Five MORE holiday books to The Algarve

Right. I’m a creature of habit. One of my better habits is in taking an annual holiday, whose main purpose is to read. I am lucky. Or I’ve made my luck. Or a bit of both. Anyway, my ‘five books to The Algarve‘ post was popular last year, so why not give it another go, huh? I am, after all, a human in need of affirmation, clicks and contact.

“Guys; let’s hit this one out the park.
I’m looking for dub-didge (double digit) views here.”

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Anyway, here are the five books I’m going to take to The Algarve this year:

Right, so, what is this? Definitely not kind of airport trash. Not that I’m entirely sure what airport trash is, or guilty pleasures are; and not that I’m entirely snobby about popular or mass market titles. (I retain the right and quite happy to admit I’m a bit snobby). It’s just that, for me, a holiday is quite a precious time and the opportunity to charge up on smarter stuff you might not be able to fully concentrate on at home.

I’d say this selection is kind of smart, and ever so slightly ‘up itself’.

Here’s a kind of rationale, for those who might be interested:

• First; they’re on my ‘to read’ list. Obvious thing to say perhaps, but I tend not to reread, and don’t reread on holiday. Occasionally, I’ll haul out one a crusty trusty novel or something from one of my favourite writers, but as I say, I like something new and fresh for my recovering mind;
• Second; a bit of variety. I don’t always take a non-fiction title, but every time I pick The Watchers up, it looks great. Elizabethan espionage? Sounds promising.
• Third; a mix of classics I’d like to catch up on, and some more contemporary texts. I’ll move quickly over the fact that the contemporary titles were published nine and ten years ago. And anyway, 2014 is pretty much now, right?
• Fourth – having just checked Can’t and Won’t, I’ll get through that very quickly (I suspect) and length of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum and pretty large type and thick paper of Their Eyes Were Watching God look promising as I try and catch up to somewhere where I’d like to be on the ‘number of books read this year’ count.

I’ve read four out of the five books I took on hols last year; I think these were pretty much all within the week I was in Portugal. Flippin’ ‘eck; that Pessoa was hard work…