On Monday my mother and I leave for England and Wales.  I haven’t given any thought to what I’m wearing yet but I have obsessed over the important stuff – What am I taking to read?

This is the hardest part of planning for me.  How many paper books and how many on the iPad?  I am taking a very small suitcase so there isn’t room for extra just in case books but I worry about iPod battery life on long flights with layovers.  I’m a total mood reader too so I worry that I won’t want what I have when I get to the time I planned on reading it.

Here’s the plan so far.

The Storied Life of A.J. FikryThe Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

This is my paper book. I found it at my neighborhood Little Free Library.

Since the trip was inspired by my grandmother’s Regency romances, I figured I had to have a few of those. I downloaded two from my library. It was hard to choose. I’m not up on the genre to know what is good. Obviously, I picked so well that the titles I chose don’t even show up on Goodreads.

Then I figured I need a good book for our time in London. It took some thinking but I came up with one where London is definitely a character.

NeverwhereNeverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is never a wrong time to reread Neverwhere. I love this book but always felt like I’m probably missing some of the jokes because I don’t know London well. This seemed like a good accompaniment to walking around London.

How do you choose what kind of books to take on a trip?