Airplane Books: Weighty Tomes Are the New Fluff

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 08.14.05 | 12:59 PM ET

The airport bookstore has become the new marketplace of intellectual ideas. So says Henry Fountain in Sunday’s New York Times. Why?

Fountain tracks down supporting quotes from airport booksellers and the writers of two popular next generation airplane books, Blink‘s Malcolm Gladwell and Up in the Air‘s Walter Kirn, who, after his spot-on creation of “Airworld” in that novel, now seems to be the go-to authority regarding the culture of airports and airplanes. He tells Fountain that traveling tends to instill in people a sense of expansiveness and possibility. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people read things on planes that they wouldn’t read at home,” Kirn said. “There is something about air travel that promotes a feeling of importance. So why not read important books?”