Vacation Rentals and the Joy of Snooping

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  08.26.10 | 11:34 AM ET

Susan Orlean is on vacation in Cape Cod, where she’s been keeping busy by snooping around the house she rented from a local, trying to learn more about her host. Here’s what she’s put together so far:

I always start with the bookshelves, which makes me worry about my future vacations, when all reading material will have migrated to an electronic format and the bookshelves are empty except for Hummel figurines. Then what? Where will I begin my snooping—in the spice cabinet? Fortunately, the owner of this house is obviously a dead-tree kind of reader, and I have deduced that he is a physician. (I do think I’m a genius, but the stacks of diagnostic manuals would have been a pretty big clue even to lesser minds.) The Leo Rosten books are a religious giveaway—did Rosten ever sell a single book to a non-Jew?—and while the majority of the books are high-toned and intellectual, they are leavened by the yeasty Steve Martini thrillers half-hidden under the night table. My guess? A Jewish doctor who travels and buys the thrillers for diversion during flights, even though he was really and truly planning to use the time to read something serious, like the Beethoven biography that sits on a prominent shelf, untouched.

(Via The Book Bench)

Tags: Vacation, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


2 Comments for Vacation Rentals and the Joy of Snooping

Rob Verger 08.26.10 | 1:46 PM ET

Thanks for sharing this, Eva. Orlean just seems so thoughtful, doesn’t she?

Zaki 08.27.10 | 1:43 AM ET

The lack of books on the shelters really scares. In dozen years books are going to be the relics or antique and cost huge some of money

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