Summer reading

It's that time of year. The holiday's sorted, the cobwebs have been blown off the suitcases and summer clothes but the cable I need to connect my MP3 player to the external speakers has disappeared again. So a replacement heads up the Amazon order - it was easy to find because I bought one this time last year as well.

What's next? Books of course. I say I'll keep up with the reading throughout the year, but in reality there just isn't the time. And anyway, doing something different is what makes holidays so special. Apart from books, I rely on day-old copies of the Daily Telegraph, assorted podcasts hastily gathered over the previous month, intermittent radio reception (depending on where we are that could be the World Service, BBC Radio 4 or 5) and the local French journaux for my information and entertainment.

Daily Telegraph? I did say doing something different is what makes holidays so special.

I've read some cracking new books on recent holidays. The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst), The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger), Narrowdog to Indian River (Terry Darlington), Arthur & George (Julian Barnes), The Sea (John Banvile), The Colour of Memory (Geoff Dyer), Things My Mother Never told me (Blake Morrison), Be Near Me (Andrew O'Hagen), Stuart - a life backwards (Alexander Masters) and reread some old favourites by Annie Proulx, Carol Shields, Alison Lurie, Mark Twain, Thomas Mann and Anne Tyler.

And then there are those so lame I'd rather not mention them in public...but my advice is to avoid anything written by anyone remotely connected to football. Oh, you knew that already? Of course. Moving on.

But this year the choice is even more critical than usual. We're going to spend two weeks in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere not even the Telegraph or the BBC dare to venture. The selection so far is Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), Patrimony (somewhat unbelievably my first Philip Roth), Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (Geoff Dyer), Brooklyn (Colm Toibin), The Uncommon Reader (Alan Bennett), Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby), The Last Weekend (Blake Morrison) and One Day (David Nicholls).

I did buy Naked in Dangerous Places (soon to be published in the UK as Stranded in Dangerous Places) by the irrepressible Cash Peters. But I couldn't resist it and read it as soon as it arrived. It's based on his TV travel show, Stranded, and is part entertaining travel writing, part autobiography and part scathing, behind-the-scenes look at making a modern TV programme. Needless to say, the biggest culture gaps don't occur when Cash visits remote Pacific Islands. Read the book or catch Cash on BBC Radio 5's hidden jewel of a programme, Up All Night, on Wednesday mornings from 2.30am.

What do you mean, that's the middle of the night. Duh, the clue's in the name of the programme. Get it on i-Player if you insist on your 8 hours kip a night. Lightweights.

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, that's at least four books short of ideal, so feel free to chip in with your recommendations. I might even blog to let you know what I thought of my summer reading.

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