On the weekend that started off this year’s summer vacation for us, two of my husband’s oldest friends came to stay. They are very dear people, but when they left Monday morning, my husband told me that he was really looking forward to finally getting some time for reading. I understood him perfectly well, as one of the highlights of each holiday and vacation, for us, is getting uninterrupted time for reading.
When you suddenly find yourself with hours to spend on books, it can be quite an adventure of its own to choose one’s reading matter. There
are lots of titles on all of our TBR shelves, and if you go traveling during your vacation (and don’t own an e-reader of sorts yet), the decision of which books to pack can take considerably more thought than what clothes to put into one’s suitcase. During the years, I have taken books of several different catergories on vacations.
Beach reads. These are short, easy books that make you smile and relax – the perfect escapist read. Especially when the last weeks at work have been stressful, beach reads can help me to unwind and get into a proper holiday mood, so they are perfect as a starter into my vacation. Frothy and funny contemporaries and historicals are ideal for this kind of reading – may I recommend Betina Krahn’s Make Me Yours here? – as are older Regency romps, for example by Rachelle Edwards or Barbara Metzger, and shortish chick lit novels.
Fat reads. These are the books you feel you wouldn’t manage to finish if you weren’t on vacation, because the page numbers are just daunting. This is how I read Gone With the Wind so many years ago, as I did several of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond novels. I kept them especially for my vacations, as I knew from page one I wouldn’t wish to put them down again once I’d started, and it’s rare I get that much reading time in one go outside the holidays.
Classics. This group actually overlaps with fat reads, but added to the number of pages there is the aspect of complexity. I sometimes prefer to read classics during vacations because I can immerse myself better in what I read, and I can concentrate better on language and structure. So I read The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal near Corinth, Greece, one summer, and I read Orlando Furioso by Ariosto between Christmas and the New Year. Both books are delightful, but I’m not sure I would have found the patience to finish them had I read them at a busier time.
Books set at my holiday destination. Whenever I can, I take at least one novel with me that is set at where I’m traveling. It’s lovely to compare what I’m actually visiting with the impression an author creates of the same place. So I had Mary Stewart’s My Brother Michael with me at Delphi, and her Madam, Will You Talk? at Nimes, in Provence. Interestingly, I don’t care at all for travel literature in spite of fascinating descriptions and deep insights. I crave stories. Besides Mary Stewart’s romances, the most evocative novels set at holiday destinations are Dorothy Dunnett’s Johnson Johnson mysteries (Ibiza, the Hebrides, and Croatia, among others), and older historical romances by Jane Aiken Hodge (Portugal and Greece) and Madeleine Brent (China, Hungary, the Caribbean, Venice). You’ll find excellent depection of fascinating places in a number of Agatha Christie’s novels, as well, especially of Iraq, where she spent a lot of time.
Highly recommended books. These are books that are standing on my top TBR shelf, trying to catch my attention whenever I pass, books that are DIKs here at AAR and/or have been highly recommended by friends and fellow readers, and that just demand to be read – once I find the time. Right now, as I look up from my desk, I find myself eyed imperiously by Julie Anne Long’s Since the Surrender, Jennifer Ashley’s The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James and Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran, just to name a few of this year’s offerings. Mostly I give books I am scheduled to review top priority, so these are treasures that find themselves put aside. Finally picking them up is something I really enjoy during my holidays.
Rereads. With all that free time at my disposal, I often find myself turning to beloved companions of old, books that I have read before – sometimes more than once -, picking them up to leaf through and savour some favorite scenes, or even rereading them from the first page to the last. This year my first summer vacation book was Georgette Heyer’s Frederica, and for my coming trip to Munich, I have already placed Roberta Gellis’s Alinor next to my suitcase.
What kinds of books do you like to take on your vacations? Do you mix the categories listed above, as I do, or do you have strong preferences? Are there books set at interesting destinations that you’d highly recommend? And can anyone tell me of a good romance or mystery set at Copenhagen, my next holiday destination?
-Rike Horstmann
I enjoy spending as much time as I can between the covers of a book, traveling through time and around the world. When I'm not having adventures with fictional characters, I'm an attorney in Virginia and I love just hanging out with my husband, little man, and the cat who rules our house.
Since I’m going on vacation in another week, this topic is very relevant to me. I have to think long and hard about what books to take. I’m heading to England and Denmark, and I’ve been saving the 5th book in Dunnett’s Lymond series for that long plane ride. I need a concentrated period of time to read these books. It takes me longer to read her books than other books so it’s also good from that perspective. I don’t have to carry so many with me. Of course I might indulge myself by buying a few books in England. I also have my next book club read that I have to get through by the time I come back. That is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
I do find that I don’t often have a lot of time to read when I take an actual vacation – in contrast to visiting family.
I lean toward the “”fat reads””. I recently read the first Lymond book during a vacation, and while it wasn’t fat, it was dense.
OMG. Alinor is one of my all-time favorite, favorite books! I just loooove Ian deVipont. Isn’t he so wonderfully amazing?
That’s one of my favorite annual re-reads too…and now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I’ll have to get it out and read it again!!
I’ve read The Copenhagen Connection (as I’ve read all of Eliz Peters/Barbara Michaels books–there are two that are annual rereads for me) and although it’s not one of my favorites, it’s still vintage Peters! Enjoy!!
When I travel to Europe, I try to read as many romances as possible before I go set in the city/cities I’m going to visit. I also like to save one or two for while I’m there….it’s a long plane ride so I plenty of time to read. I also usually squeeze in some time in the evening before bed to read on those trips, so reading a romance or mystery set in the city really usually works.
For beach vacations — which I don’t get enough of — I read pure escape. For one of my last beach vacations, I brought a bunch of old Amanda Quick books. Don’t know why, but they really worked for that setting.
The Copenhagen Connection by Elizabeth Peters? I don’t remember reading it so can only recommend it based on the title. :)
I haven’t gone on a vacation in years but I do love to plan some reads for the summer, like catching up on some series! I start too many and enjoy too many of them. One of my goals was to read P&P and I did! It was so worth it. I had read in HS but never got the chance to have an ‘enjoyment’ read of it especially since that time I read so much historical romances that I’m much more familiar with the terms. Still a month to go of this summer and I’ve yet to read OUTLANDER as one of those I wanted to read this summer. That would be under the ‘Fat Reads’ because I’ve read fat reads before but I seeing all these as these big reads and thinking I’ll get so pulled into them everything else will get behind! LOL. I’m working on the Georgette Heyers and that has been wonderful! I hope to get more of those trade paperback releases of them (so much easier to read that way). Those are the comfort reads of this summer!
This is always an interesting topic to me because my thoughts are way over on the other side of this. I don’t have time to read when I’m on vacation. I’m busy enough with the sites and the stuff going on that little time is left for reading. I’ll always take a few “”short”” books that read quickly for that occasional rainy day when you’re inside more than out. Otherwise, I usually never even pick up a book while away.
I guess if our vacation was at a cabin or cottage, that could be a different story; but that’s not how our vacations are spent these days. Years ago, as a family, we camped. If we did that now, there probably would be a lot of time for reading without having to tend to the kids.
When you wrote that choosing which books to read is harder than choosing which clothes, I laughed because that is so me!
When I choose books for vacation, I tend to pick shorter books that I’ve been really looking forward to. I usually stay away from the fat books, just because it’ll take me so long to read one, and I know I’ll want to switch it up. If I were going on vacation tomorrow, I’d probably pack a gazillion Blazes (my series book of choice), and a few single titles that I’ve been eagerly awaiting.