Hot days, literary nights

My favorite kind of vacation reading are books that take place at your holiday destination. For instance, a few years ago I did a river cruise up the Nile. Everyone was reading Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile! Fortunately we all survived ???? Another time I was in Lisbon, so I brought Madeleine L’Engle’s The Arm of the Starfish with me so I could walk in the main character’s footsteps. And I am still grateful to a friend who hosted me in London and let me drag her around to every London locale mentioned in the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Vacations can also be a time to “catch up” on reading, finally focusing on a book that requires more than a furtive five minutes of attention snatched between all the distractions of everyday life. I always have grand schemes of tackling some massive tomes gathering dust on my bookshelves; I figure if I bring just that with me, I’ll be forced to read it. A sound idea, right? Yet it’s amazing the number of ways you can entertain yourself if you’re trying to avoid something! This Saturday I’m off to Porto; I haven’t looked for any novels set there, but have decided to tackle Effi Briest and a book by James Michener that I’ve owned for a few decades. We’ll see how disciplined I am this time…

Here’s what my colleagues are reading this summer:

• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series of high fantasy novels by American author Stephen R. Donaldson. You’ll need a long holiday to get through the whole series, though: the original trilogy was followed by another, and there’s a final tetralogy too! What fascinates me about these novels is how they play with the genre of fantasy; it is never quite clear – to the reader or the main character – whether any of what is happening is real. Excellent escapism! Richard Peters
• In Round Ireland with a Fridge, British comedian Tony Hawks tells the true story of how he hitchhiked around Ireland with a rather unusual traveling companion ­­– a refrigerator! It’s the perfect summer read: a light-hearted book that really makes you want to travel, regardless of the destination and with or without a household appliance. Chrissie Brockmann
• I actually re-read the same book every summer – Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, first published in 1960. It amazes me that a book that deals with some very serious and upsetting issues can still be essentially about childhood. Just thinking about certain moments in the narrative is enough to give me goose pimples. Colin Rae
• This summer I’m returning to one of my favorites, now in a new translation: in Water Music, T. C. Boyle weaves together the account of Scotsman Mungo Park’s expedition to Africa, based on real-life events, with the fictional tale of a slick con man from London. I happened to discover this colorful, hilarious book in the library of a Peruvian hostel, and was constantly arguing with the friend I was traveling with about who got to read on next! Julia Harwardt