By Lisabet Sarai
I
am writing this two weeks ahead of time because on the day it posts,
I’ll be far away from my home and my computer. I’ll be traveling
for twelve days, and I won’t be able to access the blog, even to
reply to comments.
So
far in advance, I’m not sure what I’ll be reading, but I know I
will be reading. Indeed, reading is one of the joys of being
on the road. A fourteen hour plane trip provides a lot of
opportunities to lose oneself in a book—not to mention the hours
waiting to board or to make connections. I may be doing an all-day
train ride as well. Meanwhile, since I’ll be in a rural area at
least part of the time, I expect that there will few activities in
the evenings to compete with reading.
What
will I bring with me? Well, my tablet, of course, stuffed with at
least two dozen titles, many of them erotica. Thank heavens for
e-books. They definitely lighten my luggage!
I’ll
also be carrying George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons,
the last (so far) volume in the Game of Thrones series. I’ve been
rationing my consumption of that series, saving it for long journeys.
I read the first half of this volume (five hundred plus pages) on my
last international odyssey. I’ll finish it on this one, then feel
frustrated, I’m sure, because just like real life, these books
never tie up the loose ends.
That
won’t be enough, though. After a while, I get tired of reading on a
screen. I’m sure I’ll want to bring at least a few more print
books, even with our limited luggage allowance (low cost airlines...
argh!) But which ones?
At
the moment, there are all sorts of candidates on my bookshelf. Riven
Rock by T.C. Boyle. Sweet Caress by William Boyd. Books
by Umberto Eco and John Crowley, Thomas Pynchon and Salman Rushdie,
not to mention half a dozen titles from Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie
Plum series and (as a stark contrast) Arundhati Roy’s The
Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Lots of less well known writers,
too—we have access to some excellent used book stores!
One
needs to use special criteria choosing books for travel. They need to
long enough to justify carrying them, but small enough not to take up
too much space. I look for books that will really hook me and pull me
in, to distract me from delays, backaches, hunger, bad smells, and
other inevitabilities of travel. At the same time, for me at least, a
travel book can’t be too intense, complex or intellectual. I’d
rather read those books at home, where I have a wider selection and
can put them down to pick up something else.
Anyway,
I really can’t tell you in any detail what I’ll be reading as you
read this. Very likely,
though, I’ll be enjoying it.
