Category Archives: vacation

September 12, 2013   Michael   e-books, Michael, vacation  
5

71% of people make an odd decision

I think I’m a bit of an anomaly in the book world, and I don’t even mean publishing, but the larger group of people known as “readers.” I was surprised to read that 71% of travelers at Heathrow said they’d prefer to bring a physical book on vacation. Which leads me to confess: I almost never buy print books. That isn’t to say my apartment isn’t overflowing with them. In fact, I have more than I know what to do with, but this may stem from my compulsive need to have each of my authors’ books in my home. And then there are my favorite books, which take up another bookshelf. And I do have a bit of an addiction to coffee table books; if I see a museum show and like it, I must have the accompanying book (which I do look at, despite what my partner thinks). But for novels and general nonfiction, I turn to my tablet, where I buy books from all the major retailers. I prefer the convenience of reduced weight and the fact that I can carry several titles with me at all times. I guess I’m more tied to reading than I am to books.

But, I don’t want this to turn into an argument about the merits of physical books over e-books or vice-versa. I think they both have their place, and people each have their preferences. If nothing else, it shows that both can co-exist somewhat peacefully. In fact, I must admit: I’m curious how many of the 71% actually read e-books in non-vacation settings. How many of you out there are hybrid readers? Are physical books saved for special occasions?

August 23, 2013   Lauren   fun, Lauren, reading, vacation  
0

Summer reading

Thanks again to everyone who made recommendations here and on Twitter for my vacation reading.  While in Greece, I ended up devouring the phenomenal Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple; enjoying the impressive and delightful History of Love by Nicole Krauss; dipping in and out of Joan Didion’s The White Album, which I’d somehow never read, but mostly really liked; and immersing myself in Jorge Luis Borges’s A Personal Anthology.  Plus I got through a healthy chunk of Tao Lin’s very engaging Taipei, which I hope to finish reading this weekend.

These might be somewhat atypical vacation reads.  Mostly I want something that will keep me from watching bad movies on the plane (though I did watch one of those anyway, plus another that was a likably ambitious failure) and entice me away from a mid-afternoon nap.  Something that will hold my attention so well that I’m grateful for an extra hour spent on the runway or an unexpected delay.  I usually try to pack away some things that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while but keep letting slip by me.  If I can trim down those teetering piles that look guiltily at me from all around my apartment and office, I get to experience the illusion of progress while simultaneously enjoying myself. Since I like to compete with myself, I like ‘em short and digestible enough that I can read a whole bunch of books instead of just one or two.  I also tend to steer clear of things that are very much like what I read for work, so there’s not as much commercial fiction or YA as I’d normally read throughout the year.  And I always try to get in at least one book that publishing is buzzing about, so I’ll have something current to chat knowledgably about at lunches and parties.

But judging by the airport bookstores, these aren’t exactly the average person’s criteria.  And understandably so.  So what have you tackled this summer, and how did you pick?

BTW, have you been to Greece?  If not, I highly recommend it.  It’s exactly what you think it will be, in the best possible way.  If you go, be sure to make it to the Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, where you can see Lord Byron’s graffiti carved into a column!  Such a delinquent.  Check out his handiwork:

In the close-up, look for “Byron” just below the center of the photo.  It’s in the part that’s lighter than the rest.  I’m guessing that back when you used to be able to walk right up to it, people took rubbings of the impression or something.  If I had a time machine, I’d go back to the time before we preserved art and history quite so carefully and do a world tour of all those things that are behind barriers and glass now.  I wanna stand in the middle of Stonehenge, dammit.

July 26, 2013   Lauren   advice, Lauren, reading, vacation  
14

Help wanted

It’s that time of year again.  As I’m now just a week away from my vacation, I’m starting to worry about the most important detail: what to read.  Packing can be done on Thursday night, travel guides can be read on the plane, but sensible book planning takes time and care.

Except my brain is fried, and I need your help, please.  I just can’t decide which books to bring.  Here are my requirements:

  • Available in paperback, acquirable in NYC online or otherwise within a week. (I know, I know, vacations are what e-books are made for! But I’m a trade paperback girl at heart, and reading e-books feels like work because that’s how I read manuscripts.)
  • Engaging, compelling, engrossing—fiction or nonfiction, any category, light and hilarious or dark and serious, as long as my mind doesn’t wander from the page.
  • Not a massive doorstop, since I’d like to fit a few books and not have to check bags. (A girl can dream.)
  • Bonus points for a book that takes place in Greece, my destination, that I can start on the plane to psych myself up for the trip!

So while I’m daydreaming about white-washed houses, blue-domed churches, and Byron-graffitied temples, won’t you please offer up some great reads for me to enjoy?

July 19, 2013   Rachel   fun, lists, Rachel S., vacation  
0

Escape

In the middle of this blistering heat, the only thing I can think of is getting out and far away, to somewhere that doesn’t result in immediate sweat the second you step out of doors or require smushing against fifty other people in a subway car or busy city block.

I can only ogle the crisp, breezy looking photographs in my Groupon Getaways emails for so long before realizing I have no need for an all-inclusive family vacation to a four star hotel in Mexico (also, definitely hot there), yet still feel the need to at least fantasize about a realistic escape.

At my wit’s end, I stumbled across Flavorwire’s “50 Places Ever Literary Fan Should Visit” and, as is my compulsion with every list of things to read, listen to, watch, visit or do whatever else you are supposed to have done, check off everything I’ve already got in the bag. Sadly, I can only lay claim to three of the fifty—and not even any of the ones in New York! To be honest, I had no idea so many literary landmarks were in such a small radius of my home.

