Books to Read Places In

So I've been planning a summer trip lately (I'll spare you the book report on Fodor's Gold Guide to Atlantic Canada), and, after slogging through an avalanche of references to locations where Annie Proulx wrote or did anything else remotely related to The Shipping News, I'm thinking about how to travel "It's A Book Club Style."

Before I acquired so many demanding traveling companions, I used to have a complex formula for working out how many books I needed to bring on a trip--something like (miles traveled) X (need to avoid chatty seatmates) / (monotony of mode of travel) + (distance I'll have to carry my book bag)--but now that's shot all to hell, and I just try to bring whatever book will best avoid a screaming, seat-kicking meltdown with 3 hours left in flight. And ten times out of ten, that book is not The Shipping News.

I guess I've always been suspicious of tailoring my reading material to my geographical destination. (Though I am exceedingly proud of myself for reading Don Quixote during last year's trip to Spain, but that has more to do with overcoming my fears that I might never crack a non-board book again). For one, I think it tips the scales a little farther over onto the "earnest and engaged tourist" side of things, and I prefer more the "I'm just here riding this bus and reading a book like any other local" side, clearly untrue though it may be. For another, I like the feeling of looking back later and realizing my memory of reading a certain book is inextricably linked with an improbable locale--Two Girls Fat and Thin and the London Underground, maybe, or Crime and Punishment and the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. (Before I start to sound show-offy, let me add that I never finished either of those books. Maybe's there's a flaw in this reasoning.)

So, that leaves me with two questions. One, what do you read when you travel, and why? And two, what is there to read about Newfoundland that is not The Shipping News?