Your favorite book you’ve ever read on vacation and why it was your favorite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read Big Little Lies on vacation (this was before the show came out) and it was super engrossing.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was another great one, especially for a longer vacation.

Sometimes fantasy novels make for great vacation reading. I read a couple of the Game of Thrones series books on vacation, as well as books by the Pullman His Dark Materials novels.

I know a lot of people like to read light romance and other easy books on vacation, but I actually prefer something extra engaging because when I'm on vacation I can let myself really get into it. I save lighter books for when I'm working and kids are in school and things are hectic, because that's all I have the bandwidth for. So I read the classic "beach reads" in the fall and go for heavier, longer books during vacations.

I am like this. On vacation I have much more emotional energy for tough, interesting, demanding reading. I read 2666 by Roberto Bolano on a three-week long vacation. (CW: It’s got a long section on murders of women in Mexican border towns). But I can really fall into something involving and more complex.

[Anonymous]

I always find it really satisfying to read books set in that place/country while on vacation. Th absolute best time I did this was on a trip to Colombia, when I read 100 years of Solitude, and then actually passed by the town that inspired Macondo (Aracataca) and got to visit the house. Magical.

Have also read "slouching towards Bethlehem" while in California, the Neopolitan Novels before a trip to Italy, etc. "just kids" while in NYC.

[Anonymous]

I love page turners on vacation because I can actually indulge (instead of having to work, etc). I think my favorites that I can remember are What Alice Forgot and Crazy Rich Asians

[Anonymous]

2nd enthusiastic endorsement for What Alice Forgot-- I remember LOVING that one. It's not at all dark like her more recent stuff.

Also, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

and finally "The Last Thing He Told Me" is a great plot driven book.

[Anonymous]

City of Girls, the House in the Cerulean Sea, What Alice Forgot, and Carrie Soto is back are some of my top vacation reads.

[Anonymous]

I stayed in a place one summer that had a library and you could take books home with you that you'd been reading if you'd not finished them, so long as you also left one behind that you'd brought (like the little-free-libraries but bigger).

Two books came home with me that I've cherished to this day

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
Wise Children by Angela Carter

[Anonymous]

My mom’s habit is always to pick up a book (often a murder mystery) set where she’s travelling to. I enjoy that too; gets me in the right mood. I think two that really stick in my head are when I went to London for the first time when I was 13 my mom leant me the copy of The Grand Sophy she was reading which was also my first introduction to Georgette Heyer. And a few years ago I was going to a conference in Grenoble and read Code Name Verity on the plane and was obsessed with all the WWII museums and informational signs and such when I arrived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom’s habit is always to pick up a book (often a murder mystery) set where she’s travelling to. I enjoy that too; gets me in the right mood. I think two that really stick in my head are when I went to London for the first time when I was 13 my mom leant me the copy of The Grand Sophy she was reading which was also my first introduction to Georgette Heyer. And a few years ago I was going to a conference in Grenoble and read Code Name Verity on the plane and was obsessed with all the WWII museums and informational signs and such when I arrived.

The Grand Sophy is one of my favorite books of all time! How nice to see it mentioned here.

[Anonymous]

When I was 18, I went to Maine on vacation with the people I babysat for. I had never been there before. We went to a small coastal town north of Kennebunkport and stayed in this cool old house. I picked up Stephen King's It and read it in one night. I had never read any of his books before or since. I then read the end of the book where it mentioned he lived in Maine. After a week there, I completely understood how the state would produce a guy like him. There were some odd characters in that town. So not my favorite vacation book but the most memorable.

[Anonymous]

I will tell you what not to read on a vacation: Station Eleven. I had no idea what it was about, had just heard buzz on it so I got it for our beach trip. While it was an excellent, well written book, I still have parts of that story seared into my brain that I wish I could forget.

I also read Big Little Lies on another trip and that was a positive. Toward the end, I gasped so loudly at a plot twist my H asked me if I was okay. I immediately started over when I finished it to see the story with a new perspective. I think that's the best one of Liane Moriarty's books.