It’s always a funny combination of stress and excitement as I choose which books to take along on a trip. We’ll be in the Midwest for most of next month, and will be moving around quite a bit (Minnesota to Chicago to southern Illinois to St. Louis) so I want to bring enough interesting reading to stay occupied on planes and trains, but not so much that I regret having to lug it all around. I’m sure I’ll also buy a few books on the road. So, without further ado, here are my choices:
- Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Frans got this for me back in 2006, right when we started dating, and occasionally we’ve read passages from it together. We started reading it again last night, and both agreed it should come on the trip.
- Patrick O’Brian: The Mauritius Command and Desolation Island (#4 and #5 in his Aubrey and Maturin series). My dad and I are both making our way through this series – he’s a few books ahead of me but I’m hoping to catch up this summer. Of course, if I catch up there will be squabbles over who gets a book first – right now he has most of the series with him in Seattle, where he scoured used book stores to collect them.
- Roberto Bolano’s 2666 (first volume). This has Parts 1-3. I’ve read 1, and was supposed to read 2 in June, and would like to write a little about each of them during the trip for the Read-Along.
- Jerzy Pilch’s The Mighty Angel. Not much to say about this one, just that I’ve been wanting to read it, and the small size makes it ideal for sticking in a carry-on.
