On taste and altitude
Reading one of those articles about why airline food is so crap (at least in economy) and all the usual explanations about the effects of altitude and the internal environment of aircraft as having a significant impact on the taste-buds -
- began to wonder (since taste has been on my mind since posting that moan by E Bowen about Other People's Taste in Reading) whether this is also A Thing for reading (or indeed other media).
I.e. are there groups of people sitting out there working out whether movies will still work a mile up (quite apart from the whole teeny-weeny screen thing, which is so not suited to wide-screen epics) and going 'nah, that'll totally lose all its flavour at that altitude'.
Are there guides for the would-be author of airport novels about the must-have and completely must-not elements of character, plot, and pace?
What, dr rdrz, do you consider good flight reading?
Among the things with which I have successfully whiled away tedious journeys: Middlemarch, Charlotte Yonge, Heartsease, Andrea Hairston, Redwood and Wildfire, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy (actually, I think that sustained the flight out to Budapest, odd free moments during conference, and the return flight) several of JD Robb's In Death sequence, ditto Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake adventures.
Oh gosh yes, and the time I was bopping round Oz and NZ accompanied by Remembrance of Things Past and Pamela Dean's Secret Country trilogy, and the Adelaide jaunt where it was Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond series.
I am not sure that there is any significant generalisation to be made there, except that (with some exceptions: A Suitable Boy and Redwood and Wildfire did work) some degree of familiarity, of the actual work or at least the author. Because I've had some nasty midair experiences involving highly recommended books by authors I hadn't read before.
This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2095236.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
comments.