The clock is ticking on our search for a new list of Top 100 Books. You have until the 15th August to send me your top ten. Don't think about it, just do it! That way, when you see the final list, you can't complain that you didn't have your say.
In the meantime I am on holiday. So I'll be blogging less, if at all, and reading slightly more. Hopefully.
It got me thinking about summer reads. The summer holiday is sometimes the best chance people get to sit down and read a book. Long lazy days soaking up the son with a copy of Lee Child in your hand, or a James Clavell, as it was when I was a lad.
Being an earnest sort, when I was eighteen I remember taking Moby Dick with me round Europe while travelling on an inter rail ticket. I told myself that wading through this American Victorian leviathan would do me some good while spending hour upon hour on trains. Well, the most I can say is that I definitely finished the book but it didn't enhance the travelling experience - and it didn't help me appreciate or be transported by Melville. I doubt I'd pass a multiple choice on the book now, albeit 25 years later (almost). Sometimes I think I'd like to try to re read the book, it is after all meant to be brilliant and I was very young at the time. Too young, perhaps to appreciate it, and too distracted. But then the memory of a horse meat sandwich some fellow travellers kind of obliged us to eat under threat of who knows what while travelling through the Balkans comes back, and the association is just toooo strong.
But I doubt Moby Dick could have been the worst choice. I guess I could have set off with something a lot worse. But what? Let me know if you've had an even bigger summer read disaster.
* Update: @averydryfino tweets to tell me that Infinite Jest might be her holiday reading hell book. She's a third of the way in and struggling. Can anyone help her?
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