I'm going to run down to the mountains of Western North Carolina tomorrow afternoon, and return on Saturday afternoon. Yes, that means I'll be there about 36 hours. But my older brother is hospitalized again and cannot join Mother and my other brother and sister-in-law for the 4th in the mountains, so I need to fill in the gap. I need to help take Mother's mind off Jerry's heart problems.
In preparation for that trip, I'm trying to find audio books to take my mind off the drive. That exercise got me thinking about the perfect read/listen for a long drive.
For my daily drive, the best book is something that doesn't require a ton of concentration. Chick Lit, romance novels, humor (David Sedaris rules!); these are all good choices. A 20-hour book is fine for one-hour chunks.
But for two 10-hour drives, like I'll be doing tomorrow and Saturday, I want something that's self-contained within that drive time. I want to reach the end of the book before I reach my destination. My other criterion for choosing books for this trip was cost: I've used up all my credits for the year, and have to spend actual money for books until August, when my Audible.com membership renews.
For this trip, I have chosen Robert Harris's "The Ghost" (member price $19.58) and Mary McGarry Morris's "The Lost Mother" (member price $14.68), which was on the Oprah Book List. When I went back onto Audible to grab the links for this post, a window popped up offering a for-that-visit-only $4.95 special, so I added Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" to my library.
I'll let you know what I think when I return. And, by the way, I don't expect to have Internet access while in NC except on the iPhone, so don't be surprised if there are no blog posts for a few days.
What are you reading over the 4th of July?
1 comment:
PianoLady responded by e-mail to my question:
Maybe you should choose Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" and be listening to Willie Nelson sing, "On the Road Again" -- HA!
I am reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" -- cleverly written in letters....When I talked to Jake last night about reading something this summer, he suggested Christy Brown's "My Left Foot" -- which is out of print, but I was able to locate a copy through our local library. William recently read "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Sara Houghteling (set in Paris during the Nazi occupation) for school and I picked up "Skeletons at the Feast" by Chris Bojahlian for him last night at the Pleasantville bookstore.
(Jake and William are her twin 17yo sons) (I think they're 17. Could they be 18 already?!)
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