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Sep. 16th, 2005 09:19 amBooks It Is Probably Not A Good Idea To Read While Traveling
(From Personal Experience)
1. Lord of the Flies. Nothing like a plane crash on an isolated island to bring out the unspeakable impulses in a bunch of schoolboys, eh? Now imagine the same scenario taking place with a plane full of Age of Entitlement adults. You do not want to read this book if you have to fly anywhere.
2. Lost Horizon. Four people trying to get out of a city wracked by revolution, riot, and other unacceptable circumstances discover that someone wearing the right clothes and talking the right game is perfectly capable of getting past Security and taking their plane for himself. And isn't it funny how, once you're in the air, one patch of landscape looks very much like another? Yup. Not a book to read if you have a window seat on the plane.
3. The Hunt for Red October. See Lost Horizon but substitute 'submarine' for 'plane' and 'ocean' for 'landscape', and suddenly no matter how much the rest of the book is a tautly written Cold War thriller, the prospect of being on a boat out of sight of land really isn't all that appealing any more.
4. Around the World in Eighty Days. Not for anything to do with what happens to Phileas Fogg and company in their travels- though the prospect of being chased around the world by a misguided police inspector is pretty unnerving- but for something that happens just as Our Heroes are heading out on their trip. Passepartout, Fogg's manservant, suddenly remembers that he has left the gaslight on. Fogg says they're not going back to turn it off. When they get home it's been burning for eighty days. Fortunately, nothing has caught on fire as a result, but Passepartout's share of the reward money is docked by the cost of all that gas. Unless you can turn off your appliances by phone call, do not read this book while you are traveling. It will get to you.
I'm sure there are others, but these are big ones for me. And no, I have never read Alive, so I'm not going to put that on the list.
(From Personal Experience)
1. Lord of the Flies. Nothing like a plane crash on an isolated island to bring out the unspeakable impulses in a bunch of schoolboys, eh? Now imagine the same scenario taking place with a plane full of Age of Entitlement adults. You do not want to read this book if you have to fly anywhere.
2. Lost Horizon. Four people trying to get out of a city wracked by revolution, riot, and other unacceptable circumstances discover that someone wearing the right clothes and talking the right game is perfectly capable of getting past Security and taking their plane for himself. And isn't it funny how, once you're in the air, one patch of landscape looks very much like another? Yup. Not a book to read if you have a window seat on the plane.
3. The Hunt for Red October. See Lost Horizon but substitute 'submarine' for 'plane' and 'ocean' for 'landscape', and suddenly no matter how much the rest of the book is a tautly written Cold War thriller, the prospect of being on a boat out of sight of land really isn't all that appealing any more.
4. Around the World in Eighty Days. Not for anything to do with what happens to Phileas Fogg and company in their travels- though the prospect of being chased around the world by a misguided police inspector is pretty unnerving- but for something that happens just as Our Heroes are heading out on their trip. Passepartout, Fogg's manservant, suddenly remembers that he has left the gaslight on. Fogg says they're not going back to turn it off. When they get home it's been burning for eighty days. Fortunately, nothing has caught on fire as a result, but Passepartout's share of the reward money is docked by the cost of all that gas. Unless you can turn off your appliances by phone call, do not read this book while you are traveling. It will get to you.
I'm sure there are others, but these are big ones for me. And no, I have never read Alive, so I'm not going to put that on the list.
