I managed to read four books while I was away. I’m sure that four books in ten days is nothing for some people, but for me it’s pretty good, especially considering that a lot of those days I was on the go for over 12 hours in 35 degree heat, visiting museums and eating delicious pasta and other stressful activities like that. Also I’ve decided I want a Kindle. It turns out it took pretty much nothing to knock me off my staunch anti-Kindle perch. My only condition is that I don’t buy it for myself. I’ll get drafting that letter to Santa.

Read

From my list of classics, I only ended up taking Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Secret Garden, mainly because I packed, re-packed, unpacked, threw my belongings around the house etc. a lot of times and decided that taking five books was just too much. I loved them both, especially The Secret Garden.

Then, because I was all kinds of wrong in thinking that two books would be enough, I acquired a copy of The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, which I read in less than two days. Eye-opening and heart-breaking.

So then I was left sitting at the airport in Venice itching for something else to read. After walking past the shelf marked ‘English books’ a good few times because I’m an idiot, I ended up getting The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano for 11 euros (as a book bargain hunter, this stung, a lot) and reading over half of it before I even got on the plane. I then finished it on the train home the next day. Absolutely captivating. I can tell this is going to be one of those books that I try to force onto everyone I love, including my boyfriend who only reads books authored by Jeremy Clarkson. I want everyone to read it.

Reading

I haven’t even opened the cover quite yet, but Q&A by Vikas Swarup is sitting on my pillow waiting for me.

To read

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

• How many books would you be able to read in 10 days?
• Best book you’ve read lately?
• When you read an amazing book do you want everyone else to read it, or do you want to keep it to yourself?

 

 

* Picture from here