Happy Canada Day, friends! I am celebrating by blocking off the afternoon to do nothing but read a book by a Canadian author, and will wear one of the three pieces of red clothing that I own. I am currently wearing an ancient red Tri-Y top, but it will be very sweaty before long.
Speaking of reading, I wanted to share my reading – and NOT reading – list from my recent trip to London and South Africa. Before my trip, I was chatting with my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE). She and I have had a monthly check-in since January 2018, and we’ve never missed a month, despite Covid, vacations, and a cross-province move. She is the person who best knows my reading taste, and she asked what I had loaded up my Kobo with. I cheerfully told her that it was mostly filled with random romances and other light-sounding books from the library and from the Kobo website; I had several very long flights and stopovers in my future, and I wanted the reading to be fluffy and fun.
And let me tell you, this was a mistake.
I’m the problem, hi, it’s me. Something I know about myself is that too many “light and fun” books in a row, and I start to become very unengaged with the tropey stories. I am also not a Spicy Romance girl; I find graphic sex scenes to be weirdly boring and, in the case of a few very descriptive anal ones, alarming. I have been known to inadvertently Kegel whilst reading them. I prefer a sexy, fade-to-black Closed Door Romance. I just don’t want to read about throbbing cocks penetrating wet pussies, I AM SORRY, BUT I DON’T.
Unrelated to spiciness, I plodded my way through The Friend Zone and Kitchen, and then I ran out of patience. I was in the midst of Ready or Not, which deals with a woman who gets accidentally pregnant from a one-night stand with a bartender, even though they used condoms, which, as we all know from sex ed and also from that stupid storyline of Ross and Rachel, are only 97% effective. Okay! But the pregnant woman is seemingly completely unaffected and unaware that her life is going to change, and starts a romance with her best friend’s brother, at which point I said ENOUGH. I started, and DNF’d, four more books IN A ROW: Book People, Strangers Tend To Tell Me Things, Exit Lane, And Then There Was You. I began to despair for myself as both a reader and as a writer.
Then something changed, and my reading life brightened up again. Thankfully! So here’s the low down on what I DID finish, the lows, the highs, and the in-betweens.
Vacation Reading: London and South Africa 2026
The Friend Zone. In my 20s, a friend told me she and her husband divorced because he wanted kids and she didn’t. “There’s no compromise,” she said. “It’s you have kids or you don’t.” That’s kind of the premise of this romance – a guy wants kids, a woman has extreme fibroids and maybe can’t, they never discuss it…you know what, this book is kind of dumb. But it was an easy read for travel and all’s well that ends well. Also, the author based it on her friend’s lived experience so…great for her, I guess? A meh read, kind of disappointing as I like this author generally.
Kitchen. This was a original little read about found family and the power of food to bring people together. I didn’t find it overly compelling or engaging, but it was short.
Why We Hate Cheap Things. Also titled, Why I Hate My Kobo Which Keeps Glitching So That I Read A Random Book In My London Hotel Room. But honestly, this WAS an interesting read about society’s devaluation of low-cost consumer goods, from pineapples, which once were extremely expensive and rare and are now frequently found on pizzas and in jello salads, to clothing. There was an entire series, with titles like Why We Will Marry The Wrong Person, but my Kobo started working again and we left London.
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife. Oh lordy did I need this refreshing little book after my string of DNF’s. This was very sweet, the definition of heart warming. After an elderly man dies, another is mistakenly taken for him – and as the dead man was a dementia patient, no one listens to his protests. Soon he assumes the nursing home life that the deceased had…and ends up with friends and family he never dreamed of. Just a fun, lovely little read.
Always Pack a Candle. This was fantastic. I very much enjoyed this memoir of a public health nurse who worked in the Williams Lake/ Cariboo region in BC in the 1960s. Thanks to Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) for the recommendation!
Hamnet. Late to the party but I loved, loved, loved this book! Maggie O’Farrell can WRITE, wow. This is such an incredibly loving and beautiful story about every mother’s worst imagining – the loss of her child. This is the kind of historical fiction that I love – often I dislike that genre, but this has beautiful writing, fascinating characters, and a rich story. I finished this on the plane and then thought I would watch the movie – and I lasted all of ten minutes before turning it off. Too soon? I don’t know.
