From the author of the smash-hit Around the World in 80 Trains comes a new globetrotting journey – this time celebrating the peculiar magic and mayhem of the night train.

'Nobody writes trains like Monisha Rajesh' IRVINE WELSH
'Full of the stuff of life' SPECTATOR
'Travel writing heaven' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
'Incredibly inspiring' SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR

The magic of the night train: headlamps ablaze, passengers boarding after sunset and arriving in new cities at dawn.

For Monisha Rajesh, the unique thrill of sleeper trains inspired a new journey around the world. From sipping pisco sours aboard the Andean Explorer to retracing the original route of the Orient Express, Moonlight Express takes us on an unexpected, at times hilarious adventure - and drops us back at the platform before sunrise.

SHORTLISTED FOR TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2026 EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS
WINNER OF THE EASTERN EYE AWARD FOR NON-FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2026 INSPIRE GLOBAL MEDIA AWARDS
A FINANCIAL TIMES READERS BOOK OF THE YEAR

"The night train has cast its romantic spell across continents and cultures – and the pages of Moonlight Express . . . Each night train is a world of its own" - TLS

"With wit and flair, Monisha Rajesh takes readers aboard night trains across Europe, India, South Africa, the USA, Canada and Peru . . . Rajesh is a sharp and perceptive writer with a keen eye for detail and context . . . Packed with evocative details and rich reflections" - Geographical Magazine

"Full of the stuff of life " - Spectator

"Monisha Rajesh is no stranger to the railway’s magic, having written about her journeys around India and circumnavigating the globe by train. Here, she takes night trains in Finland, Scotland, Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria, Peru and the US . . . She can write beautifully, describing a view or recalling a conversation" - Country Life

"Eloquently and amusingly combines the fact and fiction, the cocktail hours and backed-up loos, the charming ticket inspectors and deranged fellow travellers, as she enjoys – and endures – 18 journeys spanning four continents . . . Hugely entertaining" - The Times

"Rajesh’s adventures – involving multiple sleeper trains – are filled with literary wonderment, plot twists and unsavoury revelations . . . Rajesh is never didactic, weaving these revelations into her human encounters . . . Mesmerising prose tantalises readers to not only read one but also experience for themselves the routes that Rajesh has embarked on . . . Written beautifully as a travel journalist’s love letter to trains, her book is also an implicit argument for the kinds of social bonds that are maintained with “less efficient” means of transport. It is a book to savour" - Straits Times

"Recently night trains have made a comeback . . . This revival is at the heart of Monisha Rajesh’s entertaining travelogue in which she describes eighteen journeys made by night train across four continents" - The Week

"Rajesh excels at capturing what night trains offer that day trains and planes can’t: time to breathe, space for unexpected encounters, and a sense of suspension. Her prose turns luminous in these pauses . . . Night trains become a way of thinking about how travel is changing . . . The strongest sections, however, are not about infrastructure but about people: the businessman who books a berth “for the thrill of the night train”, honeymooners disillusioned by flat pillows, and families who prefer a moving bedroom to airport stress . . . Rajesh’s writing reveals how the sleeper train has been reborn: not as a museum piece but as a model of slow, responsible travel, focusing more on the journey than the destination" - Tribune India

"Takes readers across continents, pausing not only at grand landmarks . . . but also at train station bookstalls, quiet rivers that twist under moonlight . . . Her appetite for detail made me hungry, curious and often delighted . . . Her descriptions of the skies are especially poetic . . . Each page is a reminder that the view from a train window is never static . . . The book is also a gallery of people – co-travellers who become companions for a few miles or a few days . . . The writing blends history, culture, and politics with humour and intimacy . . . Reading Moonlight Express was an indulgence I didn’t want to rush . . . more than a travelogue: it is a confession, a celebration, a hymn to the railway and its endless promise. Moonlight Express left me nostalgic, restless and electrified. Closing the book, I realised I was suffering from what she herself calls “disembarkation sickness”, the ache of leaving behind a journey I never wanted to end" - eShe Magazine