The Most Important Decision

Decisions, decisions....the most important decision of any trip continues to be what reading material to take. Somehow this is never an easy task. Here are the in-progress books I began with:


Okay, even I admit that 10 books may be just a few too many for a week long trip. The narrowing begins...


Still too many. Now I have to be truly discriminating. I'm sorry Shakespeare and Flannery, you're staying in North America. The final cut...


1. Top 10 Vienna - Obvious choice
2. The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis - I'll be living in Lewis' house for three days, so I felt like I needed be reading something by him that I haven't read. This collection of works has been on "my list" for a while, and the time is now.
3. A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols - The nonficition story of nine sailors who race to do a solo nonstop circumnavigation of the world. One only completes the journey alive. (Thanks for letting me borrow AB. I promise it will return safely.)
4. Dark Star Safari by Pual Theroux - Theroux chronicles his journey through Africa from Cairo to Cape Town. Africa is never far from my heart.
5. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken - This one is a reread. I might actually be crazy taking this with me because it's a tear jerker and it incorporates some of Lewis' writings as well. More on the significance of this choice in another blog entry. Anyone who is married or desires to be married some day should read this book. My literature professor father says it changed his life.
6. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Life in Letters - Another obvious choice since I will be in the land of Mozart and at his home in Salzburg.

Hmmmm...I'm only taking nonfiction books. This decision I may turn out to regret. I think I need to start over...I think I'm going to be up all night packing...