BOOKING MY HOLIDAY

I'm off to Toulouse next week, so there will be a longer gap than usual between posts.  The process of preparing for a holiday, as ever, invokes the delicious dilemma of deciding which books to take, and the usual weighing of book space (as long as I hold out against the Kindle, Sony E-Book and Google Telepathy Electrodes) against that which might be used for relatively trivial items, such as clothes and shoes.

I'm taking Labyrinth, which I haven't read, order to enjoy it in an appropriate setting (particularly as a trip to Albi is planned) plus a few (wait for it) Capuchin Classics, but I'm also determined to plug some of the yawning chasms in my knowledge of those books considered as eternal landmarks of quality and meaning.  I finally read Paradise Lost during a recent holiday, and found that the time and mental peace occasioned by a break from work allowed me to absorb the book thoroughly and with great relish.  Perhaps it's about time (although I have read it before) to do the same with The Wasteland.

I ought to take something of French origin, and this will probably be Georges Perec's insane experiment of writing a novel without the letter 'e' (a feat, of course, matched by his translator) The Void.

As usual, I'll post my reactions on the wonderful Goodreads website.

Quotation of the day:

"Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."  W.H. Auden

A bientot.

David