Sunday Salon: Travel and Reading

Today, I am listening to the audiobook for Charlaine Harris’s Club Dead and reading some Casino Royale. I think I’ve given up A Christmas Carol; I’m going to pick it up in July or something.

These streets in the 7th.

Last weekend, I was actually reading in Paris, France. I had brought one book with me and that is my copy of Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon which is one of my favourite collection of personal essays and books about Paris. It’s very funny and pleasing to read about the places he writes about such as the Jardin du Luxembourg, Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, Musée d’Orsay, and others and actually go there later in the day. Reading while on a voyage is not uncommon to me or any other bibliophile, but I think it was the first time that I had read so much of the place I was actually in. Since the book was written ten years ago, I noticed a lot of changes. I have read a lot of travelogues and travel nonfiction, but I do not travel to these places all that much so it was refreshing to read and contemplate the changes presented while noticing what was very true. I have actually yet to read anything very London since getting here since I acquire and read fiction here.

Speaking of which, I acquired a few books this week by chance, mostly ones that have gone on Bookmooch. I am pleased to say that in the pile was Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander which I had listened to audiobook last spring and enjoyed so I’m glad to own a copy as well as the next book in the series Dragonfly in Amber. This works out perfectly since I own the next two books Voyager and Drums of Autumn which are back in Canada. I have enough books on small tiny shelf here in London and my limited free time that I shouldn’t get more book nor think I’ll actually get through them all before the end of 2009.

On a final note, I usually leave these things in the Literary Links, but I have to plug The Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. I have penchants for book lists and this is one I can get behind whether you agree with the selections or not. Here is the definitive list and you can search if your favourites are there, or browse through the novels by category/genre.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Literary Links:

ZenHabits has a How to Instill Love of Reading for Your Child or Yourself

I think I linked this before, but it’s a good list: ZenHabits’s 50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Library

book.populair.eu – A directory of web 2.0 book sites.

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else

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