Who Stays and Who Goes...Deciding on Vacation Reads

Technically, everyone goes, since a vast array of fiction is now waits on my original Nook, but trying to decide which books are bestowed the honor of being forever classified as a"vacation read"is a tough call, especially when so many great titles beckon. Are you a plane book? Are you a beach book? Are you a waiting-in-the-airport book? These are issues that true bibliophiles grapple with, not the casual vacation reader, like my dear husband. For me, the books I read on vacation are as much a part of the special memories as any other traveling experience I have when away from home. When I see a copy of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I am immediately back on board Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. When I see a copy of The Vacationers, I am whisked away to a chaise facing the Caribbean Sea in my beloved Mexico. Each one of my trips is marked by the books I read.

When it comes to selecting the books I will read on the plane, my mind is wanting something I can get completely and utterly lost in so as to ignore the man sneezing incessantly behind me or the weird smell wafting my direction - something fast-paced and engaging that I can move through rather quickly and simply enjoy. You know, something that will probably be made into a movie eventually...even it is by Lifetime.

Contenders for the "plane category" for our upcoming summer vacation include the following. Click on each book cover to read more about it!

When it comes to the books I enjoy on the beach or near the pool, I am not nearly as picky. For me, a "beach read" is simply a book I happen to be reading at the beach and is not defined by existing as a particular genre one might call "fluff" or "chick-lit". (Although I am certainly not against books categorized as the aforementioned.) My beach reads are as eclectic as my reading tastes in general, so I am a real loose cannon when it comes to true vacation reading.

My dear reading friends, Lisa and Amy, recently supplied me with several contenders in preparation for this summer's vacation, and because I trust them both implicitly with my reading selections, deciding from their nominations will be truly difficult. A few of the books that I am considering for resort reading are featured here: 

I have also been telling my husband that the summer of 2015 would be the summer of an East of Eden reread, which I initially spent many lazy days by our marina swimming pool enjoying immensely in 2005. It isn't just my favorite of Steinbeck's works; it also happens to be one of my all-time favorite books, period. My husband, who also really likes Steinbeck, plans to read it for the first time while in Mexico, so perhaps both ePub and paperback versions of Steinbeck will be accompanying us south of the border. I have been hounding him to read this since our earliest days of marriage, and have repeatedly told him that he cannot consider himself a true Steinbeck fan until he has read its final page.