I took the giant hulking Everyman Library’s Joan Didion (We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live; Slouching Towards Bethlehem; White Noise; Salvador; Miami; After Henry; Where I’m From) with me when I had to drive to the West Coast last year. I got to it by the time I made my slooooooow way back to Chicago.

Also try reading The Count of Monte Cristo at 20ish and 33ish. You will feel that gulf of years that was taken out of Dantes’s life when you remember where and when you first read certain passages.