Definitely a mixed bag of books, and my ongoing resolution to DNF more was definitely upheld. What are you reading these days, what have you DNF’d, tell me everything. xo
Might I suggest that you check out “The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano”? It’s about the same topic as The Friend Zone, but it’s so well done. It’s about a couple that has differing views on having children and the 9 ways the woman’s life might have played out based on different decisions (they don’t have kids and stay married, they do have kids and stay married, etc, etc). I really really liked it and read her sophomore novel in June.
Right now I am reading “Culpability” and it’s so good, especially with all the chatter around AI. It’s my book club book for August when I am the leader and it’s going to make for such a great discussion!
I should have DNF’d Into the Blue but I had to see what all the buzz was about. I would skip it. Books I DNF’d recently were “Love By the Book” (I was so bored!), “The Reservation” (quite a buzzy book but the change in POV in each chapter was not working for me and I did not care who took the gd steaks from the restaurant), and “With Her Own Hands” (sadly our July book club book but it read very academic – I need more of a narrative non-fiction structure to a book).
Happy Canada Day! I dream of visiting you in your lovely province some day!!! I’ll come crash your house and eat all your delicious veggie-laden meals (I’ll do the dishes! And weed! And walk Rexie!) and we can talk about books and gossip!
I have added Nine Lives and Culpability to my TBR! Although I am slightly hesitant to read something a) by a man, and b) about AI, I trust you!
OMG Lisa, I would love for you to come and visit me. I have a beautiful guest room FILLED WITH BOOKS, I have a garden full of produce, I love cooking, I have a dog who loves to be petted, I HAVE IT ALL JUST COME STAY! Oh and also I live on a vineyard and always have a cellar full of wine.
I heard a podcast episode on Into The Blue and noped it!
I used to teach Kitchen in a World Lit by Women class when I was a grad student. We could pick our own books but there was a list of recommendations and it was on it. I liked it pretty well (I think, it was a long time ago– LAST CENTURY).
Hamnet is a gem.
I have four books in progress right now: The 1619 Project (which I’ve been meaning to read for years, not as dense as I feared), The Rose Field (last book in the Book of Dust trilogy, more complicated than it needs to be, but I have to know how it ends), Tokyo Express (a Japanese mystery from the 1950s, just started so no judgement), and Brigands and Breadknives (cozy fantasy, a fun palate cleanser). If I had to pick one for you, it would actually be the history book.
I felt like I SHOULD like Kitchen, and I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t really grab or move me.
Hamnet was so good! I just loved the whole thing, I loved the POVs, I loved the story arc. I really enjoy her style of writing!
I LOVED Always Pack a Candle (I think that’s how Birchie heard about it; can’t remember how I heard about it??). AND… Birchie let me know she has a follow-up book. I cannot wait to read it.
I’m currently reading My Life in France by Julia Child and it is long and wonderful and I will be so sad when it’s over. Perfect bedtime reading to calm the nervous system.
I feel like I’ve DNF’d a lot recently, but I don’t really keep track of those books. Maybe I should??
I started The Let Them book since it is SO BIG right now but could not get through it. Earlier this week I finished Theo of Golden which is having a moment. It was good, but I didn’t love it.
AND, my first stack of paper books is in for me at my library. I paused all my holds when we went away. It is going to be so weird to not read off a Kobo. I generally prefer paper books, but have to admit that it is so nice to not have a big stack cluttering up my bedside table, so I think I’ll lean more heavily on my Kobo during non-travel times, too.
Ahhhh I am so sorry I didn’t know you were the originator of the Always Pack A Candle unofficial book club! Sorry Elisabeth! But thank you for bringing it to Birchie’s attention, and ultimately my attention, because it was SO good. Also, it feels like it’s my backyard, so to speak, so very interesting.
Oh the Let Them book. Oh, I have feelings. I discovered that she had stolen the whole thing from a relatively unknown Instagram poet, passed it off as her own, made $$$$$$$$, and NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED THE POET. I need to find the article in which I read it, but it made me so mad, and I cannot even HEAR about it without becoming furious. I’m so glad you couldn’t get through it because I AM SO FURIOUS ABOUT IT (and I have not, obviously, read it).
I unpaused my holds as well and I too have been enjoying a book flood!
I TOO FIND GRAPHIC SEX SCENES UNAPPEALING. I like the descriptor “boring.” I am going to mull that over to see if it fits my feelings too. If I’d had to pick a word before reading, I think I would have gone with “cringe” or “unappealing,” but I like the vibe of “boring.”
