You get to go on a trip of a lifetime. What books do you pack?
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| I know this is just one - the wee sonnets are holding it open |
I've been in training to answer this question my whole life. When I was very small, younger than five, I packed to run away from home and go to live round the corner with my Godmother. She never made me go to school. (We visited on Sundays.) She never made me have a bath. (We visited in the daytime.) She never cooked liver. (She couldn't cook so we filled up on Cadbury's chocolate mini-rolls.) Anyway. What I loaded into my little bag was my slippers . . . and the rest was all books.
I never went through with this plan, by the way. My mum pointed out that if I left it was for keeps and I reconsidered.
But, since then, every trip has had a lot of book planning associated with it. And besides that I've been listening to Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 every Sunday for about half the time it's been broadcast. (It started in 1942.)
You get eight tracks to take to the desert island where you're washed up and they give you the Bible (or Quran or Torah . . .) and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Then you get to choose one more book. I'd choose another Complete Works of Shakespeare, in a little-studied foreign tongue. Then, using both, I'd try to write a grammar for the obscure language. By the time I was rescued, I'd be the world expert.
For trips rather than shipwrecks, I've got a different formula. Every beach trip and every Christmas I curate a pile of reading that always goes pretty much the same way:
1. Stephen King
It's not easy but even though I buy the new Stephen King on publication day, I always keep it for the next seasonal shut-down or summer break or coast-to-coast road trip. I love him. I love that they're all so long. I love how he doesn't ahem go to town on the endings. I love every tic and quirk and unspeakable psychological deficit he rains down on his characters.
2. Poetry
One slim volume of poetry (cannot stand collected works (and as for themed anthologies?)) is perfect for a trip. I can reread the twenty or however many poems, until they are forever associated with the place I'm staying, so that picking the book up years later will take me back there.
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| All the fat ones were presents |
3. Some food-related non-fiction
Or as we call it in my house "Kitchen FRM". This stems from moving to the country in 1996 and no longer being able to have a daily newspaper delivered, in a time before the internet was worth much. One day, Neil tossed a novel onto the brekafast table and said, "Stories are the stuff of livingrooms and bedrooms.You need factual reading matter, for the kitchen." I've been seeking out not-quite-cookbooks ever since. Not quite = there might be some recipes but there's a lot of life and food philosopy in there too. I rarely use recipes when I cook but I adore reading about food. It's even better on a trip when all you have to do is choose from a menu every day and someone brings delciousness to you.
two of the best
4. a childhood favourite
Just in case of woe, I always like to have an old friend with me. Who wants to be reading the latest NYT bestseller when you're in hospital, or you've been kidnapped, or it's hour eleven of a flight delay, or . . . None of these things had ever happened but if they did, I'd be all set. Enid Blyton's The Treasure Seekers, Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, Josephine Pullein-Thompson's Prince Among Ponies, or Jean Estoril's Drina series. Sometimes nothing else will do. And it's nice for them to get out and see a bit of the world, you know?
My friend Catherine grew up and ditched these.
I swooped in.
5. a wildcard
Undercutting my whole argument so far is the fact that I always take an unknown and untried newbie along, and more often than not I fall in love with them. If I don't, I donate them and free up space in my suitcase for one of the books I'm inevitably going to buy while travelling.When I took N.K. Jemison's The City We Became, I didn't have high hopes. I don't really read science fiction, as a rule. What happened? I devoured it and bought the sequel. Now, she's one of my go-tos.
Although I read that love letter to NYC (and Jersey) while on the other coast, I don't particularly try to read books set wherever I'm headed. And I definitely don't do that other thing people seem to - use the summer or whatever to "finally get to grips with" something I've been planning to pretending to read for a while. My days of aspirationl book-buying are over, thank God. I won't be found on a beach with Finnegans Wake or The Life of Lord Nelson lying facedown beside me on the sand while I watch kitten videos on my phone.
Vive les Philistines!
Cx
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