I was very sensible this year, and took only 5 books along on vacation. To my horror, I read only one. I can't remember the last time I read only one book in that long a time! It's the knitting, I tell you -- it's ruining me as a reader.
What, you ask breathlessly, was the lucky book? It's a book I'd read before but didn't remember completely: The Year of Pleasures, by Elizabeth Berg. (Sounds like it should be soft porn, but it's nothing of the sort.) I like her work a lot; this one is not the book I remembered and thought I had with me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
What did I intend to read? Well, War and Peace, and Nicholas Nickleby, of course! Because those are always on my list, even though I let them stay home this year. And To Kill a Mockingbird, which I last read over 40 years ago. That stayed home, too, by mistake. I treated myself to Ann Patchett's new book, State of Wonder, after Maureen Corrigan waxed rhapsodic over it on NPR, and even that never got out of the crate. I plan to start that one tonight.
Everybody else? What are you reading (or planning to read) in the vacation frame of mind? It doesn't have to be "respectable."