I am always interested in your books section, because I take so many of the recommendations, like a lil vampire. I recently read the Frederick Fife one and enjoyed it so much.
Swistle, I’m staying with boring because I tend to skim them. They add nothing to the story, IMO. Sometimes there are pages and pages! HOW MANY BONER DESCRIPTORS DO WE NEED? (zero)
Frederick Fife was just a delight of a book!
The irony of a random book in a London hotel being more interesting than the fluffy books on your Kobo! That one about marriage actually sounds interesting too.
Why are so many books so DUMB? I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m slowly slogging through “The Life List” in French. I find the story infuriatingly stupid and unrealistic, but it’s actually perfect for language learning because I understand more of it than an Agatha Christie book. Which probably should have warned me.
PS: KEGEL!! That was hilarious!! 😂😂
I wish I had the time to read the marriage one, because I was curious! I’m glad it was there to save me from my reading rut/ Kobo glitch!
Ahhhh Catrina, I wish I had an answer for that – why ARE some books so dumb? How do they get published? Where are the editors? I mean, I don’t know, but I am going to continue on my DNFing!
I don’t care for super graphic sex scenes either. Don’t might a sexy situation that lets your mind fill in the rest. Always Pack a Candle sounds good, just checked my Libby app and they don’t have an audio version which is always my first choice, but putting it on my to read later list……..which is growing by leaps and bounds. Watched the movie Hamnet and found it very dark and depressing so removed the book from my to read list. Have been surprised by how highly it’s been rated. Glad you’re out of your rut of DNF, we all go through that. Too many good books to keep reading one you’re not enjoying.
Sandy, exactly. I have an imagination! I don’t mind using it! I don’t really want to hear all the graphic details! Or, read them, I guess.
You’re SO right, there are so many good books out there, who has the time to read the non-enjoyable ones?
It’s strange how we are alike in many ways, but often diverge on our tastes in reading. I love Kitchen. I read it twice, once when I was in my early 20s and now again because the kids have rediscovered her & my daughter loves her. I find her writing to be sparse yet so beautiful. Oh my Kobo! The glitching is so bad! It just freezes and you have to try to jiggle the power button just right to get it to turn back on. Having cut ties with Amazon, I wish another company would come up with a reliable ereader option! We’ve put humans in space, you’d think we could accomplish that. In my opinion it would be a better use of techies’ minds than creating AI (which seems to be ensuring we reach new levels of illiteracy).
Does Barnes and Noble still have the Nook? My husband has an old one that he loves.
Laura, I know! It’s so odd, but true. I did not hate Kitchen but I didn’t love it either. I wanted to love it because you did! But alas.
I AM SO MAD WITH MY KOBO. But what can be done? I can’t travel with ten books in tow. Actually what I did was buy a new one, but the very simple Clara BW version, so hopefully one with no bells and whistles will serve me better.
Hard agree with reliable ereader options over AI!
Happy Canada Day! My Canadian husband is the result of a failed condom! LOL.
I am relieved that you loved Hamnet, because I loved it so much. I wish you had loved the film, I had to go out and buy the DVD I loved it so much. Perhaps a second try will win you over, perhaps not.
OMG on the throbbing cocks and wet pussies in books. I abhor them. Yes, give me a good closed door scene and I’m all in. I was listening to a book with VERY spicy sex scenes They All Fall in Love at the End while wandering the grocery store aisles and it was a little unnerving. Thankfully they weren’t too long.
I just read and then immediately re-read (listened to) The Things We Never Say and I also finished reading (physical book) Whistler and immediately started it over again. Sometimes good writing does that to me and I want to jump back in with the full knowledge of the book and look at how masterfully they handle everything. LOVE IT.
The Jimenez book sounds interesting in theory, but I will admit that I get tired of books where the trope is that people do not communicate. I am that trope however. My mom realized that my dad was my dad (she thought she was already pregnant with her ex-husband’s baby when I was conceived…it was the 60s) when I was maybe 4, and didn’t tell him until I was 21. He and his wife (whom he had not yet met when I was conceived) ran into me and my mom when I was maybe 3, and after saying hi and catching up a bit and then parting, his wife said, “Are you sure that’s not your kid? She looks just like you”, and he said something like, “I think she would have told me…” UGH. I mean, I could have had many more years with my dad and sisters, even though we still would never have lived in the same state or anything…
I do not like reading on a device, but during travel is the perfect exception to that rule. So wonderful to be able to find more books so quickly and just start reading them. Do I need a nook or something before my next big trip? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll stick with my app on my iPad (which I loathe – the app, not the iPad.)
