[pct-l] backpack libraries

[Birgitte Jensen <bjensen4@juno.com>]

  Our armchair reading habits aside, lots of us take  lightweight (in all
senses of the word) inexpensive tomes we can use as firestarter or toilet
paper as we work their way through them. I personally like  pages with
strong typefaces, fairly small print, and tiny margins; I tear off the
cover, title pages, indices - anything extraneous - sort of like cutting
the handle off a toothbrush, but it makes me feel "efficient". 
    Gotta be careful, tho: once I read/burned halfway through a
complicated potboiler (I found it lying in the snow near Whitney of all
things), then set aside (or misplaced, can't remember) the remainder for
a couple months. Upon returning to it later, I found I'd forgotten all of
the many characters and most of the plot, augh, and the only
reference-source lay at the bottom of a pit-toilet or as ashes in a
fire-ring at various places along the trail.

    For the past couple years, I've brought along torn-out articles from
my favorite magazines: that way, I can choose from a wide selection  in
my backpack "library": fiction/non-fiction, "trash" or something more,
uh, elevating, in a wide variety of subjects and lengths. Maybe a
short-story from a beloved (or new) writer - tho fiction seems to "read"
too quickly for the amount of paperweight it covers IMHO - one of those
long John McPhee's from the New Yorker (lighter weight than the books,
and I don't face the  dilemma of Book Burning), Martin Gardner's math
pieces (no matter how short, they take forever to digest <g>), a juicy
quick celeb bio for one day's lunchtime indulgence, and so on.
      The absolutely hands-down most successful (best weight:reading
timetime ratio) camp literature for me has turned out to be the London
Times Crossword - accompanied by its solution, 'natch!  I leave the
margins intact (for trying out different words); a couple of those small
pieces of paper can keep me engrossed for hours, days, (blush) weeks, and
I don't need to turn pages....    bj

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