Here are the books I’m bringing with me. I’m not bringing any guide books because they always stress me out, and I’m not bringing any Mandarin Chinese phrase books because I’m absolutely hopeless.
(You didn’t hear me say that, ladies and gentlemen. I can learn anything I put my mind to, I just can’t do it before I fly out tomorrow.)
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie (for all my relatives who still call Chinese folks “Orientals”)
Close Kin and In the Coils of the Snake, Clare B. Dunkle (parts II and III of The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, which was recommended to me as a younger, more third-grade-appropriate version of Twilight)
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (by the author of The Remains of the Day, because I should read more fiction)
China, Regional Studies Series (thanks, Jackie! :))
The CAFE Book, “The Sisters” (this is how we’re doing the Daily 5 next year)
The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart (a Battle of the Books book!)
Lost on Planet China, J. Maarten Troost (I hear he’s a funny travel writer like Bill Bryson)
Shutting Out the Sun, Michael Zielenziger (about the Japanese hikikomori, people who never leave their rooms or homes… This is the biggest, heaviest book and I’m halfway through, so I shouldn’t bring it… But I want to so badly!!!)
I’m worried because so many of the books are library books, therefore hardcover, therefore heavy. I’ll have most of them in my carry on, so here’s hoping they don’t add too much weight…
What am I saying — of course I’m going to wind up waking up in the middle of the night and shuffling books around, taking some out and putting more in. Ahh!
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