Lololol I just pictured you in the produce aisle, side eyeing the peaches and cucumbers.
Wow, what a story about your dad/ conception! That is wild. It was a different time to be sure – hey, maybe you should write the story! It would make a great book!
I also far prefer paper books but it’s just not feasible while travelling!
Happy Canada Day! I’ll be spending it watching Wimbledon. It’s SOOO HOT here, so I’m inside, blinds drawn, AC on. You know about my last awful rom-com read (by a Canadian author no less). But then I read Annabel Monaghan’s DOLLY ALL THE TIME, and loved it, thus redeeming the genre for me. I have yet to read on a Kobo or Kindle! So behind the times, but yes, they would be great for travel. Pineapples do NOT belong on a pizza – I stand by that.
Dolly All The Time is on my list, I’m wayyyy down in the queue though, so it could be a while!
I personally don’t care if pineapple is on pizza or not, it is not for me but neither is meat and that’s everywhere! Lol!
The Kobo – when it works – is unbeatable for travel! But when it glitches it’s disaster!
Can’t believe I missed that Annabel Monaghan had a new book out — thank you!!
I know exactly what you mean about when light and fluffy goes wrong. Dryer lint is also light and fluffy, but it’s the vibe that I’m after in my reading. I also don’t want an open door, especially not an open back door. Offhand Promise Me Sunshine is the only romance that I’ve read and enjoyed recently.
There’s a sequel to Always Pack a Candle called Always on Call that for some reason is not available on Kindle or the library so I bought the physical book. I’m looking forward to it, but since I own it I don’t have the time pressure of a library checkout time to force me to start it.
I keep hearing good things about Hamnet, so I’m tempted. I read a Maggie O’Farrell book a long time ago that I didn’t like on a “I don’t want to read this author ever again” level, but I feel like I might want to revisit her and see if just maybe I’m missing out.
Oh, I wonder what that book was – I have really enjoyed all her books (except I have ISSUES with the ending of The Marriage Portrait!)
Oooh let me know how the sequel is! I’m going to see if my library has it.
Promise Me Sunshine was great!
You crack me up! What a bummer to have a streak of bad books along with a glitching KOBO. Frederick Fife sounds like a good one to me. I find I’m liking plots with older characters more and more lately. I hope you have a lovely afternoon of reading! Happy Canada Day!
Oh Michelle, I think you will love Frederick Fife. It’s such a feel-good book. I love an older character book too – especially if there is a romantic component to it. We aren’t dead!
Thank you!
In many way, I think “Hamnet” was one of the finest books about grief and grieving ever written. It just socks you in the stomach and yes, the language is beautiful. I think I’d enjoy Frederick Fife and the cariboo one. Romances were never much my thing, even the light ones.
I love a romance myself, but I can get tired of them.
Hamnet was such an incredible book on grief. So beautiful and so moving! And thank you – I am wearing my red shirt (which clashes with my hair, sadly) right now!
PS — Happy Canada Day! You reminded me and I changed int my Canada tshirt!
I have gotten sucked into Fourth Wing. Am now on Iron Flame. Send help. My husband is making fun of me and now calls me “Dragon Lady.”
Hahahaha the heart wants what it wants, Rachael!
I feel exactly the same about Romance Spice. It’s the same way I feel about, well, p0rn. The eroticism is in the story and the character development and the build up to the act, not in the size, shape, or insertion point of the anatomical elements. In books, I also feel like there’s the added pressure of trying to come up with new and unique metaphors/imagery for sex organs and friction and positions and sounds, and I find it dull, unappetizing, and slightly embarrassing. The egg salad of the fiction world, you might say.
Last month was full of DNFs for me, too, and I think it’s partly because I overindulged in mysteries/thrillers. Like you and fluffy romances, there is a saturation point and once it’s been reached, there’s no cure but to read something wildly different.
THE EGG SALAD OF THE FICTION WORLD. Am dead now.
You understand me completely! Too much of a good thing is TOO MUCH.
Ah, the post I looked forward to :)! I’m so glad you enjoyed _Hamnet_. I might have been a little heartbroken otherwise. And I think the movie may have been better than the book! (I don’t have the opportunity to say that very often!)
