Holiday Reading

Sadly, I don't have any imminent holidays on the horizon. But a recent article in the travel section of The Sydney Morning Herald got me to thinking about selecting holiday reading. An important activity for every reader.

Last year I took a magnificent trip to Singapore, Dublin, Paris and Luxembourg. Naturally, I fretted about my holiday reading for weeks. Particularly difficult because I was taking actual books, not files on an e-reader- but I'm certainly starting to see the allure.

I was even planning themed reading, which I don't often do. I selected James Joyce's The Dubliners for Dublin, and Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris to take as my major reads. I planned to fill my eyes with visions of the city during the day, and fill my mind with visions of its literature at night. Which is a fabulous plan. It just didn't work.

I was reading Michael Ende's The Never Ending Story when I set out from Australia. I expected to finish it on the plane to Singapore. I didn't. Then I thought I'd finish it during my week in Singapore. I didn't. I didn't even manage to finish it during my week in Dublin. And it was only as the final days of our fortnight in Paris were drawing to a close that I managed to finish it. Why? It wasn't a bad book by any stretch. In fact I quite enjoyed it. But busy schedules and jet lag meant that I didn't actually have that much time for reading.

Progress measured in single pages- I kept falling asleep and dropping the book open

I did read the first story of The Dubliners. And whilst it didn't make all that much sense to me, it was actually readable, which was more than I was expecting from my first brush with Joyce.

Notre Dame de Paris remains unopened, waiting from my next trip to the City of Light.