Books my husband took on his (solo) holiday
Guest post: A reading list from my other half on his 'no plans' trip
This is a guest post from my husband off the back of his recent solo, no plans holiday. Yes, you heard that right, he took a week off and headed to the airport sans flight, obsessively checked and rechecked the weather and then booked a short haul to the hottest possible destination. This took him to Rome, then Valencia and finally Mallorca.
Here are the books!
Husband: My holiday reading list doesn’t vastly differ from what I read day to day, it just gets more amplified/concentrated somehow. I took 5 books away for this week long trip, albeit two of them I had already started.
These are my general principles for selecting what to take:
A balance between fiction and non fiction, perhaps equal weighting
Currently, my go to fiction is all good American crime/detective fiction
And, more recently, the non fiction picks are spirituality based
True Detective by Max Allan Collins (note: not related to the TV show).
This is the second book of the author’s I’ve read, which came about after discovering the Hard Case Crime publishing house. The first book was the most recently published in a series based on a private detective called Nathan Heller. This book therefore takes me back to the beginning of the series and the introduction of the character, focusing on what led to them becoming a private detective in Chicago. My summary would be this was good easy reading… nothing mind blowing.
The Ending of Time by J Krishnamurti and David Bohm (started before holiday and finished mid-trip).
I recently visited the Krishnamurti Centre in Brockwood Park (thanks to my wife for the wonderful Christmas present and a close friend for telling us about the centre) and came away with an appreciation and interest in K’s teachings. There are tonnes of books compiling his teachings, words and thoughts, but this one jumped out as slightly different from the rest. It is a series of conversations (published as dialogue) between K and the renowned physicist David Bohm, who studied under Robert Oppenheimer. Quite a tough read at times as it required focus, but hugely interesting and a book I would recommend anyone read (though perhaps I wouldn’t suggest you start here if you aren’t familiar with K and his writing…!)
The Places That Scare You by Pema Chödrön
This is the third of Pema’s (an American Buddhist nun) books that I’ve read, after my wife bought When Things Fall Apart, which I randomly picked up, read, and enjoyed. Accessible, concise and succinctly delivered wisdom and guidance into living a ‘better’ life. This specific book focuses on practices to become ‘warriors of nonaggression’, with equanimity and balance referenced throughout.
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Similar to True Detective, this was me returning to the first book in a series after having enjoyed the finale (World Gone By - the greatest novel since the Godfather according to Stephen King). I discovered the latter based on an online article about Don Winslow’s favourite books, one of my favourite authors. This first book follows earlier generations of a family in Boston after World War One, and intermingles fictional narrative with real events (google the Great Molasses Flood!) and characters (Babe Ruth, the famous baseball player, is a minor character)
A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker
This is another one courtesy of Don Winslow, who listed T. Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat as one of his favourite crime novels. I’m a sucker for anything crime/detective related, particularly set on the west coast (Michael Connelly’s books, Robert Crais’s books, and Don’s own) so quickly ordered Laguna Heat earlier in the year when I was after reading material for a different trip. Cut to my recent holiday and the decision to try another of this authors books. Same west coast setting (Laguna Beach), with similar intermingling of real life characters and events as my other reads (this time Timothy Leary, the rise of LSD, and American paranoia over the impacts on society), but following a young boys search for his missing sister.
Here’s the list:
True Detective - Max Allan Collins
The Ending of Time - J.Krishnamurti and David Bohm
The Places That Scare You - Pema Chödrön
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
A Thousand Steps - T. Jefferson Parker
Find the full list here.
Other lists you might also like:
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