Reading on the Road

I never travel without packing a book. Doesn’t mean I always read a lot when on the road, sometimes maybe not much at all. Just don’t feel comfortable without having a book with me. Or maybe two. Doesn’t make a difference whether it’s for work or leisure either. Once accidentally left a book on the plane while on a flight to Shanghai. The first order of business was to buy one there as soon as I could. Not exclusively, but I often bring thrillers with me. There’s one thriller series that I never even read or have read while at home. Every single installment of it I’ve read while away. A bit like its main character who’s always on the move and doesn’t even have a home.

The first Jack Reacher novel I ever read was The Hard Way. Just had picked up a copy on impulse and loved it and it’s always a plus to read a book while being where it’s set. After returning home from NYC, I saw a copy of the Dutch translated edition in a local bookstore, and noticed on the cover they used Cheyenne to portray the diner where Reacher drinks his coffee. Cheyenne was a classic diner with chrome furniture and neon colors that I stumbled upon during my first ever visit to NYC in 1988 and frequented it every time I was in NYC again, also during that fall in 2007. Sadly, now it’s no longer there. Anyways, since then I was hooked on Lee Child’s creation and started buying older Reacher novels when and where I could find them and always read them while traveling somewhere. Actually I bought most of the copies while away from home too and Reacher became the only person to join me on all my trips. Sometime around 2012 I caught up and since then I just buy the paperback version of the latest edition in spring and read it while traveling in the summer. For some reason I prefer the American editions over the European ones and made it a habit to buy the latest US paperback edition while attending the annual NAFSA Conference in the last week of May every year.

And then 2020 came and everything was different. We did visit Porto in February but then borders closed and all planned trips for the spring were canceled and so was the scheduled trip to China and New Zealand we had cooked up for the summer. Headed out to Spain instead. Not a bad alternative really. A great road trip. Took in Bilbao, the Picos de Europa, Santiago de Compostela, Burgos and Pamplona too. Made me reread Ernest Hemingway’s Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises. Travel really also is a great inspiration to start (re)reading something. Actually I read quite a few books because of travel. Both fiction and nonfiction. Especially stuff about the Great Plains.

The ultimate classic book about road tripping is On the Road by Jack Kerouac of course. Was drawn to it because of the title alone that conjured up images of the open roads that I so badly wanted to see for myself and read it because of that reason in high school for English literature class. Reread it many years later but was disappointed by it then and thought Kerouac was a no good bum and deadbeat and his exploits weren’t particularly interesting to read about anymore either. Guess travel didn’t nearly interest him as much as getting drunk and stoned and if you want to read about that there’s none better than Charles Bukowski who is honest and not a pretentious twat. The last book I reread while in lockdown was Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger. Heard about the movie adaptation and picked it up again. Transported me back immediately to India. The sounds, the colors, the smells. All of it. The power of the written word. Books have always been our window on the world. Even more so when it was mostly closed.