1. Pack your Kindle. It’s cheaper, smaller, simpler and lighter, with better battery life, than the iPad. “The iPad 2 is a great device, but it’s only an average reader,” says Toyota exec Bill Reinert, who takes twice-monthly LAX-to-Tokyo flights.
2. Or maybe don’t pack your Kindle. “I always bring a hardcover,” says Gary Leff of frequent-flyer community Milepoint. “I don’t use an e-reader because flight attendants get snippy during takeoff and landing.”
3. Skip the airport bookstore. “The content is parochial and mass-market,” says Reinert. Exceptions are airports with indie bookstores — BookPeople in Austin, Books & Books in Miami, Powell’s in Portland, Ore., and Hicklebee’s in San Jose, Calif.
4. Travel light … “After I’ve read them, I leave my books behind in places other people can take advantage of them,” says Leff.
5. … or trade up. At Renaissance Book Shop in the Milwaukee airport, travelers can unload books and pick up others’ discards. “You only pay the difference between the trade-in and the pickup,” says Web consultant Kate Gardiner.
6. Sync up. For Gardiner, a book’s most crucial quality boils down to a single word: duration. “If you download the Kindle app across the Kindle, iPad and iPhone, you can get about 10 hours,” she says. “When one gadget dies, you can pick up where you left off on the next one, thanks to the synching feature.”
7. Read a balanced diet. “My rule is, if I read one trashy romance novel, I have to read two pieces of literature,” says Gardiner. But sometimes empty calories are the most sustaining. “I look for candy fiction,” admits London-based Google executive Jed Christiansen. “David Baldacci. James Patterson. John Grisham. They’re easy to read when you’re half dead.”