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Summer is the time for most people to take a break, go on holiday and 'catch
up on some reading'. Bibloi.com editor Boyd van Hoeij gives you some tips
for some long and leisurely reads this summer.
What is worse than filling your suitcase with books, at least half of which will
return home with you unread? With the 15 or 20 kilo-limit for air-luggage you
simply do not want to be carrying too much unnecessary weight around, do
you? After all, you want to reserve some kilos for all the souvenirs you will
buy for yourself, your family, friends and colleagues.
Let me tell you about my personal holiday-reading tactics. My first rule for
picking holiday-reading is the length of books. I never take novellas with me,
unless they are part of a larger collection in one band. I love taking big fat
books with me, as the prospect of having at least a week's time of
undisturbed reading makes a book appear less fat immediately. In the hustle
and bustle of my ordinary daily routine, a book that represents a good five
centimeters of bookshelf might be a little daunting to get into, as it gets me
thinking: "Who knows when I will finish this?". Thus, throughout the year I buy
big books that are neatly waiting for me to decide to take them somewhere
far to be finally read. And also, I want them to be fat because of rule number
two.
I have an unwritten rule that I read the first fifty pages of every novel that I
start. This is my investment 'of good faith' if you like, towards the writer. He of
she has got fifty pages to convince me that it is worthwhile reading the entire
novel. If I am not hooked after fifty pages, I doubt I will be after a hundred.
When picking what books to read on my holidays, I stick to this rule. In fact, I
read the first couple of chapters at home, just to see whether this book is
indeed delivering what it promises. I do not want to go on holiday with a
disappointment, do I? Wasting 400 or more precious grams on something
that I am not going to finish. Hence the reason for rule number one; because
if I read books of 120 pages, having read the first fifty at home, there would
be nothing much left to read once on holiday. Thus big fat books are the
solution.
My third rule is one that perhaps I share with very little people: I like to read
something that contrasts with the place I am visiting. Thus I read 'Snow falling
on cedars' whilst puffing away in the heat of Rome in August, plowed through
'The Mayor of Casterbridge' on a Thai beach and marvelled at the
description of a tropical country shedding its colonial past in Lieve Joris'
'Back to Congo' on the train to St Petersburg, Russia, the cold rain tapping
on the window of the compartment. Perhaps you are like me and love the
contrast, or perhaps you would prefer to read Dostoyevski when in St.
Petersburg; I will leave that up to you to decide.
>>continue to page 2 for some summer-reading recommendations
