The Paris skyline, including the Paris Observatory, on March 30. (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier)

Greetings, all! I’m taking the next couple of weeks off to visit Paris with my husband (and to recuperate from a recent move — moving is the worst, isn’t it?). So the newsletter will be on haitus until April 20, at which time I will try not to rhapsodize about brioche, and chocolate, and red wine, and steak, though if there’s an appetite for it, I’ll file a dispatch from the Maison de Jules Verne in Amiens.

But before I go, I thought I’d let you know what I’m planning on reading while I’m on the trip. One of the things I like about plane travel is the opportunity to go into a sort of reading fugue state. And, contrary to stereotypes about vacation reading, I often like to tackle something ambitious; it’s much easier to read a big book when you have big chunks of time to do so than when you’re trying to grab snatches of reading time in the midst of everyday life. So, with no further ado, I hope I’ll come back from France having read*:

• “Paris to the Moon,” by Adam Gopnik: Multiple readers called upon me to try the New Yorker writer’s dispatches from Paris during his time there for the magazine. And a collection of alternately tart and romantic essays seems like the perfect thing to dip into and out of while lounging at cafés.

• “Submission,” by Michel Houellebecq: I sincerely hope for continued peace in France, but given the timing of our journey, this intellectual provocation about Islam and French society seems appropriate.

• “Annihilation,” by Jeff VanderMeer: I’m embarrassed to admit that the first imposing volume of this sci-fi trilogy has been sitting on my desk for ages, and I completely missed the boat on it before its release. I hope to remedy that before the movie begins shooting. Oscar Isaac does have that sort of influence.

• “Alexander Hamilton,” by Ron Chernow: Speaking of things I’m dreadfully behind on, I’ve been desperately looking forward to curling up with this biography. Perhaps I’ll save it for the flight back to the states, by which point I’ll surely be craving a dose of American-ness.

*And perhaps having re-read Julia Child’s “My Life In France,” which I adore.