Let’s Talk Bookish: Emergency Books

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

February 10: Emergency Books 
(The Bageler @ It’s the Bageler)

Prompts: Do you carry around emergency books? The Bageler explained the concept like this: “Do you keep a copy of Travels With Charley or Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children in your bag in case you get stuck in a waiting room, a copy of The Master & Margarita in your glovebox for long lines at the drive-through? Or has the ubiquity of phones and e-readers and similar made this obsolete? If you do, why is THAT your Emergency Book, and do you read it any other time or only when you find yourself at the DMV?”

So, do you always have an emergency book with you? What makes a book an emergency book? And what are your go-to emergency books? Do you stick to having physical books on you, or do you prefer to read ebooks and audiobooks while out and about?

I don’t carry around ’emergency’ books, largely because I don’t (thankfully) find myself twiddling my thumbs somewhere without having a book on me. I’m usually also pretty good at either slipping my current physical read or my kindle into my bag before I go out somewhere I’m likely to find myself waiting – not, for example, if I’m just nipping up to the shop. So although I don’t have a specific ’emergency book’, I more than often carry a book with me just in case.

I switch between physical and ebooks when taking books with me, though of course I always have my phone and if I’m walking somewhere on my own I tend to have either a podcast or an audio book playing. If I was going to carry around an emergency book, it would probably be a favourite from when I was a teenager, that I’d read a few times or, at least, know the story well enough I can pick up and return to whenever.

What about you? Do you have an emergency book in your bag, just in case?