A Taste of Somewhere Else

A October 2026 Reading Is a Lifestyle Subscription Book Pick

James Beard Award–winning author Michael Ruhlman delivers a father-son road-trip story about grief, second chances, and discovering that home might not be a place you left behind—but a person you’re just getting to know, one meal at a time.

Junior year was supposed to be Miles’s escape plan—survive one year in Cleveland with Jake, the dad he barely knows, then get back to his real life in New York.

But that was before he got suspended. Before his mom died and left a hole nothing can fill. Before Jake’s art house theater started facing closure—and before Jake dragged him on a half-baked quest across Spain to track down a film director who may or may not want to be found.

Between wrong turns and cryptic clues through Madrid, Toledo, and Seville, they find themselves at wobbly tables in tapas bars, sharing plates of jamon and squid, talking in ways they never have before. Something unexpected happens over bocadillos and café con leche: Miles stops seeing Jake as the dad who left, and starts seeing him as the person who stayed.

Story Locale: Cleveland to Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz, Gibraltar, and more)