Packing for a trip is always a nightmare for me.  Not only do I usually forget some crucial piece of personal article — one time I went to Europe without any clean underwear! — it’s the books that really hang me up.  What to take on a two week trip to a place where there are virtually no book stores?  What if the novel I’m reading, Pete Dexter’s latest in this case, turns out to be a dud?  How many extra bags full of books and galleys do I want to lug?

Thank god there’s a Kindle — which I loaded up before I left Manhattan, and for which, this time, I remembered the plug.   What’s on there:  my newspapers for one thing — so I don’t have to get gouged by the local store every day — and about six novels, from Charlie Haas’s The Enthusiast  to Jennifer Haigh’s The Condition.    And, worse comes to worse, since I”m still in the US, I can download about a million more.

Check this space to see what happens next. . ..