On Vacation Reading

Whether it be in a city, by a lake or ocean, or in the mountains, I have a few basic requirements for good vacation trips: beautiful locales, comfortable accommodations (no camping or roughing it for me!), and -- perhaps most critical -- an abundant provision of carefully selected books. There must be more than enough, more than I can possibly read, to ensure against the unthinkable disaster of running out of good reading material. When my parents had a lakeside summer cottage in Michigan for many years, I would spend two or three weeks there every summer. In the weeks before I (or we) left California for Michigan, I would carefully browse bookstores and accumulate a hefty stack of suitable books. Although for my regular reading, I often check out books from libraries, for vacations I prefer my own paperback books that I can read by a lake or pool without worrying about getting them wet, and that I can leave behind for others to read. The selection of vacation books has to be carefully calibrated. I don't generally want anything too "heavy," but I also don't want the proverbial "beach books" that are just too predictable and badly written. But there is a wide middle ground of wonderful novels, short story collections, and memoirs, and this is where I focus my selections. Going to Michigan (or anywhere I needed or need to fly), there was the delicious and slightly anxious decision about how many books to take onboard; I had to calculate how much I would read during the several hours flying out east. And, finally, there was the bliss of unpacking that pile of books at the cottage, stacking them on a dresser or bedside table, and knowing I could relax, enjoy the camaraderie of family, and sit on a deck chair by the gorgeous lake with a book in my hand and the prospect of more to come....what could be better?