I picked up Ali Smith's Hotel World as I was waltzing out of town, alone on a long trip for work, first to take a flight to Nice, and later to take a train across La France to the Atlantic coast side of things. (To be honest, no waltzing was involved, just sweating and banging my shins on stuff).
In any case, I cracked open the slim Hotel World as soon as I nestled down into my purple velour seat upon the TGV, which was literally rattling from the Côte d'Azur towards Paris. From then, I was captive: I couldn't put it down, even for the hour I was in Paris (I'm a dummy), nor could I stop reading as my train continued to hurtle down south, through endless sunflower fields.