Sometimes, books evoke memories of much less desirable places. I’ve read books while standing on crowded subway trains and while sitting on the floor in airport halls during endless delays. In my book, The End of Your Life Book Club, I write about the books I read with my mother when she was dying of pancreatic cancer. During those two years, I often read while she spent hours in hospital waiting rooms or doctor’s offices, or while she sat next to Mom when she was undergoing chemotherapy. and although I don’t remember any of those places fondly, the books I read in those places hold special memories for me; I remember them helping us get mom and me out of those environments. they brought us from there to another part. the books bring back memories of those places, but in a way that gives me gratitude both for the books and for the time mom and I spent together.
So while I can and do read almost anywhere, and I recognize the powerful role books have played in helping to make almost intolerable situations tolerable, I do have certain favorite places that I love to read. these are places I look for when I have a book in hand. And I like to think there’s some kind of art to matching the perfect place to read with an appropriate book.
You are reading: Best place to read books
here are 11 of the best places to read a book and some ideas on what kind of books fit where.
1) Trains have given me some of my best reading experiences. there is something in the rhythm of the rails that suspends time and concentrates my mind. I used to be a travel journalist, and in 1985 I was given one of the best assignments in the world: going by train from Hong Kong to Berlin, taking the Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Siberian railways. it was on the train from irkutsk to moscow that i read war and peace. what could be better?
2) Bars in quiet restaurants or hotel lobbies are great for reading. if I am in a strange town and I have to eat alone, I always feel sad and uncomfortable at a table. but sitting in a bar with a book in hand and something good to eat and drink, I feel like an international man of mystery. my favorite bar read? espionage novels and thrillers. I recently read a good portion of Chris Pavone’s captivating and atmospheric The Expats while sitting at a restaurant bar.
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3) a chair by a roaring fire. I know it’s a cliché, but the crunch and warmth are wonderful accompaniments to reading. and the fire acts as a kind of hourglass: you can put down another log and dive into another chapter or read until the fire dies down. roaring fires make me want to reach for great historical fiction, books like meat loves salt by maria mccann or wolf hall by hilary mantel.
4) Parks are great for reading. we have a little pocket park right outside our building with benches, daffodils (in spring) and a statue of a very handsome boy, a world war one memorial. I think parks and poetry go well together, and the crowd boy makes me feel like he should read siegfried sassoon or wilfred owen.
5) a comfortable chair. any comfortable chair cries out for a book. any book.
6) the public library. some of my best reading experiences have been in libraries. I especially love open libraries, big and small, because that way you can find random books and you can end up reading a book you never thought you’d like. it’s a great place to experiment with different types of books and different genres. and being surrounded by other readers reminds you of this great thing we all have in common.
7) These days, coffee shops say “laptop” to a lot of people. to me, they still say “book”. For some reason, I find myself wanting nonfiction in coffee shops. It was at my local coffee shop (Cafe Minerva on West 4th Street, NYC) that I appropriately read a brilliant and wonderfully produced book by a friend, Jamie James, called Rimbaud in Java. mixes history, literary criticism and “imaginative reconstruction”.
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8) Airplanes provide plenty of time to read, and some of my most memorable reading experiences have been in the air. A lot of people complain about air travel, but I still love it. the actual plane ride that is. getting on and off the plane and the delays you could do without. but once I settle in with an absorbing book, I am very happy. Some people like to carry a fat book on a plane, but I like a small stack of novels and novellas, because I’m never sure what my mood will be.
9) any porch with a hammock, daybed or adirondack chair. porches are designed for reading, talking, relaxing. Some of my best reading experiences have been on friends’ front porches, especially when they’ve left a selection of books for me to read. I’m not a beach reader: too much sand, too much glare. but a porch or deck overlooking the beach is the best of all possible worlds, especially when you’re reading a book a friend has selected just for you.
10) bed. this is where I do most of my reading. This is where I read a good balance of Rohinton Mistry and Christopher Isherwood’s Christopher and His Kind and Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker and a dozen Alistair Macleans and hundreds of my other favorite books. my informal survey shows that most people who read read a lot in bed.
11) If I’m reading at the breakfast table, it means I’m so engrossed in the book I was reading when I went to sleep that I can’t wait to read it again. so some of my favorite books are bed and breakfast board books.
I’m sure you have your own favorite places to read. I would love to know not only where you like to read, but also what books you have read in those places.
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