Bonus Material: How to Pack (Books) for Summer Vacation

By Erin L. Cox

Home is where your stack of books is…

Maybe you, like me, have a stack of books sitting on your nightstand or piled next to your bed.  I love that stack of books.  I cultivate it like some people cultivate gardens.  I take a book off here, add a book there — all according to my mood and what’s going on in my life.

So when I travel for vacation, the books that I select to travel wiht me become incredibly important.  Weeks before my trip, I start setting aside books that I think I want to bring.  The real panic comes when I start to pack and not all of them fit.  I have actually taken clothes out of my bag in order to accommodate a book or two that I refused to leave behind.

This year, I wanted a taste of adventure, something to relate to the heat of my destinations (Austin, Texas and Sedona, Arizona) or to remind me why I need to come home, some short fiction to read a snippet of before boarding a plane or while waiting in a cab line, and, in some cases {as a safety net, a couple of plain old good reads,” just a plain, old good read.

Here are the books I took with me, in the order I read them.  Some have yet to be released.

THE LOST CITY OF Z by David Grann

THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE by Katherine Howe

AMERICAN ON PURPOSE by Craig Ferguson

BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin

HALF BROKE HORSES by Jeannette Walls

BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS by Aravind Adiga

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS by Tracy Kidder

FALL by Colin McAdam

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT by Maile Meloy

APRIL AND OLIVER by Tess Callahan

VOICE OVER by Celine Curiol

OF BEES AND MIST by Erick Setiawan

FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters