Reading books in strange places
I am, of course, a book-fiend, and it was a running gag on our four-woman trip of a small part of the world that I'd read everything I could get my hands on while the others were still trying to slog through Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. It helps that I can read on any transport anywhere because I don't get sick (travel sickness is The Evil - I've seen some very ill people on my travels).
I think the weirdest place I've got a book out is probably stuck halfway up a mountain in a blackout in India - the candles didn't shed much light but I laughed in the faces of anyone who didn't have a headtorch for reading purposes (it turns out that I was the only one who'd actually brought a headtorch, and was mocked accordingly). I've carried books around some of the world's great monuments - the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, Sydney Harbour - just in case they didn't live up to expectations - and I've relied on books to give me some personal space while travelling with girls I know inside out, and love them for it (but sometimes I know things about them that I just don't need to know).
I've read some truly smashing books while I've been away, and since we all brought a small selection and then bought some extras, I've been lucky enough to be introduced to new authors and genres that I may not have considered previously. I'm still mourning Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex, which I started reading while staying with a friend of a friend in Sydney - I had to abandon it because it was huge and because, y'know, it didn't belong to me (I remember attempting to acquire a book from a holiday place when I was very young - my parents were not very impressed with my early klepto-bibliophile tendencies).
So that I can remember them all, because they are part of some very special memories for me:
E.M. Forster A Passage to India
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Ray
Helen Oyeyami The Icarus Girl
David Mitchell number9dream
Audrey Niffeneger The Time Traveller's Wife
Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
Haruki Murakami Norweigian Wood
Dan Brown Angels and Demons (I was desperate)
Marion Keynes Watermelon (ditto, only worse)
David Mitchell Black Swan Green
Ali Smith The Accidentals
Bill Bryson Notes from a Small Island
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day
Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin
Jane Austen Persuasion
I think that's it. Most of them were brilliant, moving books, so I did well out of our selections. The latter half of the list was bought in bookshops around SE Asia, so I'll always treasure my copies. I think the best book on the whole list was probably Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, if only because it was so startling, and unsettling. Actual genius.
xxx
I think the weirdest place I've got a book out is probably stuck halfway up a mountain in a blackout in India - the candles didn't shed much light but I laughed in the faces of anyone who didn't have a headtorch for reading purposes (it turns out that I was the only one who'd actually brought a headtorch, and was mocked accordingly). I've carried books around some of the world's great monuments - the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, Sydney Harbour - just in case they didn't live up to expectations - and I've relied on books to give me some personal space while travelling with girls I know inside out, and love them for it (but sometimes I know things about them that I just don't need to know).
I've read some truly smashing books while I've been away, and since we all brought a small selection and then bought some extras, I've been lucky enough to be introduced to new authors and genres that I may not have considered previously. I'm still mourning Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex, which I started reading while staying with a friend of a friend in Sydney - I had to abandon it because it was huge and because, y'know, it didn't belong to me (I remember attempting to acquire a book from a holiday place when I was very young - my parents were not very impressed with my early klepto-bibliophile tendencies).
So that I can remember them all, because they are part of some very special memories for me:
E.M. Forster A Passage to India
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Ray
Helen Oyeyami The Icarus Girl
David Mitchell number9dream
Audrey Niffeneger The Time Traveller's Wife
Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
Haruki Murakami Norweigian Wood
Dan Brown Angels and Demons (I was desperate)
Marion Keynes Watermelon (ditto, only worse)
David Mitchell Black Swan Green
Ali Smith The Accidentals
Bill Bryson Notes from a Small Island
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day
Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin
Jane Austen Persuasion
I think that's it. Most of them were brilliant, moving books, so I did well out of our selections. The latter half of the list was bought in bookshops around SE Asia, so I'll always treasure my copies. I think the best book on the whole list was probably Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, if only because it was so startling, and unsettling. Actual genius.
xxx