Holiday Reading

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This is a naff concept and each year the broadsheets are filled log-rolling sessions in which Joan Bakewell and Andrew Marr and... *that lot* big up their mates/people on their editor's list etc. Similarly there's plenty advertising based on the idea of beach reads.

The corny indie fuc in me recoils, but in a sense it is a useful category. I'm off on holiday on Thursday and thus far my planned book is 'The Man Without Qualities' by Robert Musil. This is almost certainly not going to make a good holiday book.

So, erm, suggestions please!

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:49 (twenty-two years ago)

one that i found really moving and a bit thought provoking but completely unchallenging was the curious incident of the dog in the night time. a total holiday book, no brain cells necessary really.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm going to reread mason & dixon on my holiday. so that. i've only ever read gravity's rainbow on holiday, so that too.

i'd probably be getting this if i had more spare cash:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0713997524/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/202-3305183-3068616

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

if you haven't read mason+dixon then i think it is a good holiday read, it's pretty easy going. gr requires more effort.

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i rarely if ever read non-fiction these days. :-( next week we're off to paris. i'll probably be taking a book on Japanese prostitution with me as holiday reading. yummy!

― jesus nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:56 (twenty-two years ago)

But Mason & Dixon is harder to read than Gravitys Rainbow!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

see you there then! [ie that's where i'm going -- must learn not to sound stalkerish on the interweb]
xpost
I read 'V' once -- nice. Pynchon books are quite long, but so's Musil I guess.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

But Mason & Dixon is harder to read than Gravitys Rainbow!

!! admittedly i have read the latter more recently than the former so i could be misremembering, but i this still sounds mad to me.

enrq - not all pynchon books are long! the crying of lot 49 is prob a great holiday read actually, it only takes a couple of hours (and it's really good).

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:08 (twenty-two years ago)

(i don't only read pynchon on holiday btw. the other answer for me this summer will prob be some graham greene + if i can find a pg wodehouse that i haven't read then that too.)

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Baudolino!

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah I read 'Lot 69', vg. GG an excellent idea, if only it weren't for the SHIT FUCKING VINTAGE BINDINGS [my threads passim].

― ENRQ (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

ooh, seconded. i kind of randomly picked it out as a third in a three for two and thoroughly enjoyed it, more of a quest than foucault's pendulum, but not exactly barbara cartland if you know what i mean...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

That reads smuttier than intended, Stevo.

Also, read Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea as it's fab.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Am reading Henry Green. Is it holiday reading? Is it fuck.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

It's fucking GREBT though. 'Party Going'=good pre-holiday waiting for Eurostar-type read, right?

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

...can't argue with Musil, esp. the endings...

"They had all been against her, the sick ones too."

Apart from that, 'On the Edge' by Edward St. Aubyn is essential plane/train reading. Don't know why, other than hypnotic personal experience, hilariously by-passing/hurtling-through the whole 'Foucault in the desert' shtick; somehow not entirely de-railed by the constant forking between incomprehension on the one hand and self-annilhilation on the other...

― dst, Tuesday, 15 June 2004 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Coming clean, what I've got is vol 1 of 'TMWQ'. 30p, charity shop. But that is quite long. And I hear the book doesn't in fact end...?

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I reviewed my Barcelona reading on Freaky Trigger - China Mieville's 'The Scar'. I like a paperback, because it's lighter, something I'm confident I'll enjoy, and given the time on planes and stuff, preferably largeish ones. I don't particularly go for lighter reading, necessarily - might be Wodehouse or Pynchon or whatever.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

oh...

it gets really good in volume three with the sister/double millenial stuff, but it's 'failure' to end is somehow 'essential'...

― dst, Tuesday, 15 June 2004 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Uh-huh--was it *meant* not to end? Having the sep vol is qt good cos it has an intro -- the new translation all-in-one thing seems not to. I also have Broch's 'The Sleepwalkers' on standby.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:06 (twenty-two years ago)

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