Traveling with Books

Where are my people who feel compelled to bring a library with them?

Starting Monday, Mrs. Biblioracle and I are going on a 12-day trip to Norway. It will be our first extended vacation in eighteen months and to say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement.

We will be doing some hiking, some biking, some kayaking, some cultural stuff, and of course that’s a big part of what I’m excited about, but also - and perhaps readers of this newsletter can especially appreciate this - one of the things I’m most looking forward to is reading.

Both the trip to and from Bergen involve a full day of plane travel and we also have a nice three hour train ride as part of the itinerary. Planes and trains are my absolute favorite places to read in the world, free of distraction, absolved of responsibility for how ever many hours you’re being transported. I feel sorry for the people who feel compelled to purchase the Wi-Fi on a flight. I don’t even watch the movies.

I read.

Such a long trip requires careful consideration of which books and how many books I bring. I need to make sure that all my reading needs are covered and because of space constraints I can’t afford to bring a dud.

Some of you are screaming: Just bring a Kindle and be done with it for the love of all that’s holy! There was a time where I would have eagerly wished to have become this person, and I did my best, but it didn’t take. I was one of the first, and apparently few purchasers of the Kindle DX, which was discontinued as a model not long after its introduction because it was bigger and heavier than a physical book.

I transitioned to a Kindle Paperwhite, but truth is, I just don’t like reading books on a little screen. Yes, it’s a hassle to carry a bunch of books with you over a long trip, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Which is why I’ve developed a tried-and-true approach to bringing physical books on a long trip that I’m going to share with you good people.

1. Pack enough books for the trip.

I know this advice is obvious, but easier said than done, which is why you need to do some pre-trip calculating. On a trip this length with full days of travel on either end, I know that’s at least two average-length books right there, with backups for each leg in case of delay or getting through a book faster than anticipated. We have a busy agenda of activities, so odds are I won’t be doing a ton of reading during the day, but we may also have some rainout days where I’ll need to be covered. I need a minimum of five, six to be safe.

2. Pack some books in the checked luggage.

More obvious advice, but I’ve been surprised about how many people think books should be carried in a backpack or book bag because, well…they’re books. You can only read one book at a time. It’s not strange to pack the books you’re going to read in a week’s time with the socks, shirts, and pants. No stranger than bringing six books on vacation with you, anyway.

3. Start the trip with a book you can’t wait to read.

I’ve been purposefully waiting to dig in to Colson Whitehead’s Crook Manifesto so I could save it for the long day of travel on the front end of the trip. I’m a Whitehead fan in general, but I’m particularly fond of his genre work, like the prequel to Crook Manifesto, Harlem Shuffle, and his zombie novel, Zone One.

This will be one of the books in my backpack at the start. At 336 pages, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll get through the whole thing, particularly if I can’t sleep on the plane, so I’ll need a backup.

4. Have some shorter books as backups and/or one-day reads.

For this, I’m turning to my friends at Two Dollar Radio who reliably publish surprising and unique books, at least one of which becomes one of my favorites of the year. Also, one of these books can go in a hiking day pack without adding much additional weight, no problem.

I’ll probably bring the top two books here, At the Edge of the Woods, which is already out and been getting a lot of buzz, and Other Minds and Other Stories, which won’t be released until November, but on the front cover is described as “…kind of like if Alfred Hitchcock and Brian Evenson raised a baby with David Foster Wallace and Nicholson Baker.” Seems like the kind of book where I should see what’s doing. Also, having a book of stories you can dip in and out of with you on a trip is a good thing.

5. Bring one book where you don’t know what to expect.

For this trip, that book is:

David James Duncan is the author of two previously published, cultishly popular novels, The River Why and The Brothers K, neither of which I’ve read, even though I’ve been long aware of them. These are the kinds of books that when you ask some people what their favorite book is, they give them as the answer. When Sun House came to me as an advanced copy, I figured it was a good time to introduce myself to Duncan’s work. I haven’t read the material the publisher sends with advance copies. I have not a clue what the book is about, but it’s coming with me. It’s also quite long, so by itself, counts for two books.

6. Identify opportunities to buy more books.

We have a couple of days in Bergen on both the front and back end of the trip and I’ve already mapped out several bookstores within walking distance of where we’re staying. The stores are guaranteed to have a good selection of English language books because 90-plus percent of Norwegians are also fluent in English, and the books in Norway probably have cool cover art that isn’t available in the States, so yeah, I’ll be buying books.

Don’t judge, especially you, Mrs. Biblioracle.

7. Be prepared to leave some books behind.

If you’re going to buy books while traveling you’re going to have to leave some books you brought behind once you’re done. Lots of hotels have free book exchange spots. Or just leave the book on a nightstand in a room, or by the TV in an AirBnB. Sometimes I’ll write a summary or endorsement of the book and include my email address in case someone reads it. Has anyone ever emailed me? No. But hope springs eternal.

8. Finish the trip with one book you can’t wait to read.

While the opportunity to travel is an enormous privilege, the end of this kind of trip always comes coupled with a certain melancholy over its ending. Having a book you’re really looking forward to reading is a nice thing to stave off the back-to-life blues. For this trip, that book is:

Percival Everett’s retelling of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective is going to be one of the biggest books of next year, and one that I truly can’t wait to read, but I have been sitting on this preview copy for weeks just for this occasion.

I’m sure the whole trip will be great, particularly knowing that I have my reading needs locked.

Here’s where I ask how many others of you out there are freaks like me and wind up bringing your own library with you when you travel? Please tell me I’m not alone.

Links

My Chicago Tribune column this week is my best guess as to the chances at success of TikTok parent company, ByteDance getting into the publishing business.

In other self-promotional news, at Inside Higher Ed, I published a blueprint for who to assign and assess college-level writing in the GPT-era based on a post Slow Boring by a Harvard student who fed a bunch of Harvard assignments into the AI and had the actual instructors grade them. The AI did pretty well, but that’s mostly because we’re valuing the wrong things.

These are the books from the first half of the year that the New York Times believes you should be aware of. This is Tor.com’s list of SFF books you should be aware of for the second half of the year.

I agree with Elizabeth Minkel, writing at Wired: Generative AI will not disrupt books because the people who read books want something generative AI can’t offer. That said, generative AI may result in some new niche forms for storytelling, which is all to the good.

Via McSweeney’s, “‘Barbie Girl’ by Ernest Hemingway” by Kevin Lutz.

This is Barack Obama’s summer reading list:

And at The Biblioracle Recommends this past Wednesday, Derek Krissoff introduced us to indie publisher, Blair.

Recommendations

All books linked throughout the newsletter go to The Biblioracle Recommends bookstore at Bookshop.org. Affiliate proceeds, plus a personal matching donation of my own, go to Chicago’s Open Books and the Teacher Salary Project, which is advocating to establish a federal minimum salary for teachers of $60,000 per year. Affiliate income is $147.70 for the year.

1. The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
2. Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
3. Severance by Ling Ma
4. Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
5. Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance by John Waters

Eric N. - Des Moines, IA

This is a good list to recommend a book I really like, but few remember, even though it got some notice at the time, Being Dead by Jim Crace.

Allrighty, gang. Not sure if I’ll be posting from the road, though I often can’t stop myself when I feel like I have something to say. Derek Krissoff will keep everyone stocked with interesting and worthwhile material every Wednesday.

See ya when I see ya,

John
The Biblioracle