Well, I'm just back from holiday in Italy to a mountain of mail, proofs, catalogue shaping up, and stuff. So why am I taking time out to blog? I just thought this one may be fun for people to contribute to.

We stayed in a very remote hamlet in Italy of renovated cottages. Most of the other guests were English - mainly families with young children. Said young children bonded in the first days by naming all the inflatables around the pool - lilos, balls, rubber rings - with no reference to their parents on choice of names. Each one was called after a Harry Potter character - so it was - throw me Voldermart, there goes Harry - but no one wanted to touch or be thrown Ron. He was the outcast - the ginger. Sorry about that Ron, but apparently you get the girl in the book, so all is OK really.

But the point of this blog is - what were the other holiday makers reading, and what have you spotted on your travels around the holiday world this summer? I can note a depressing amount of chick lit, one Alastair Campbell Blair book, one Paul Coehlo, several Meg Atkins, some thrillers by people I have never heard of (sorry), and hardly any literary fiction or serious non fiction.

Our book hoard taken along? - T.C. Boyle, two Sarah Dunant books (we were in Italy), The Black Book (Pamuk), The Inheritance of Loss, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay (over 600 pages), The Memory Keeper's Daughter, some terrible book by Jane Grey which has had 16 printings (we did have 3 teeenage girls with us), Potter of course (read by 3 of us but not me - I wait for the movies), Mother's Milk, and about ten others which I can't recall this moment. I think all were read by at least two people and in some cases three or more as we were five in total. But what a minority we were. I always return from holiday thinking that book review pages should be made really accessible - more interviews with readers - more like - well, a book blog. But maybe I'm biased.....