Travel Book Diversions

I think I've written before about my habit of trying to tie my reading to my travel whenever possible, like when I read Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on a 1992 visit to Berlin, or major parts of The Jewish War by Flavius Josephus on an Israel trip when I visited Masada. But it's not all about war history - one reason for wanting to visit Le Bourget is because I'm carrying The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh, said to be one of the greatest flying and true adventure books ever written which I somehow have never read. Le Bourget is where "Lucky Lindy" landed after he flew solo across the Atlantic in 1927.

I may still get to it on this trip, but airport bookstore mania struck again and I ended up buying and quickly reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi, a great SF (first!) novel. My flight from Washington to Paris was delayed 5 hours, so I actually finished that book, found a Borders at Dulles, bought the sequel The Ghost Brigades, and have almost finished that one too (I'm a pretty speedy reader). Fast paced and really good reads, both of them.