Charmain Naidoo remembers her best trips by what she was reading at the time So I'm a little odd. Or maybe there are some of you out there who do this too. Anyway, here's my quirk: I remember the places I've been and the adventures I've had there by the books I was reading at the time.It's not unusual for women travelling alone, eating solitary meals, to bury their noses in a book while tucking into the linguine primavera or drinking a Bellini at Harry's Bar in Venice.The book, the buffer . there's a book I should write. But really, The Book is a barrier between you and the other happy diners, laughing and shouting Salute to each other.story_article_left1So the year is 1999, I'm living in New York. It's summer and blisteringly hot in the city, the humidity at 100%.It's too hot to breathe. The pavement tar bubbles. Everyone is listless, dragging themselves around the city.When a friend says she has access to a house in Sag Harbour in the Hamptons, I start packing immediately.There's a book that has had an interesting review in the New York Times - the reviewer called it "Janet Fitch's affecting but overwrought first novel". I go to Barnes and Noble on 14th Street and buy it: it's called White Oleander.Sag Harbour is glorious. There's a breeze coming off the shimmering ocean. We lie on the beach, my friend and I, reading and cooling off in the azure sea.The book is about a bat-shit crazy, self-obsessed mother who kills a man and goes to jail, leaving her vulnerable child, Astrid, alone to fend for herself.I couldn't put it down - not even as we dined on seared sea scallops and frizzled leeks at Sag Harbour's feted new restaurant, The Beacon.I was far from home and a little lonely for my mum. Then this from the batty mother: "Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness."Then, in Egypt on a boat trip from Luxor to Aswan, I re-read Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile. It was in preparation for my night in the Agatha Christie suite at the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan.block_quotes_start Books do more than just keep you buffered against the world. Sometimes they make you think, or cry or laugh block_quotes_endOf course there was a death and much detecting from the fussy little Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and his "leetle grey cells". But mostly it was about sailing down the Nile, reading about sailing down the Nile.Beneath the window of the room in which the book was written, I remember that black gleaming rocks lay in dark water, and the clack-clack of the feluccas, their white sails billowing as pilots steered with their gnarled feet.In Karon Beach, Thailand, I was miserable. There I was in an apartment with a magnificent view overlooking the sea, reading Joanne Harris's Peaches for Monsieur le Curé. The flat was huge - meant to sleep five. But my friend, Peter, had taken ill and had had to fly home, my nephew had cancelled at the last minute and a friend in Bangkok had had to go to Singapore on business. So it was just Monsieur le Curé and me, at breakfast, on the beach, in the pool.story_article_right2Then, when I discovered I had breast cancer - before doctors began talking surgery, double mastectomy, and chemo - I took myself off to St Francis Health Spa near Port Alfred to think. And I took Carl Jung with me. It seemed appropriate.The Red Book is the 1913 personal record of 38-year-old Jung's "confrontation with the unconscious". He saw visions and heard voices. He thought he was going mad, so decided to put the valuable experience to use. I took away a lot from that and came home ready to face the lump in my breast and all that getting rid of it entailed.Somehow, the right book seems to find the right holiday.And books do more than just keep you buffered against the world. Sometimes they make you think, or cry or laugh. And the ones that make you laugh should be re-read and taken on more than just one holiday.• Do you have a funny or quirky story about your travels to share with us? Send 600 words to travelmag@sundaytimes.co.za..