Just finished her latest, _Land_.
Maybe I’ll try again with the movie but, knowing me, I probably won’t. I just loved that book, it was so beautiful. How was Land?
REALLY good! But I wanted different arcs for almost every character!
Well, I will put it on the TBR – but I’m having a book flood right now so it will be a while!
I also like a lighter book for travel – I don’t want anything too heavy or complicated. I hear you though on too many fluffy books in a row. It gets a bit boring. I just finished Always Pack a Candle – I love that type a book and can’t wait to read her 2nd one. She was so gutsy! Sorry about your Kobo. Mine glitches occasion but if I hold the power button until it goes off it will be on when turned back on. I still love mine. I wonder what would happen if you complained?
I could complain, I guess, I didn’t think about that! I found myself powering it down more than once to get it to run smoothly, which was annoying. Always Pack a Candle was so good!
I loved Hamnet so much that I can’t bring myself to watch the movie. I just feel like every word and image of the book is perfect in my head the way O’Farrell wrote it and I dont’ need to see it onscreen.
Right now I’m reading Sing, Unburied, Sing – which is beautifully written but also really sad. And also tearing my way through some mediocre romance novels by Eva Leigh. I don’t mind spicy romance novels, but I do like it better if the writing is good and the characters are interesting and not stupid.
Diane, that’s how I felt about the movie – and most movies based on books, to be honest. You are right on that – it was a perfect image in my head and the movie wasn’t living up to that.
As for romance novels – I need a good dialogue. If the dialogue is stilted I don’t enjoy it. Also I need believable characters and a somewhat decent story!
Maggie O’Farrell is one of my favorite authors and I’m working my way through all her books. I’m currently reading the newest, Land, and it’s not a disappointment! My favorite of hers is The Marriage Portrait, but for you I’d recommend I Am, I Am, I Am, which is a memoir and has lots about motherhood.
Sarah! I read I Am I Am I Am in 2019 and loved it. The funny thing is I just looked that book up and as I read the description I thought “wait a minute, I think I read it.” I checked my spreadsheet and sure enough!
I did not like how the Marriage Portrait ended but I liked the rest of it a lot, especially since I like “My Last Duchess.”
Oh, I want the spice. If an author closes the door on me, I have been known to get really salty. Some of the best scenes in romance novels have been sex scenes where the author really does the work and makes important character developments. Close the door. Pfft. What if the sex is BAD? I need to know details.
The Friend Zone made me sooooo mad. It was bad enough she wasn’t honest with him, but then the authors just like “who cares about women’s health and the unlikelihood that this ending would happen.” It felt like such a slap in the face to women facing infertility/women’s health challenges. I have it in a list of books that I will post long paragraphs about in other people’s comments because I feel it is my duty to tell women NOT to ever read it.
When I got to the end of The Friend Zone, I thought about all the women I know who have had fertility struggles and endometriosis, and it felt very flip to me. I read the acknowledgements where Jimenez said that it happened to a friend of hers, and I’m happy for that friend, but the reality is the chances of a pregnancy with this kind of thing are very small. If I was a woman suffering from infertility, that book would have been very upsetting. It was upsetting anyway! Like I said I like this author generally but this book wasn’t great.
I can see how too many fluffy books lead to not being engaged… occasionally fluffy is good, only fluffy is bad. Haha.
I am slowly coming back to reading (it’s an up and down for me and i need to be in the right mood) and I am reading a book about caregiver burnout called “Already toast” (oh boy, not fluffy). I should read something fluffy next.
Interestingly, the book is written by a local author here from Sacramento, so there are a lot of local references that I appreciated (like a local hospital or restaurant).
Caregiver burnout is real! I have seen it happen a lot. I love when a book takes place in a location that I know – it’s so fun to see local details!
I thought I would try a romance because it was on Canada Reads, It’s Different This Time by Joss Richards and though I grew up reading my Mom’s Harlequin romances and I’m not opposed to the genre at all – I DNF’ed it! Two humans at the top of their respective games in very fickle fields, inheriting a 6 million brownstone – and true love with the hottest humans on the planet! yawn
There was plenty of egregious spice in it too, and I totally agree with you, not a fan. Not a prude, just not a fan! It’s the worst when you’re listening to it as an audio book, which I can’t easily skim and I have to think about the poor narrator reading the scene – and your phone connects to the car automatically or I’m listening at work and feel like everyone can tell what I’m listening to or worry that my Bluetooth link will drop – yipes!
