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Taking books on vacation: 06/20/15
Summer's here in the northern hemisphere and so much of the book talk now is about "beach reads" and how many books to pack for vacation. Since I'm going on a week long vacation to England and Wales, which involves an 11 hour flight each way, I though books on vacation was a perfect topic. This trip will be my second longest flight — the longest one being the flights to Tasmania, Australia which taken all together comes out to almost an entire day of travel. In that trip, I was flying by myself (well, with a group but I had to be responsible for carrying my own stuff) and that meant being able to handle enough clothing for both going to school and later, hiking. This trip was before the advent of the internet, smart phones, and ebooks. I ended up taking a blank note book and one book to read on the flight, the idea being that I would purchase a new book in Tasmania (I did; Nova by Samuel R. Delany). For this trip, I'm taking along my digital camera, lenses, and my MacBook (not to blog, but to back up my photographs). I'll also have my smart phone to contact my friend in Wales. This time, I'm traveling with family which means I'll probably be schlepping my kids' stuff too. So as GoodReads asked recently in a poll: how many books will I pack. One in print. Which one, I'm still debating, but the one at the top of my list right now is The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust (Volume 3 of In Search of Lost of Time). Why Proust? Well, it's long and it's complex, meaning it will take hours to read. I'm currently reading it so I won't feel weird about starting a book just for the flight. It might even last me for the flight home (although we're going to Heffers and I do intend to get some Chris Riddell illustrated Neil Gamain books). Why not just ebooks? My daughter has a bunch of apps installed on my phone and I'm sure she's going to want to play them on the plane. There's also the issue of battery life. But ebooks? I might put an ebook or two on there just in case. These I'll just pick based on what tickles my fancy when I check out the library's ebook collection. I doubt I'll be reading many of them. Frankly, I doubt I'll be doing much reading at all as I very rarely read when traveling. I travel with my eyes open or my camera on. I plan to take many photographs. I plan to spend a day gabbing with a pen pal I've known for more than a decade and have never met in person. In all of this, reading is my last priority. Comments (0) |