Have New Yorker, will travel

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Although you wouldn’t know it by the freezing temperatures, it’s spring break in Pittsburgh. I left town earlier today -- packing at the last minute, leaving the house a mess -- and now am mid-journey. (There are sparrows living inside Terminal One at JFK, in case you were wondering).

Tomorrow I’ll land in Istanbul, where I’ll be for the week. With all the travel time, the question of what to bring to read was, not surprisingly, at the top of my mind. I’m nagged by the fear that I won’t have enough to read, and the number of books that I brought was limited only by the space in my bag.

What I brought: ‘Snow’ by Orhan Pamuk, because it’s only right to read the work of a city’s living Nobel Laureate in Literature. A book that I’m reading for an upcoming review. Steve Erickson’s ‘Zeroville’ (no, I haven’t read it yet, but soon, soon!). ‘Smonk’ by Tom Franklin. The advance of a friend’s novel. That’s five novels. And copies of The New Yorker, of course -- five of them, too.

But that’s the everlasting tension for booklovers on holiday. The impulse to just hole up and read -- this is all I want to do! But after traveling all that way, I think I’m supposed to go out and experience Istanbul. Maybe, with any luck, there will be a cafe or two that’ll serve both purposes.

Why is it that I feel compelled to pack at least one book per day of vacation? How many do you bring?

Carolyn Kellogg