This month I have made roundtrip plane trips from Atlanta to Berlin and then Atlanta to Los Angeles. Proper reading material is always a critical decision because it can make the difference between a tolerable flight or a miserable flight.
I never trust the entertainment consoles. They may not work (as mine didn't) or they are populated with content that you didn't bother to watch at home. Even if you are interested in one of the inflight movies you will need your magnifying eyewear and a better set of earphones than the airline has provided. (I guess I am supposed to bring my own computer and content...)
The reason I bring this up is that I had the good fortune to hit pay dirt when I brought German author and graphic artist Judith Schalansky's Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Island I Have Not Visited and Never Will (2009) with me on the four hour+ flight from LA to Atlanta.
The book practically fits in your back pocket and can share space your gin and tonic on the wobbly tray table. But the book also takes you to other places far away from the crowded cabin. Schalansky credits the idea when she surveyed a giant globe in the Berlin National Library and began studying the tiny islands names that dot the blue expanses of the ocean. First she collected the facts including their longitude and latitude coordinates, their current population (if any), a timeline of major events and their distance to nearby continents or other remote islands. Some you may have heard of such places as Easter Island, Iwo Jima, or Christmas Island but she gives equal billing to some uninhabited ones like Deception Island (near Antarctica), Bouvet Island (in the South Atlantic) or the cold and barren Lonely Island (near the Arctic Circle).
She dedicates four pages to each entry/chapter. The first two pages provides the facts and the timeline and a detailed map including points of interest such as elevation, bays and any villages. Pages 3 and 4 are very short essays about the history or geological/biological makeup of the place such as the Pacific isle of Banaba, which is made up entirely of phosphate from centuries of bird guano buildup. Schalansky's writing style has been aptly described in The Paris Review " as a prose poem of sorts. Facts sit side-by-side with a kind of highly personal fiction; we are given latitudes and detailed maps, but also lore and speculation."
What makes it special for airline travelers is that when reading about hardships like near starvation, or freezing to death while discovering these often hostile piles of volcanic rock, you don't feel so angry when the flight attendant ignores your request to reset your entertainment console. How can you complain? What also makes the book ideal in a plane setting is that my attention span often wanes during the flight, (I'm always checking other passengers viewing habits.) With just four pages per chapter if you start to drift you can easily refocus and return to these compelling stories.
Once you've reached your final destination, and you are greeted with a "How was your trip?" Instead of ranting about the hideous coffee, the sloppy mask wearing of the traveler across the aisle, or the sticky bathroom floors, you can quote Schalansky instead:
"There is no untouched garden of Eden lying at this never-ending globe. Instead, human beings traveling far and wide have turned into the very monsters they chased off the maps."
Something to discuss while you wait for your luggage.
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