Curating My Vacation Reading List

The older I get, the more of a homebody I become. I love the idea of traveling – seeing new sights, sampling local cuisines, learning new things – but I am increasingly un-fond of its practical realities. I don’t like the logistical planning or the getting there and back. If I could teleport at will, worldwide, from the comfort of my own home, and return to said comfort at the end of every day, I would. That being said, I still venture forth from time to time, sometimes out of personal desire and sometimes out of parental obligation. There are currently 2 vacation modes for our family unit: vacations where we do stuff, and vacations where we slob.

Yes, I used “slob” as a verb. It’s basically a state of being where you mostly do nothing except move from comfortable surface to comfortable surface, eat copious amounts of food at regular intervals, and occasionally immerse yourself in some kind of body of water. My husband and I are fonder of slobbing than our kids, so some degree of compromise is always required – though the amount has been going down steadily as the kids are getting older and more self-sufficient.

Anyway, as you may have surmised, I am talking about beach resort vacations which are very popular with my fam, especially this time of year. None of us can wait to get a little respite from the cold or, as in my case, to go and do as little as possible – apart from eating and reading – for an entire blissful week. This year, we are traveling to the Riviera Maya in Mexico (our usual fun-in-the-sun destination) with my parents and I am not exaggerating when I say that the prospect of this vacation has been keeping me going for the last 6 weeks or so. And while I don’t love travel planning in general, there is one very important exception: planning my vacation reading list. It’s one of my favourite exercises in list-making.

Choosing the right books to take along on a beach vacation is critical to my enjoyment of said vacation. Slobbing is no fun without a good book, and “good” in this context has its own criteria. A zippy read, nothing too turgid (think War and Peace), nothing too depressing (which means either too serious or too sad). I like a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and different genres of each, for variety. Short stories are particularly good because you can consume them in small chunks of time organized to suit the rhythms of beach resort life.

If I were the kind of person who used a Kindle, curating a beach reading list would be less of an art; presumably, I would just load a bazillion e-titles on my device and figure out what to read on the ground, as it were. But I am not that person. I am a physical book ride-or-die. I am the kind of person who will skimp on resort attire in order to pack an extra paperback or four into my suitcase. Don’t @ me, I am a lost cause.

Did I mention that I also read very quickly? Like, I am not a speed reader per se, but I can finish an entire medium-sized book in a day if I put my mind to it. There is nothing worse than not packing enough reading material; it makes the return flight, in particular, extra grueling. By the same token, over-packing reading materials is not the best move when I am literally paying for the privilege of carting paper around the continent; so finding the balance is key … and tricky.

Anyway, with all those factors in mind, here’s what I picked for Mexico 2020. [Note: with the exception of the Sapkowsky, Bowman, and Zweig books, all were thrifted.]

I have been saving these Witcher books for the last month and I am dying to read them. They are the first 2 books written in the series, and largely form the basis for the first season of the Netflix show. Each is a collection of short stories, and I’ve heard that they’re based on traditional fairy tales – with a twist, of course. “Twisted fairy tale” is one of the few fantasy sub-genres that I unreservedly love, so these books would be up my alley even without the Witcher element. There is a possibility that I will cave and read the first book before my trip; in that case, I will substitute the 3rd title in the series, Blood of Elves, which is a novel.

I love packing mystery books for vacation reads, especially short stories. Ngaio Marsh is one of the queens of mystery writing, so I’m sure her collected short stories will be excellent; I have and adore all of her mystery novels, some of which I have taken with me to Mexico before. I tried to come up with a second story collection to bring along, but thrifting didn’t turn up anything, and nothing else on Amazon called my name. So I decided to bring a novel instead.

Anne Cleeves is a recent discovery for me. I read The Crow Trap and Telling Tales and found them reminiscent of PD James, who is another one of my all-time faves, so this was a no-brainer. What I love most about the Vera Stanhope series is the psychological insights into the characters and the fact that the plot is shaped around them rather than the crime itself.

Speaking of good mysteries, Donna Leon is another recent discovery; her police procedurals featuring Guide Brunnetti of the Venetian Questura are a joy to read – as much for the glimpse into daily life in Venice, as for the mysteries.

For non-fiction, I always like to throw in a gossipy historical biography if possible; I especially love Old Hollywood stuff and this Natalie Wood biography is perfect because I don’t already know much about her life. I mean, I can read a million Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor books and still not be bored, but it’s nice to branch out sometimes.

I also threw in this Mary Roach book because I love her writing and enjoy the quirky topics that she chooses. Am I especially interested in space travel? No, but I am sure I will enjoy this book regardless. As a bonus, this is something my husband will probably ask to borrow as well.

Straight up fiction is a tough category for me because, in general, I prefer darker stuff over fluffy reads and those don’t always make for happy reading. Last year, I brought My Year of Rest and Relaxation to Mexico as one of my fiction picks, and it was an ok choice. I didn’t capital-L-love the book for various reasons, but it met my beach read criteria: enjoyable reading experience, not too heavy, not too sad. [That being said, on my honeymoon years ago, I brought Let The Right One In and it was a fantastic pick – I still have fond memories of reading it by the pool. So, you know, take all of this with a pinch of salt or whatever.]

This year, I chose Elinor Olephant Is Completely Fine based on a recommendation from Xin at Invincible Summer. The description made me think of Eileen (also by Otessa Mosfegh) which I very much enjoyed, but in a lighter tone. We shall see.

For my other fiction pick, I was debating a few options. I recently thrifted Dumas’ The Last Cavalier – a novel I had not known existed, how is that even possible? – and was tempted to bring it along because The Three Musketeers was one of my fave novels growing up. However, it’s a huge honker of a paperback, and I was already worried about my weight restrictions. Also, Dumas is hit and miss for me – I’m not a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, for example. The other options were (i) a collection of short stories by Tanith Lee, but it would have been too similar in genre to the Witcher books; and (ii) First Man In Rome by Colleen McCollough, but it was rather too big of a book to drag along.

And then, in a surprise last minute decision, I picked this collection of Stefan Zweig novellas. How? Well, funny story. I was reading a collection of mystery short stories, which included an excerpt from a novella called “The Grand Babylon Hotel” by Arnold Bennett. I did not particularly enjoy that excerpt, but it made me wonder if there were other novels set at a large fancy hotel featuring mysteries and derring-do. Somehow, my search brought me to Wes Anderson’s script for The Grand Budapest Hotel, whose Amazon page mentioned that it was inspired by Zweig’s writings. And, voila, I was influenced. The name is familiar to me (I seem to vaguely recall that my mom was a fan of Zweig) but I don’t know much about the works in this collection beyond what’s on the back cover. It’s a risky choice, but I’m hoping it pays off. Stay tuned.

And that’s it. Eight books for (technically) 8 days, including travel time. I think this will be enough but not too much … and if push comes to shove, I’ll be using the resort wifi to stream Netflix as a back-up entertainment option.

Do you have a process for curating your vacation reads? How do you decide what to bring along, and what are some of your fave vacation books? And what have you been watching on Netflix lately (just in case)? I am ready to be influenced.