Beyond the suitcase - and what to pack in said suitcase - the other matter of consideration that is taking up most of my pre-trip time is what book to bring on board. I see a gajillion movies for my job, so in-flight entertainment generally doesn't appeal to me; I'm not the best sleeper on planes, so that's only going to take up an hour or two - and while I love my iPod, it has limited battery life.
It doesn't help that I'm one of those people who walk into a bookstore and start hyperventilating because there's so many books that I want to read. I set some ground rules: no books from the library (See? I respect tax dollars!), no hardcovers (heavy), and no books that belong to other people (fear of loss). I was going to bring Jen's selection for book club, Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - but it's just so dorky to bring a Czech author's book to the Czech Republic. I think I'd rather finish it when I get back, so I have some sort of context.
I really want to read Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl - but, you know, hardcover. Jen bought it and intends to bring it, so in theory I could read it at some point...but I don't want to mooch Jen's book before we even get out of North American airspace.
George recently loaned me Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl, and I realized I was spending a lot of time wishing I could take this book -even though it broke two of my rules - again with the hardcover, and belonging to someone else. So, in the end, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a paperback version. It's long, it's trashy with a veneer of respectibility, and it's perfect.
