Planning VACATION Reading!

Do I take a lot of trips? I do! Do I take a lot of books? HECK YEAH

I have a horror of ending up on a plane without a good book. Yes, my ereader mostly should have relieved me of that problem BUT STILL.

What if it suddenly didn’t really download even though I checked it three times?

What if the battery goes “poop!”

What if I sit on it or drop it in the seat and then try to adjust the seat like they tell you not to now and then I hear a sickening crunch and then I have nothing to read for the whole entire trip?!?!?!

an image of a horrified reader on a plane with no book to read, created by substack AI which… didn’t really understand the instructions and WILL NEVER REPLACE US

I wrote last year about how I pick books for a trip. (HERE!) We need variety. We need the right vibe. We need to know for absolute certain that we will never under any circumstances HAVE to buy a book in an airport although we certainly CAN.

Anyway. I had a stack of books and enlisted Instagram to help me decide:

Every book but one got multiple shouts of THAT ONE and the one that didn’t (Never Fall for Your Fiance) the bookseller totally raved about so I think that counts. Oh I guess nobody’s mentioned the purple house yet but I bet someone will. I love Ann Aguirre and I’ve taken her on a plane before and basically looked up three hours later and been like, what even happened.

So my plan: two paper books. Maaaaaaybe three. Because paper is just better. And also my e-reader, on which I have:

• Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

• The Exception to the Rule, Christina Lauren (it’s a novella, it hardly counts)

• Nora Roberts Land, Ava Miles (this kinda had me at the title, no idea how I’ll like it)

• Redshirts, John Scalzi (I know I’ll like this and can you write a new book faster please John)

• Do Your Worst, Rosie Danan

• a sample of How to Know a Person, David Brooks (I keep mixing him up with Arthur Brooks, whose last book was… not my fave. But he’s not and people love this. Still, sample. Probably also doesn’t count.)

TBH I also have a romance in Spanish I’m planning to take (Lo Que La Nieve Susurra Al Caer) because I’m traveling with Spanish friends and I’ll be speaking all the Spanish and I think it will help although I’ll probably also have to look up a lot of words since I totally already had to translate susurra). And I might have asked a publicist to send me Happily Never After by Lynn Painter, so that might turn up, and I have something to read, to blurb so I can pretend that’s work…

I could easily end up with eleven books here couldn’t I?

Ok. Decision time. All the e-books make the cut por supuesto. Aand… the whispering snow. Anita de Monte. And Emily Wilde—all three because they’re not like anything that’s already in the e-reader (and I really want to read the Xochitl Gonzalez because I loved Olga Dies Dreaming and I have a sneaking suspicion that if it’s lined up next to paper romances I might… go the easier read route first. NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

So that’s the plan, stans. What was your last favorite vacation read?