2 Things @ Once

I’ve made the most important decision of my pre-vacation preparation: which books to bring with me on the trip. Always an important decision, especially so when you’ll be in a remote paradise bobbing around on a boat for a week, far from any bookstore.

My first thought was this would be a great opportunity to finally read The Forsyte Saga but I quickly ruled it out when I pulled my copy off the shelf where it’s been sitting for years. That sucker is heavy. There’s no way I was going to lug it around for thousands of miles, from airplane to boat and back again.

So I pulled a much lighter 1000-page book from my shelf, perfectly suited for adventure vacation reading, The Count of Monte Cristo. I loved The Three Musketeers when I read it ten years ago and purchased The Count shortly afterward. That’s how long it’s been waiting on the shelf to be read.

I usually try to pair my vacation reading with my travel destinations. My second book is stretching the theme a bit but I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time now and I couldn’t resist the humor in bringing along a book about an infamous mutiny. (And no, I don’t mean The Bounty–I’ve already read about that.) I’ll be packing Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny. I hope it doesn’t give our crew any ideas.