By Dan Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, Tawian –If the Jews are sometimes called the People of the Book, then certainly we can also be dubbed the people of the books. We like to read. Why not? We like to write, too.
Of course, the People of the Book nickname refers to the biggest book the world has ever known: The Holy Bible. Jewish storytellers wrote it down, Jewish editors annotated it and the Lord Almighty put it between hard covers. Five thousand years later, it’s still a bestseller.
Fast forward to the summer of 2015. Today’s world is full now of portmanteau words, those blended terms that have the power to surprise and ensorcell us. Think: brunch, climapocalypse, bleisure. Even the word “portmanteau” is a portmanteau in its original French iteration.
There’s also a nice blended word I am like this time of year — “bookcation.”
A bookcation is when you take a break from the real world and settle down for a few weeks in the summertime with a good book, or two or three. It’s a time to rediscover the wonderful world of prose and storytelling.
Now for your own summer vacation plans, you can take a Mediterranean bookcation on a cruise along the coast of southern Europe. Caribbean bookcations are also fun and full of good, fresh, sea air, and an Alaskan bookcation to from Vancouver to Juneau on a leisure cruise up the Inside Passage is recommended for people who want to get close to nature while reading Alaskan murder mysteries and wildlife books.
How about summer trip to Israel to explore an ancient archeological dig? And on those long EL AL אל על flights back and forth, an inflight bookcation might be just what the doctor ordered.
While I was doing research for this column, I came across another interesting term for bookworms and book people: ”a book hangover.”
Say again? Turns out that a book hangover is the apparent inability to start a new book because you’re still living in the last book’s world.
So for your bookcation of 2015, what books do you have planned to bring with you on your travels or to keep at your bedside table during your long summer staycation?
I hate online lists, sometimes called “listicles,” so I am not going to list “The Top Ten Books to Read on Your Summer Bookcation.”
You know better than anyone else what books you want to read, or need to read or have always wanted to read when you were younger, so now is the time is to make good on your reading dreams. Have a nice bookcation!
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Bloom, based in Taiwan, is an inveterate web surfer who finds time to read books too. You may comment to him at dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this website, provided that the rules below are observed.
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