What books are in your car?

I read this article (below) and it started me thinking. I always have a car book, something to read at long lights, train crossings and heaven forbid, an emergency stop at the doctor, the dentist or the ER.

I lease my car and with more than a year left on the lease, I'm already 4000 miles over. My husband got a new car, and we had planned to sort of rotate our cars. We figured we'd give his old car to my son, who is driving an old car with an air conditioner that works intermittently, not a good thing in Florida. My daughter turns fifteen next month and is planning on getting her learner's permit post haste, so we were going to give my son's old car to her. Instead, I'm driving my husband's old car and the rest of the rotation will have to wait until I get caught up on my mileage on the leased car.

That said, after reading this article I realized that I don't have a book in this car. I tend to keep books of short stories or essays or works of nonfiction in the car, they are most easily read sporadically. And I usually have books in the trunk that I'm transporting - I get some books delivered at work, some at home, not to mention library books I borrow, so there are usually several books back there that are being moved to and from home and work. But with the car change, I cleaned those out so the trunk of this car is empty at the moment. And I finished the book that was in my car that I was reading so I didn't bother to move it to the car I'm now driving, so I'm bookless, a most uneasy, unpleasant state. This means that it is imperative that I carry a book with me at all times until this is corrected, which probably won't be until I get back from ThrillerFest.

Today I have Hooked: A Thriller About Love and Other Addictions by Matt Richtel with me. I had to turn the cover inside out to read it. It is the most supremely obnoxious cover I have ever seen, it's positively blinding, even when just the edges are showing around the perimeter of the open book. But the first few chapters hooked me (if you'll pardon the pun) so I turned the cover inside out and will continue reading in peace.

I just got this new nonfiction book, Everything by Design: My Life as an Architect by Alan Lapidus that Matt at St. Martins swears is fabulous. The catalog says Lapidus "has popped up as architect for or observer of many of our era’s most iconic figures, including Donald Trump, various Mafia big shots, mayors, Aristotle and Jackie Onassis, Bob Guccione, pit bosses, real estate legends, and spies."

I will start it at home; if I like it, (and although I haven't known Matt all that long, his suggestions have been very good so far) I will move it to the car. It will probably take me most of the summer to finish it, but that's okay, it doesn't come out until October.

So what books are in your car?

In case of a reading emergency, pop the trunk

Sunday, July 08, 2007
BRIAN DOYLE
Special to The Oregonian

While rummaging in my car the other day I discovered Eudora Welty and James Herriot pressed together intimately in the trunk, which I bet is a sentence never written before.

My first thought, of course, after finding them face to face, was who would win a fistfight between Eudora Welty and James Herriot's wife, Joan -- the American being one of those sinewy wiry country types and the Englishwoman being a strapping beefeater.

My next thought was I wonder if anyone other than me carries books in their cars in case of reading emergencies and unforeseen opportunities. So I took it upon myself to ask, being a responsible literary citizen, and the answer turns out to be pretty much yes. Which is really interesting, as is the vast list of books themselves.

They included dictionaries, novels, atlases, cookbooks, phone directories, comic books, histories, biographies, audio-books, manuals of all sorts, Bibles, wine-tasting notes, books of knitting patterns, books of sheet music, books about breastfeeding and a handbook on vipassana meditative practice.

Read this article in its entirety