What's On My Kindle For My Upcoming Flight: NYC 2025 Edition

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I'm going to be on planes a bit more than I'm used to this year, so I thought that I'd start a fun series around the books that I've downloaded to make sure I can't possibly run out of entertainment on the plane. For context, I'm flying to New York to see A Streetcar Named Desire at BAM and see my grandmother for 2 days in the city, four days gone with flying, so the time in the air will be a lot of the trip! From where I live, it's about 4.5 hours there and 5 hours back (I guess the winds are bad?), so it's not an insignificant amount of time I'll have to entertain myself. I am glad that I managed to get direct flights, though, to lower the stress of having multiple connections go right. With airport time, I'll have over 10 hours to dedicate to reading if I can focus for that long, so I wanted to make sure my Kindle was stuffed with options. 

I know this number of books is total overkill, and I won't be able to read anything close to all of them. I think I've picked almost the same number of books as I downloaded to go to Ireland and the UK for 2 weeks, but I've been in such a finicky reading mood, I feel like I need an abundance of options to find one I'm happy to read. Since I didn't make one of these posts for the last trip, I'm going to throw those titles and the reviews I wrote of them at the end. So, without further ado, here's my picks:

Common Decency by Susannah Dickey

I'm currently about 40% of the way through and will probably be about halfway done by the time I take off, so this is the book I'll start with. This novel is set in Belfast told from the point of view of two neighbors. Lily is still wrapped in grief after losing her mom, who was a teacher. She works in the hospital gift shop and volunteers at a cancer charity to pass the time, but mainly, she spends her time thinking about her neighbor, Siobhán, with an escalating amount of obsession. Siobhán is mostly unaware of Lily, instead wrapped up intensely in an affair with a married man and with finding her footing as a teacher. I've been enjoying it so far, but there is a definite feeling that, while it sometimes lands, the prose is trying way too hard. 

Okay Days by Jenny Mustard

I bought this ebook for my London trip since it was finally available in the US. I spent so long waiting for it to become available that I guess it became less pressing to read along the way. I'm surprised I haven't gotten to it yet, and I likely won't get to it on this trip either because I have a total of three books I've checked out from the library that are more pressing. 

There but for the by Ali Smith

I almost bought this book at the bookstore last time I was in town, but there are so many Ali Smith books, and I didn't know where to start. I know her seasonal quartet is maybe the most popular, but I was drawn in by the premise of a man who shuts himself in a bedroom at a party and doesn't come out. When I was soliciting recommendations for books, @conversationswithkara recommended it, and the library had it available immediately, so I figured it was meant to be. 

None of This Is Serious by Catherine Prasifka

Another book I've been after a long time. I found it on a bookshelf in Scotland and nearly bought it, but the reviews are so negative and apparently it has a speculative twist, so I decided to buy Service instead, which was the right call. Now, I checked out the library copy on Libby, and I'm willing to give it a shot. I still can't get over the fact that Catherine Prasifka is actually Sally Rooney's sister-in-law. 

Bad Nature by Ariel Courage & Bitter Texas Honey by Ashley Whitaker 

These last two are books I had on my Kindle anyway, but they're next up in the ARCs I need to tackle, so I'm throwing them in the mix if I read a ton or if I end up disliking everything else I downloaded. It's always good to have some options on standby. I've talked about these books previously in the books I'm anticipating for winter/spring list at the start of the year.

Previous Trip Book List & Reviews

Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna
You Are Here by David Nicholls
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Also Brought: The Rachel Incident (reread) and Okay Days


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