Saturday, June 16, 2007

Airplane Reads

The captive environment of an airplane and airport has always been a great place to get some reading done.

I hate to fly. I shudder when the airlines get on the speakers to say - "We have more people booked on the plane than we have seats. Oops, should have seen that coming, would anyone like a can of tomato juice as an inducement to take a later flight?" Someone said worry is imagination misused, well I have a very good imagination. I'm always waiting for that overbooked shoe to drop.

But in an environment of otherwise total boredom I get more immersed in a book than perhaps anywhere else. At my house there are cats, you see. They don't time their disagreements or hunger impulses to chapter breaks. Also Christine is prone to watch HGTV.

I've read many books on planes over the years and I recall many of them. I read Elmore Leonard's Split Images on a puddle jumper to New Orleans once.

Other great airplane reads include Mark Frost's The List of Seven pitting Conan Doyle and his Sherlocks Holmes inspiration against esoteric societies.

Also, John Farris' The Axman Cometh which he wanted you to read in one sitting, and Robert Petitt once insisted I read Chet Williamson's short story "Her Skin's Just Soft and Purty, He Said" from Razored Saddles on a flight to Seattle.

I'm glad I don't have to fly more, but if I did I'd probably get more reading done.

6 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Man, I wouldn't want to read that Chet Williamson story anyplace I was locked into. That's one of the awfullest, in the best sense, stories I've ever read.

Anonymous said...

Sidney,
Tagging you for a me-me if you have time:)

Erik Donald France said...

Yes, as I hate being in restricted spaces, reading is about all that helps to escape confined airport and airliner spaces. Lots of reading as savior.

Sidney said...

I'm open Tammi, just tell me what I need to do.

It is a chilling tale, Charles. I would always remember that flight even if Robert hadn't managed to make friends with a Chinese sailor who swapped cigarettes with him.

Yeah Erik, it's always good to have a book handy.

Anonymous said...

I travel a fair amount and always carry a couple of books. Last week was "The Music of Razors", a modern fantasy by Cameron Rogers, and "Rant : an oral biography of Buster Casey" by Chuck Palahniuk. The secong kinda freaked me out since it was about a rabies-spreading serial killer and I was in tin can in the air for 7 hours breathing other peoples' air...8^]

Sidney said...

I have not read "Music of Razors" but that's a neat title. I've been enjoying contemporary fantasy of late so I'll have to look it up.

Palahniuk can curl the toes. I haven't read "Rant" either but some scenes in "Haunted" are, well, haunting. I can imagine he might make for an unsettling airplane read.

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