Vacation Reading

If I had known this was the kind of vacation where you bring paper books, I would have brought paper books (to say nothing of my diary.) Clair knew. She, quite fortunately, had a couple John Greens and a collection of Robert Frost handy to line the shelves with. Even if you don't touch them, there's something sweet about knowing your books are around.

And I, never one to be taken unprepared, have my Kindle. This is the perfect place to polish off the last of Bulldog Drummond, and last night I scratched the surface of The Two Perfect Vacation Reads, which Fate clearly placed in my way for the purpose.

I'd been waiting for the day when Clair would request more Jeeves and Wooster and I'd had the feeling it would be on our August vacation (me having staved off them all summer), so when she looked at me sideways and said, "Do you have any more of those?" I had Right Ho, Jeeves ready for the purpose. We just read the first chapter, so hopefully it'll last us a bit, but I'm officially back in pre-series-finish mourning mode. (We still have a bunch of novels to go, but whaa, there'll never be enough books narrated by Bertie Wooster!) Since I'm told it's Shark Week, it's worth mentioning that apparently Bertie's cousin Angela nearly got eaten by a shark while they were all on a cruise together...and that's all we're going to hear about it. One of the many reasons I love this series, people. (I wish I had my copy of Thank You, Jeeves with me, too. It's partly about the potential perils of staying in a vacation home.)

That was directly after my friend Suzanne and I, who'd been excitedly texting each other about The Hunger Games, decided out of nowhere to start a cross-country book club. (Well, really it was her idea--I just texted her back in all-caps to display my enthusiasm.) For our first read she decided on Tana French's In the Woods, a mystery book no one's heard of, which she just happened to have on her shelf untouched. Thanks to the magic of Kindle, I was able to get myself a copy in seconds.

I've read less than one percent of it in solidarity with Suzanne, who can't start it until the weekend, but about the amount I have read, I can only say that it is nothing short of breathtaking. It's one of those books I wouldn't have discovered on my own in a million years, and it's got a Ray-Bradbury-meets-gritty-thriller thing going on that I never would have guessed at from the cover or the title. (Suzanne, by the way, only just read the first book in The Hunger Games, and she's craving Catching Fire. I feel her pain. I had to make a bookstore run while on vacation two summers ago just to buy it. She's making me want to read it yet again.)

I've also been checking out my cousins' book of Stan Lee Spider-Man comics, which is one of the most entertaining superhero things I've ever read.

And vacation's only just started.

Look, I can't explain why I'm so excited about reading books in a summer house. Call it one of those charming Allie things.