T A B L E_T A L K Europe in February? Mexico in November? Swap favorite off-season vacation destinations in Table Talk. R E C E N T L Y Italian affair By Laura Fraser The author finds a passionate healing on a post-breakup trip to Italy (12/02/97) White dreams By Mary Roach Why I was wandering around Antarctica with a white plastic garbage pail over my head (12/01/97) Discovering Petra By Maxine Rose Schur At dusk, after the tourists have left, Jordan's ancient ruin comes to splendid life (11/26/97) Marooned in Colorado By Sara Baird A type-A journalist is forced to unwind at an idyllic, isolated (accessible only by narrow-gauge railroad or helicopter) Colorado resort (11/25/97) Road Warrior Jerry Yang Yahoo's Jerry Yang shares travel secrets (11/24/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Wanderlust archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		THE MAN WHO LOVED BOOKS IN TURKEY+|+P A G E+2+O F +2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - No surprise then that I had passed up the mysteries and was considering a copy of Conrad's "Nostromo" when the owner appeared through a side door. He was a large, doleful man whose head nearly brushed the ceiling. "Is this any good?" I held up the Conrad. "Excellent," he said, in deep tones. "Anything else you might recommend?" The bookseller didn't even glance at his stock. "No, it's all trash. Business is no good." He gave me a bare look. "Have you read E. O. Wilson?" I hadn't, but I had known someone who revered the old ant specialist, and the bookseller took this as encouragement. He went to a table at the front of the shop, brushed the dozing cat to the floor and came back with a well-thumbed copy of the Times Literary Supplement. "This is also quite good," he said, pointing to a review of some other ecologist's tome. He dropped the paper to his side. "Do you like Tom Wolfe? Saul Bellow?" "Well ..." I hadn't time to answer. "Have you read Graham Swift's 'Last Orders'? I heard he stole the plot from Faulkner." Poor fellow. I had another month to go, at most, without a good book. But he was as hungry as the spiders that strung webs in the corners of his shop: He had to wait for what might come to him. Grudgingly, I pulled a novel from my bag: William Maxwell's "The Folded Leaf." "Can I trade this?" I asked. "Of course," he said. "But do you have anything else?" He peered into my satchel. "This I'm keeping," I said, closing the flap on a copy of "The Executioner's Song." My husband had just finished it, and I'd read it before, but it was a book I wanted for the bookshelf back home. "Is that Norman Mailer?" The bookseller's eyes had lit up. "Yes," I said. "But I don't want to part with it." "Mailer -- he wrote the book on Oswald?" "The very one." "And another ..." He rifled through his mental card file, then raised a triumphant finger in the air. "'Army of the Night'?" He went on like this for the better part of an hour, until the late afternoon light in the doorway beckoned me out. "Look, can I have the 'Nostromo' for this?" I asked, holding up the Maxwell. "All right," the bookseller said, and we exchanged offerings. "But tell me, is the Mailer as good as they say?" I had nearly reached the sill. "It's terrific." "And when are you leaving Antalya? Perhaps I could borrow it." "Tomorrow," I said. "Early." I was glad it was the truth. The bookseller stood in the doorway, looking deflated, as I set off down the street. Just then I was glad to escape, but later I would feel guilty for not leaving him the novel or at least chatting longer, starved as the man was for literature and literary conversation. It was his stack of book reviews that made me reconsider: It seemed unfair that a man with such keen tastes had to subsist on essays about books he might never read -- all appetizers and never a meal. Perhaps it's a small courtesy to leave vacation reading in your wake, no matter what it costs you, to sail through a strange country, discarding books for those following or left behind, your bag getting lighter as you go. SALON | Dec. 3, 1997 Lisa Michaels is a contributing editor at the Threepenny Review. Her memoir, "Split: A Counterculture Childhood," will be published by Houghton Mifflin next summer. What's your favorite book to read on the road? Do you pack your library, or just one well-chosen tome? Share your tales and tips in Table Talk.