Charles, like you I tend to be a novel-reader when I'm travelling - at least, during the actual act of travelling. I often bring along a book of poetry, but save it for when I'm alone in the evenings and physically grounded. I don't find movement conducive to reading poetry. For me, it's something to be savoured in stillness and solitude, a little at a time, whereas when I'm on the move, I prefer the forward trajectory of narrative prose... so I suppose the type of book I favour corresponds to my physical state of motion or rest. I'd never thought about it that way before, but there you are!

Several years ago I spent a year in France teaching English. I had a lot of free time, and train tickets were cheap, so I spent a great part of my time exploring different regions of the country. I got into the habit of taking with me a book set in whichever region I was visiting (Le Rouge et Le Noir for Alsace, Lettres de mon moulin and L'Eau des collines for Provence, Le Grand Meaulnes for the Loire Valley, far too many to list for Paris), which I've retained every time I visit a new country. Indeed, I've been introduced to several of what are now my favourite writers that way - Cees Nooteboom (Netherlands), Jose Saramago (Portugal), Bernardo Atxaga and Javier Marias (Spain).

I don't think I've ever taken as many as five books with me on a trip, though (although it's quite a common occurrence for me to come back with well more than that number). I usually take one book of poetry and one good, thick novel (most recently it was Bel-Ami) to get me started, and - especially if I'm travelling in an anglophone or francophone country - just trust to chance to find something interesting along the way if and when I finish the books I started with.

Hi Misia,

I like your comparison of physical movement and the advance of the storyline. Didn't think about it in those terms before.

It sounds like a good idea to take a book related to the region of travel, but I assume that it is more suited for travels in which you actually have time to explore the area. Most of my trips are confined to a (non interesting) city and I do not have time to actually travel around. The reason that I take many books with me is that I never know which mood I will have and which book will better fit it so I try to cover all options :) For example, in the trip that I discussed above I had so many things to see around that I did not finish reading any of the books that I took. I did read parts of America and from Stiglitz's book but did not finish them yet. Now it is a race against time - will I fight my hectic life and manage to finish reading the books before I forget about them...

B.t.w., the one book that I did manage to read is the poetry book. It was easier reading a few poems wen I did have some time.

I wonder what is it exactly that make me prefer one unread book to another when I'm on a trip. Maybe it is the "movement". Not just the trajectory of the narrative prose as you put it but rather a book that is less static. Where the story actually moves. A few "trip books" that I did finish reading were The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Guns Gems and Steele by Diamond, The bible Unearthed by Finkelstien and Silberman, Solaris by Lem, several Fandorin books by Akunin and several books of Murakami (there are also many others that I can't recall now). Not all of them are "physically moving" though several are, but in all of them there is a very strong sense of movement so I assume that this is the certain je ne sais quoi that good travel books have.

Thanks, I think that I did understand something new.

It is now interesting, for me, to understand what in a book makes us feel the movement. It seems very difficult to define as it probably depends on the talent of the specific author, but do you think that there is such common thing? For example in the books that I listed above there is a movement in space - between countries and inside a country, a movement in time both to the past and to the future and in some of them a sense of a chase. These are all obvious movements but do you think that there are other, more delicate, ways in which a novel causes a feeling of movement that can be classified?

Another suggestion (rather than an answer) is to get an amazon kindle, which takes away the packing/size issue, and lets you have the choice of loads of favs. This is not a commission jobby, I just think they are a great invention.