(no subject)

[camwyn]

Books 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.

Comments

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

I want to go on Survivor, just so I can take a copy of Lord of the Flies with me (complete with making notes in the margins). Somehow, I don't think I'd be there very long. ;)

Also from experience

[sundre.livejournal.com]

Songs that should not be listened to while traveling:

Plane - Jason Mraz (if the plane goes down/damn I shouldn't have had this on my playlist)

My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion (This one they played over the loudspeaker as the plane was taking off)

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps it would be better to bring a movie. 'Airplane!' for example.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Tell me, Anon, do you like gladiator movies?:)

[camwyn]

Where did I put my translation of the Table O' Terror... there's a line in there about 'looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines', and how this is not a good thing to say around pilots.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Looks like you picked the wrong week to quit sniffing burning scraps paper.:)