Road trips have always been a vessel for reading, at least ever since I realised motion sickness skipped me and not the rest of my family.
For years, I was convinced I’d feel nauseated after reading a single sentence. That’s what everyone around me insisted would happen after squinting at road signs or reading directions from afar. But when I was about eight, I realised it wasn’t universal. And with that discovery, my read-a-thons in the back seat of our family car began.
I’m back home for the summer, tucked into my usual corner of the car. This time, I’ve packed two physical books: At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft and No hagas montañas de granos de arena. The title translates to Don’t Make Mountains Out of Grains of Sand.
One invites you to descend into cosmic horror and the unsettling possibilities of madness. The other is a self-help book about taking life a little less seriously. One builds mountains where there may be none. The other teaches you not to build them in the first place. The irony isn’t lost on me, and I’m curious to see what happens when I read them back-to-back.
On my Kindle, I’ve downloaded South and West by Joan Didion, Discontentment by Beatriz Serrano, and our book club pick, The Lake Club by Lina Patton.
Two books in Spanish, three in English. I’ll be diving into translated works later this month, but for now I’m about to disappear into that peculiar reading state that only a long drive seems to unlock, helped along by a moving car, changing landscapes, and scheduled pit stop.
I often wonder if there’s anywhere else quite like it. Is there another place where time slips away so easily, where you’re pulled into a story within the first mile?
If you’ve found one, I’d love to hear about it.
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