely *need* to check that out pronto!
I hope you do! And I’m glad to hear you’re a fan of the Before the Coffee… series. I haven’t gotten around to picking up the 2nd book yet, but I do plan to (eventually)