Of course, the impetus here is to leave the heat behind, so I won’t feel so bad about it yet. Though there are a million more exotic, more prodigious and more exciting venues and monuments on the list, the one that struck me with the biggest pang was Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. A rabid L.M. Montgomery fan as a girl, my dream vacation growing up was a trip to Prince Edward Island (P.E. Island to those of us in the know). To see it on this list brought me back to all the times I begged and begged to go there—I think I had an idea that it was kind of like Colonial Williamsburg, which was another favorite of mine and the destination of not one, but two family vacations at my request.

I also couldn’t help but smile at the James Joyce’s Dublin entry on the list. As a personal project of mine (and okay, for a grade), I mapped out Leopold Bloom’s famed traipse around the city and its surrounding areas, complete with photos, quotes and analyses. It was a long day of walking and trains, which I guess it a lot of energy to expend on just checking off 1/50th of a list. Good going, Rachel.

Flipping through the slideshow was a good mental escape, trip down memory lane and bucket list facilitator for me. I know there are far more than fifty great literary destinations in the world and I’d love to know what ones you have visited or can introduce to me.

June 11, 2013   Jane   fun, Jane, vacation  
5

What I did on my vacation

This year, my husband and I decided to travel far away to one of the places on our bucket list.  We would celebrate our son’s twenty-first birthday with him (he was doing is college junior year spring semester abroad in Sydney, Australia) and then travel throughout the country – far from the goings-on in our lives back home.

And so on May 25th, we landed in Sydney – a truly beautiful city and walked right into The Sydney Writers’ Festival,  which was enormous and just steps away from our hotel.  As we strolled on the piers near the Rocks Section of the city, we were surrounded by publishers and authors at their very familiar looking cocktail parties.

Several days later, we were off to Ayers Rock, Australia’s most recognizable natural icon and I found an informative and relevant book describing this really phenomenal area, Uluru, Kjata Tjuta and Watarrka Ayres Rock by Anne Kerle (New South Publishing).  What a great setting for a kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark type of story!

On we went to Adelaide where I again discovered that there is an annual arts festival – usually held in March – and which includes some of Australia’s most prominent writers.

We journeyed to the Barossa Valley,  which is included in the very popular 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (Workman Publishing) and where we also spent the day at several vineyards, tasting all kinds of wine including a 100-year-old “fortified wine” (it is literally against the law to call this a port in Australia).

Finally, before heading back to Sydney, we spent two days on Kangaroo Island, a beautiful place filled with kangaroos, koala bears, all kinds of birds and seals, sea lions, whales, and wallabies.  And on the last day, of course, upon hearing that I was a literary agent, our guide Jamie presented me with a signed copy of his wife Gaynor Bowden’s book, SHACK ATTACK! Humorous Kangaroo Island Verse (her self- published book).  I had come full circle.

And so we had a true adventure in this fabulous place, but it proved one thing to me – one can never get far away from books and the people involved with them.

Where will you go on your vacation this summer?

May 13, 2013   Jane   feedback, fun, Jane, reading, vacation  
9

What should I read on my vacation?

Finally, our vacation is in sight.  It’s  been a long  time since we’ve been away and it’s been a long winter of recovery from emergency surgery (for my husband, Steve) and lots of hard work for us both.  But our trip to Australia to spend my son  Zach’s twenty-first birthday with him is almost here.  As these will be the longest  flights we’ve ever taken, I am wondering what great suggestions our blog followers will have for me to read.

Yesterday, one of my clients asked me if I still enjoyed reading for pleasure because I review so many flawed manuscripts.  I answered that, indeed, I am able to put my “agent’s hat” aside when reading for my own enjoyment (other than, of course, to wish that the book I am loving had been one I had represented).  The problem is that I have so little time to choose what I read and so many books to choose from.

So, I am very eager to have your suggestions.  Not only would I like to know the titles and authors of the books you single out, but also why you think they are great reads.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

July 26, 2012   Jessica   advice, vacation, writing  
6

Not long ago, I was listening to a radio interview with an author who had penned an article in (I think) the New York Times, explaining how we must practice disengaging from technology in order to enjoy our vacations properly. We are, as many have pointed out, so addicted to our devices that laying them aside is challenging. I returned from a holiday last week in which I put some of those recommendations into play.  I resisted the urge to check my smart phone each time it flashed its come-hither signal. I limited my screen/keyboard time, and also—like Ulysses tying himself to the mast to resist the sirens–chose a destination where my cell phone coverage is uneven at best, and so avoided temptation by default. I had a lovely family vacation, but I could not go cold turkey. I still carried some submissions with me, a contract or two, and a proposal in need of very light editing. Happily, work reading is rarely so onerous that I need to leave it entirely behind.  (True, I did not get to the Hilary Mantel novel I had hoped to read, but I did read Richard Ford’s Canada and Martin Amis’s Lionel Asbo: State of England. In the future, I will not leave best for last). As I fired up my laptop to read a revised proposal, I wondered whether vacations for writers means taking a vacation from writing or if the computer/typewriter/legal pad travels with you?

 

My treacherous, self congratulatory musings on quitting technology were overheard by my computer and my phone, and I was summarily punished with a bad tech day. My e-mails ran afoul of the spam filter of an entire publishing conglomerate.  My own spam filter unaccountably waylaid important messages. My Blackberry’s battery has, seemingly overnight, lost the ability to hold a charge, and so I was dismayed to discover my quiet morning was not so quiet after all. Thereafter, I saved the wrong version of a proposal, overwriting its edited predecessor.  Even now my computer is functioning at a molasses-like speed, each letter moseying its way to the screen.

 

Have you ever suffered a day in which it seemed all your technology was rebelling against you? It seems to me that writers, who rarely have the benefit of an IT department to rush to their aid,  are especially vulnerable to tech melt-downs. If so, I’d welcome any suggestions for placating and propitiating the digital gods.

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