During the last couple of weeks The Dish ran a pair of posts about people’s favourite places to read. You can find them here and here. Reading them got me thinking about my favourite places to read and I realised, looking back over my reading life, that the places I liked to read have said a lot about my life at the time.
As a teenage student (A levels and Uni) my place of choice for reading when staying with my parents was in the grounds of the old Priory in Dudley. After a visit to the main library I’d take my haul of books, walk to the outskirts of the town and settle down on the lawns and read. I have strong memories of reading portions of Lenny Bruce’s and William Blake’s biographies under the shade of the ruined walls.
Also while a student I spent a great deal of time on trains and continue to this day to find reading on trains an absolute pleasure. As a student I remember reading Trainspotting during trips between Stoke and Cardiff. More recently, in June of this year I devoured Kjell Askildsun’s Collected Stories travelling to London for the Short Story Festival.
After training to become a teacher, I spent my NQT year living in Southampton and in the brighter months, when at a loose end, could often be found in the city’s park, camped under a tree with a book. For some reason I seem to clearly recall reading Stephen Fry’s The Liar there, though I remember absolutely nothing about the novel except it’s title.
Fast forward to today and my favourite place to read is in the rocking chair set beside and upstairs window at home. What with work, children and my writing, reading time is at a premium so I prefer to stay closer to home now and make he most of the time. We have great views of the Lincolnshire countryside and it is a great spot whatever the weather. Most recently I powered through Paul Kingsnorth’s Booker long listed debut, The Wake, an excellent exploration of the dark time directly following the Norman Invasion of England. It felt particularly apt to be reading it while looking out over the fields of Lincolnshire.
Where’s your favourite place to read?
Dan Powell 
One Response to Where’s my favourite place to read?
I just had the most delicious walk down memory man (albeit it a rather recent stroll there).
I am very much an ‘in bed’ reader and then at a push, an on the couch reader. I’ve always loved the idea of going out to read but for whatever reason haven’t. Because I’ve never worked close to where I’ve lived, or for public transport to have been an option I’ve never read on the bus (and it makes me motion sick so that’s probably a good thing).
However, I remember vividly reading Nick Earls “Perfect Skin” as I was travelling through Victoria and NSW in 2001 and having a very embarrassingly laugh out loud moment on a train. I remember reading the Mammoth Book of Steampunk last year, while I lined up to vote in the National elections at the local show grounds. I remember in 2012 reading the final chapters of Kirstyn McDermott’s “Madigan Mine” in the Verve, the retro cafe around the corner from where Jason live in Melbourne (and almost missing the opening of the Small Press conference in the city!) This year on the way to NatCon I read “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” on the plane.
The ‘out of office’ experiences of reading might be few and far between but they always seem to be memorable. At least, for now!
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