Winter is our reading season, not that we don’t read during the rest of the year. In the early years we wrecked suitcases carrying books for the winter - always too few and having to meet a number of criteria. No hard covers (too heavy). No books that we wanted to keep, as we had to trade as we went. Only books of interest to both of us. Often we were in countries where English language books were difficult to find, which meant our tastes became, of necessity, more eclectic, as we acquired books that had been left in hotel lobbies or reposed in the tiny “foreign” section of second hand book shops in non-English countries. We still occasionally see a reference to a book - most recently Evelyn Waugh’s satirical novel Scoop (1938) - and realise that we read it, years ago, mostly because it was there.
The enormous change for us came with the introduction of e-books. We knew they existed, but our first sight of one came in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, famous for its role in the Easter 1916 Irish Uprising. We shared a park bench with a man who was using a book reader. He said he loved “real” books but was travelling with ten books on the reader. We were sold.
Not only could we travel with as many books as we wished but we were no longer limited to daytime reading in a world of hotels lit by badly placed 40 watt light bulbs. (And yes, J has been known to replace them with higher wattage).
Meanwhile “real” books have become much easier to find in non English speaking countries. (Though there always were surprising exceptions, like the overflowing second hand book shop in Antalya, Türkiye in 2001 where the multilingual proprietor assumed that we must be as familiar with the work of Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul as he was). Charity shops became a good source where there were expat communities. Here the animals rescue people have an excellent booth at the weekly market.
And so we have books. Hard cover, soft cover, e-books. More than we’ll probably finish but happy choices. Real books to read outside in the sunlight and e-books for the iPads at night. And, as we’ve always done, several designated for the old Victorian custom of reading aloud so we can share the enjoyment and discuss them, although we do other reading separately as well. Currently the shared books are:
* commentator/journalist John Simpson’s Unreliable Sources, surveying trends and biases in twentieth century reporting
* Irish writer Roddy Doyle’s highly engaging memoir of his parents, Rory and Ita, most of it in their own words, as they experienced life in Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1970’s
* Peter Oborne’s recently released (last month, another advantage to ebooks is the immediate availability) book Complicit, a “fearless and forensic” examination of Britain’s role in the destruction of Gaza.
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