Everyone needs a break in their lives, from the regular routine of work, to rest their minds and bodies, to recharge themselves before going back full-bore into the normal rhythm of life again.
Combine this with beautiful summer weather and you have the perfect setup for vacationing, whether it's a "stay-cation" taken around home and relaxing, or heading out of town or out of province.
One particular activity of vacation I enjoy, and it doesn't really matter what kind of vacation it is or where I am, and this is reading.
I realize in the day and age of the Internet, of wireless smart-phones, iPods and iPads, and such features as Facebook and Twitter, that reading books must seem an old-fashioned sort of thing to do.
To me, however, even if electronic books can make many books available in one hand-held device, nothing really takes the place of sitting back with a good book, with the tactile feel of the pages.
Electronic books can certainly be portable, but there are some drawbacks in my mind; one, such a device is not cheap, whereas books have a relatively inexpensive cost (unless of course you buy new hard covers); two, as an electronic device, it's subject to eventually breaking down, or being damaged. If one takes it along for summer reading on vacation, I could imagine that getting beach sand in it would not be especially healthy for it, or salt water (or fresh water, for that matter).
No, give me a printed and bound book with real pages; hard cover or soft cover makes little difference to me, and I can take it anywhere. I can read it while travelling (as long as I'm not driving ), relaxing on a deck or at a beach in the sun, and if I get some water or sand on it, it doesn't really matter.
Now, I realize new books in hard cover can be expensive, and we Canadians are royally ripped off by booksellers who insist on charging us more than in the U.S., even when our dollar is at par or close to it; so, for this and for many other reasons, I am a great fan of used book stores, and of the twice-a-year book sale by the library. I've been able to stock up on my reading quite well with both hard and soft cover books of all kinds, so I have no lack of reading material this summer.
The actual reading material is totally subjective; everyone has their own preference for what stories they like. The important thing is, to have something along that you enjoy, and thereby be transported to another time, place or realm through the magic of story-telling.
