As I've mentioned before in this space, when I travel, a portion of my luggage is devoted to the books I hope to read. My neighbor is a voracious reader, and she and her husband take off for weeks at a time on road trips. As they drive, she reads books that pertain to that place, getting the history and culture of the destination. Makes sense, right?
Clearly I am not a logical person. I can never seem to match up my reading with the place I'll be. In Vienna years ago, we visited places where Mozart and Freud had been. But one of my strongest memories is sitting in the laundromat, deeply absorbed in John Grisham's The Pelican Brief. In New York City, I was lost in Memoirs of a Geisha. A post-college backpacking trip of Western Europe found me with Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, two quintessential American novels. And during our year in Nigeria, I did manage to read a Nigerian novel (Things Fall Apart), but more memorable were The Thorn Birds and a string of Anne Tyler novels.
This summer, I'll be spending a week in Santa Fe, NM, and I am finally going to break this pattern. I pledge to finish Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather, and I want to try a Tony Hillerman mystery. What else should I be reading for Santa Fe? If you know, tell me.
While you consider that question, I'll be thinking about other appropriate book and travel combinations. Today, I'll start close to home with some of my favorite books set in or around Chicago:
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
So Big by Edna Ferber
The Blood of the Lamb by Peter De Vries
By the looks of most of this list, I have a thing for old-timey Chicago. Leave a comment if you know other books that should be added to this list.
On another topic, if you've been waiting with bated breath to learn what the East Grand Rapids library gives out to the grand prize winner of the book club drawing, wait no longer. Brian and I will soon be enjoying $50 with of date night at a local Gilmore restaurant. Whoo hoo!
Think it'd be okay if I took a book along?
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