At the risk of sounding too negative, let me name something I did enjoy reading lately – some Australians! Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood and the books by Helen Garner they’ve finally been publishing in North America – like This Season about paying attention to and reporting on her Grandson’s Aussie Rules teams season or This House of Grief reporting on a trial for murder in Australia – really enjoying.
Sometimes I’ll put in my earbuds and press play, but for whatever reason the earbuds haven’t connected, and it just plays loudly on my phone. Eeeeep.
Oooh I don’t know those authors/ books, but I will look them up right this minute!
I get exactly what you’re saying about that romance. Book People – which I DNF’d – was like that. Two people own bookstores across from each other, and they HATE each other. But also? They are GORGEOUS and they want to fuck each other! But no! They hate each other! Etcetera. Snore.
Ooh, I’m sorry to hear about your Kobo. I am sideloading on my Kindle at the moment, and waiting for it to die so I can justify buying a Kobo for myself. I have been doing a lot of what I call TV reading as I am often too tired after work to read, but I also have three other books going right now that are more difficult. I need to tie one or two off, it is getting out of hand. I’ll have to check out Hamnet, historical fiction is not really my thing, but it has been so revered, I may need to rethink.
TV reading! I like that term. Sometimes you need something easy and fun, right?
Historical fiction is also not my thing, too often everything wraps up in an unbelievably neat bow, or modern values are brought into something from like the eighteenth century…it’s just not my thing. But Hamnet was absolutely gorgeous!
WELL NICOLE. I read The Blind Assassin, thanks to you, and it was my top book for June. So thank you for that- I probably wouldn’t have read it if not for your rave reviews. Since then I’ve kind of sunk into a lot of mystery reading- murder mysteries to me are what romance novels are to you. Easy, fun, and then eventually I need something more. Right now I’m reading a sci fi book which I know would not be up your alley, but it’s REALLY good. It’s also a mystery, so it gets bonus points.
Jenny! I’m so glad you loved The Blind Assassin! It’s such a great book. A story within a story within a story! I think you’re right about my romance being your murder mystery – enjoyable but eventually you need a little bit more!
Oh, boy…my first-ever manuscript contained a graphic sex scene that is very embarrassing to me in hindsight. Luckily, that one never saw the light of day. I have learned that when it comes to writing about sex, unlike actually doing it, less is more.
BWHAHAHAHA “less is more” indeed! That cracked me up.
I”m like you Nicole, I can’t do too fluffy/simple plot books, I get bored so easily. I like books with texture, nuances, thus I now save a TBR list based on your reviews. I am still working on Sedaris’s book which I love and can totally see why you love it too, the pop clothing story is just too funny. I am marking Hamnet for my next fiction read.
Oh I’m so glad you are enjoying the Sedaris! He’s just so funny, I love the way he writes about mundane things and makes them so funny.
Kobo’s are great for travel…when they work! I have had a couple of glitches over the years. Fortunately, one was at the airport, so I just found the book store and bought myself a book for the long flight. Another time we were travelling in Geneva, Switzerland and we managed to find a book store that sold English books. Whew – I can’t travel without reading material!!
I read Always Pack a Candle and while I liked it I found it a bit repetitive and she talked a lot about the landscape. Probably because I live in BC and have travelled around the province a fair amount, I didn’t need her to tell me about it. I did really admire and respect her courage.
Loved Hamnet – both the book and the movie!
I guess that is true about Always Pack A Candle – I liked it but then I’ve only lived in BC for three years (three years already!)
What I should do is take a book just in case my Kobo fails me! That would be the smart thing to do. I cannot travel without reading material either!
I just finished Whistler and loved it! But the previous book was a DNF: Boring Asian Female by Elizabeth Zhang. Normally, I love any book about Asians (I have no idea why, this started long before I had a Chinese DIL). But this book was awful. SO repetitive – how many times can the main character tells us how badly she wants to get into Harvard Law School? Then I could tell it was going to take a dark turn, so I said NOPE!
Off to read about your Africa adventures!
Sometimes you just need to DNF! Whistler was SO great!
I love historical fiction and have Hamnet on my TBR. Maybe it needs to get moved up?
It was on my TBR for a while and I don’t know why it took me so long to get to it!