Rachael Eyre's Blog - Posts Tagged "holiday-reads"
Holiday Reads
It's been an odd week. The Missus and I have spent a few days in Ibiza, taking a much needed rest. As well as lending colour to the travel scenes of book 3, it's helped us to drill the later acts of A Midsummer Night's Dream (doing it in the style of the B52s really works!) The UK is gripped by World Cup fever; on a sadder note, comedy legend Rik Mayall died on Monday, aged just 56. Eighties sitcom fans are still reeling.
Packing for your holidays prompts the all important question: which book should accompany you on your travels? Thanks to the Kindle, book lovers don't have to break their backs, but it's still a good idea to download a couple in case your first choice doesn't work out. The best seller of the moment versus a taut psychological thriller? Your guilty pleasure versus something more edifying? Best of all, you won't have everybody craning to look at the cover and judging you.
"Beach read" and "airport book" are often used in a derogatory sense, suggesting they're junk to be gobbled and discarded. This is needlessly harsh; who wants to read a twelve volume behemoth on holiday? You want something you can pick up and put down as you make transfers, wait on train platforms or kill time in your hotel room. If you've a boring flight ahead of you, it's the perfect escape.
Books I've read on holiday - The Time Traveller's Wife, the Regeneration trilogy, The Long Firm - become inextricably linked with those times and places. I have fonder recollections of books read in these conditions than duty reads from university. And at least you know you don't have to write a book report on it.
My reads this time were an eclectic bunch: Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans, Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Olivia by Dorothy Strachey. While these may be dismissed as "light" in terms of content and length, they enriched my time on the beach. I'm a noisy reader, regularly snorting and talking back to books, but it seems I sniggered even more than usual.
The ideal holiday read has certain requirements. It doesn't necessarily have to be funny or non serious, but it does need to be accessible, with jumping off and on points. It should be free of padding (depends on your reading speed, but the optimum length is 200 - 300 pages) and distractingly flowery language. While these rules can and should apply to other books too, they're especially pertinent in this case. If this book is to be your only companion for the next few days, you don't want to think you've made a mistake by page 100. Indeed, I sometimes take favourite "comfort" books on holiday, knowing entertainment is a given.
Sometimes a holiday book can surprise you. My creative writing teacher raved to us about John Fowles' The Collector; while I'd guessed it'd be on the grim side, I didn't expect to be completely devastated by it. Cue snotty sobbing on a train in France, all the commuters staring. Whoops!
Packing for your holidays prompts the all important question: which book should accompany you on your travels? Thanks to the Kindle, book lovers don't have to break their backs, but it's still a good idea to download a couple in case your first choice doesn't work out. The best seller of the moment versus a taut psychological thriller? Your guilty pleasure versus something more edifying? Best of all, you won't have everybody craning to look at the cover and judging you.
"Beach read" and "airport book" are often used in a derogatory sense, suggesting they're junk to be gobbled and discarded. This is needlessly harsh; who wants to read a twelve volume behemoth on holiday? You want something you can pick up and put down as you make transfers, wait on train platforms or kill time in your hotel room. If you've a boring flight ahead of you, it's the perfect escape.
Books I've read on holiday - The Time Traveller's Wife, the Regeneration trilogy, The Long Firm - become inextricably linked with those times and places. I have fonder recollections of books read in these conditions than duty reads from university. And at least you know you don't have to write a book report on it.
My reads this time were an eclectic bunch: Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans, Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Olivia by Dorothy Strachey. While these may be dismissed as "light" in terms of content and length, they enriched my time on the beach. I'm a noisy reader, regularly snorting and talking back to books, but it seems I sniggered even more than usual.
The ideal holiday read has certain requirements. It doesn't necessarily have to be funny or non serious, but it does need to be accessible, with jumping off and on points. It should be free of padding (depends on your reading speed, but the optimum length is 200 - 300 pages) and distractingly flowery language. While these rules can and should apply to other books too, they're especially pertinent in this case. If this book is to be your only companion for the next few days, you don't want to think you've made a mistake by page 100. Indeed, I sometimes take favourite "comfort" books on holiday, knowing entertainment is a given.
Sometimes a holiday book can surprise you. My creative writing teacher raved to us about John Fowles' The Collector; while I'd guessed it'd be on the grim side, I didn't expect to be completely devastated by it. Cue snotty sobbing on a train in France, all the commuters staring. Whoops!
