YOU CAN'T HAVE TOO MANY BOOKS!

I just can't go on a cruise without enough reading material. I have begun making some choices on what to take with me to read while relaxing on my balcony or sitting in a deck chair. When I travel I like to take books that are somehow related to the places I am visiting. I also prefer light reading when I travel as I sometimes read when I am tired, or need a book that I can put down easily.

A no-brainer for me to read while in or near Venice is one of Donna Leon's mysteries, which include such wonderful descriptions of life in Venice. Commissario Guido Brunetti is the solver of crimes in her novels. My good friend Lynn was way ahead of me on this one and when I visited her on Maryland's eastern shore recently there were several Leon novels sitting on the night stand in the guest room. The one I chose is "Death and Judgment".

Again my friend Lynn and her husband Jeff rose to the occasion with their extensive library collection and actually found two more mysteries in their collection, one by Robert Harris, "Pompeii", and one by Jason Goodwin, "The Snake Stone". The latter takes place in Istanbul and the former speaks for itself. Both of these authors are new to me, so I will really enjoy getting to know them.

Another book that Lynn and Jeff loaned me is "Michelangelo and the The Pope's Ceiling" by Ross King. I plan to read this before I leave for the cruise as it is definitely not "light reading" and I want to learn all I can about the Sistine Chapel ceiling to better appreciate what I am looking at while I am there.

I think a good plane read is "The Man Who Smiled" by Henning Mankell. The PBS series "Wallander" with Kenneth Branagh is based on his books. Anyway, as you can see I believe that picking reading material for my trip is just as important as choosing shore excursions, etc. When Sun and I went to the Dominican Republic a couple of years ago I managed to read five books while lounging on the beach. Anybody out there have any good reads to recommend?