On Monday my mother and I leave for England and Wales. Â I haven’t given any thought to what I’m wearing yet but I have obsessed over the important stuff – What am I taking to read?
This is the hardest part of planning for me. Â How many paper books and how many on the iPad? Â I am taking a very small suitcase so there isn’t room for extra just in case books but I worry about iPod battery life on long flights with layovers. Â I’m a total mood reader too so I worry that I won’t want what I have when I get to the time I planned on reading it.
Here’s the plan so far.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
This is my paper book. I found it at my neighborhood Little Free Library.
Since the trip was inspired by my grandmother’s Regency romances, I figured I had to have a few of those. I downloaded two from my library. It was hard to choose. I’m not up on the genre to know what is good. Obviously, I picked so well that the titles I chose don’t even show up on Goodreads.
Then I figured I need a good book for our time in London. It took some thinking but I came up with one where London is definitely a character.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There is never a wrong time to reread Neverwhere. I love this book but always felt like I’m probably missing some of the jokes because I don’t know London well. This seemed like a good accompaniment to walking around London.
I want to read both of those! I approve of your choices. 🙂
A.J. Fikry was my favorite book of last year. Love, love, love it.
I have never been on a trip without ample reading material! The biggest trip I’ve gone on was a two week roadtrip to the Grand Canyon when I was in middle school. I obviously wasn’t old enough to drive, so I had SO MUCH time to read on the backseat that year. 🙂 This year I have a short trip to the beach and I’m planning on reading the entire time. I’m going to use that time to reread Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, I think. And I would recommend sticking to ebooks as much as possible, since they take up no room. 🙂
I love that your books are the most important part of your planning! I usually just bring my Kindle on vacations, but I do miss my paper books sometimes!
I haven’t read Neverwhere, but A.J. Fikry was one of my favourite books of 2014. For the last few trips, I’ve usually been in the middle of a read-along or challenge, so I just keep working on my TBR. For instance, I went to Florida for March break and read Persuasion by Jane Austen for a read-along … not exactly a beach read, but it was great all the same. Have a wonderful trip!
I read Neverwhere right after a trip to London and loved all the references! Make sure you bring a paperback for the plane as my nook died in the middle of our flight once and there was no place to plug it in. The horror!
Ooh, I have to read Neverwhere. In fact there are a lot of Neil Gaiman books I haven’t read. Can’t wait to hear about your trip!
To answer your question, I used to have the iPod battery difficulty but then I got a Kobo which has a long battery life. It’s great for traveling. I make sure to bring something to read to my son at bedtime, as well as some current library books for me and my library of free classics so I’m never without a book. This backfired the last time I took a trip because my library check-out expired when I was in the middle of a book and I couldn’t read it any more! That doesn’t happen with physical books. : )
A lot of planes have charging outlets now. I bring books that aren’t going to keep me up to find out what happens like a thriller. I save those for the plane home. I also go for a variety of genres/authors and at least 1 classic that I’ve been meaning to read. Depending on where I’m going I’ll do mostly iPad and maybe 2 paperbacks. I did 14 days in Italy with 2 paperbacks and 3 pre-loaded on my iPad and everywhere we stayed had Wi-Fi if I needed to get more. Can you get ebooks from your library?
Great choices! I read Neverwhere before our trip and felt like I would have got more from it during or after. One quote stayed in my mind in London so I kept searching out the “remarkably unpalatial palaces.”
Have a great time! It sounds marvelous!