Janine and I are literary kindred spirits--every time she talks about the books that she's read and enjoyed recently, the list is either chock-full of books I've also adored or I'm sent scurrying to Amazon to research and add new titles to my "to read" list. That said, I'm so glad she chose to write on this topic as reading and traveling always go hand in hand in my journeys.
While Angela is away on her amazing European adventure, I’m thrilled to be doing a guest spot. Let me introduce myself first: I’m Janine and I blog over at Garden State Prep. I can talk about books for hours, so I thought this was a perfect time to connect two of my favorite things: books and traveling.
One of my favorite parts about going on a trip is the anticipation and preparation involved before you even get in the car or on the train. It’s the giddy thrill of picking out a book (or two) to accompany you through airport security, get tossed in your bag when you arrive at your destination and maybe pulled out in the quiet hours of the morning when you’re drinking your first coffee and waiting for the rest of the world to wake up. I’m very particular about my vacation reading: for me traveling represents at least a few hours of uninterrupted quiet reading time. Usually I take a new to me book – it doesn’t have to be brand new from the store but it usually is something I haven’t read yet.
I have two criteria for a vacation book: it needs to be long enough to get me through at least one leg of the trip, and it needs to have an interesting premise. Several years ago I took a business trip to Vancouver from the East Coast and knew that I would have many hours of downtime in airports due to the way the flights were booked, so I took the largest book I could find (The Chronicles of Narnia). It was one of the best reading decisions because I ended up spending over eight hours stuck in Chicago due to inclement weather. By the time I came home, I had read five of the books.
On some trips I make bad reading decisions and a book that I thought would be great turns out to be so-so or plain awful. Those are the times when I need to go exploring and find a bookstore. One of my favorite book buying trips was in Rome when I realized the night before going home that I had fifty pages left in my novel and a six hour flight ahead of me. So armed with my pocket Italian dictionary and one of my friends, I set off in search of an English book in one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. We traveled several blocks, across a bridge and had turned down a non-descript Italian street when my friend grabbed my arm. In the window beside her was a pile of books, all with English titles.
We entered the bookshop and it was like stepping into my dream bookstore. There were piles of books stacked haphazardly on tables, shelves that stretched to the ceiling, wooden ladders waiting to transport you from the floor to the book of your choice. The owner was a lovely older gentleman who forgave my elementary French and even more pitiful Italian, and conversed with us in English. He asked me a few questions about the types of books I enjoyed and what I was looking for. I don’t remember what titles I told him about, but a few minutes later he returned with three books in his hands. One was Three Junes by Julia Glass, the other was Scandal: A Scurrilous History of Gossip. Unfortunately I don’t remember what the third was, but I bought the other two titles. I started reading Three Junes on the flight home and despite being exhausted, kept reading for most of the flights.
It’s been seven years and I still have the bookmark that I got in Rome from the bookstore. It’s a simple piece of cream cardboard with maroon type but it reminds me of the magic of finding a book when you’re away from home. Each time I re-read the book I’m reminded of that evening trip through neighborhoods and unfamiliar streets, I remember crossing the bridge in the shadowy evening, laughing with my friend about what a ridiculous errand we were on, and standing inside a bookstore that was more wonderful than any big box store back home could be.
Recently I came across this quote in Inkheart by Cornelia Funke: "If you take a book with you on a journey...an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it...yes, books are like flypaper--memories cling to the printed page better than anything else." What a marvelous and wonderful thought!
I love love LOVE this post! and I feel the very same way about how books bring back memories of what you were doing when you last read it. Reminds me of a quote I heard today from Jorge Luis Borges, whom Google is honoring today:
"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
Sounds like paradise to me!
Posted by: Jenna | August 24, 2011 at 04:48 PM
Thoroughly enjoyed this post, Janine--what a cool memory and souvenir of Rome! I had a similar desperate (but less romantic, in a Target) book-seeking experience in Los Angeles about this time last year.
Posted by: Kate P | August 25, 2011 at 04:42 AM