Book reading Ambiance

I was wondering if anyone has a particularly setting they like to read in, or have read in that enhanced the
book(s).

I'll give you an example, about 5 years ago, I was alone at home while my parents were on vacation. The power was cut to my house for two days b/c of a storm. For two nights I read Crime and Punishment by candle light, and I think otherwise I would not have gotten through it. It was a really good setting to read about poor Russian peasents, etc.

Anyone have a similar story or place that helps them read.

Not really, but sometimes when I am reminded of a book, the setting in which I read it will come back to me if it's unusual. Whenever someone mentions The Dead Zone I think of being a teenager and floating on an inner tube in our pool which is where I first read it.

I started reading The Logogryph outside last spring and decided that I was only going to read it outside. Since it is a collection of vignettes on reading, books and readers it lends itself well to this prolonged reading schedule. Whenever I think of the book now, I'm reminded of hammocks and swinging chairs and gentle breezes under the trees—and books. It was a bit of an arbitrary decision, but it makes the book a little extra-special in my memory.

I have a hard time taking my book reading seriously if I am not in bed, and that leads to still more confusion (about taking notes, checking references, and the like).

Robert

In bed under the covers with a flashlight for younger books. Outside under a tree for fantasy or modern-day. I usually read nonfiction at my desk or spread out on the floor for note-taking purposes. Anything else is best by candlelight, especially historical fiction or horror!

Ideally - cozy couch, warm fuzzy throw, sleeping cat. Or if not that, pretty much anywhere.

>6 Fourpawz2:, Oh Fourpawz2, if you throw in some great tea, you're describing my version of paradise! Right now I've got a cozy chair, cold coffee, a newly-snuggly cat (this is only her second time snuggling with me on a chair since she was adopted in August - I'm elated!)...and a laptop. Because why read when you can LibraryThing? :)

But seriously - I find that my reading environment depends a little on what I am reading at the time. Some books are just too heavy to read in the bathtub or on the bus! Other than that, I can read almost anywhere.

Excellent question!

My ideal is: in bed, beneath a pile of blankets, dogs, and books, ideally a laptop and a big dictionary thrown in to chase random thoughts. For example a history of WWI I'm reading mentioned 2 works of art typically used by Germans to decorate the memorials of their war dead, which sent me off into finding those paintings and trying to find some writing about them to help me understand the images.

But reading a book in an unusual setting can also help make it more special. Life of Pi for me is forever fixed to a fading-gradeur 20's era grand hotel lounge. I was there for a conference, sipping a brandy and reading this weird, fascinating book by one of those little table lamps in the most delicious silence and dimness. Pet Semetary read in bed with bronchitis and a fever in London, more afraid of the impending flight home than the horrors of the book which were more real to me than the fever. The Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner at the kitchen table over dinner (strong stomach!!!) when I was a teenager. I actually took a lit course in college that taught that a book changed according to the circumstances in which you read it -- that seemed like a crazy hypothesis at the time but now seems self-evident. I've read Moby Dick three times -- the first time it bored me senseless, the second time it seemed deeply tragic, the third time the comedy of it thrilled me, but I still cried when it was all over.