Tuesday, June 1, 2010

My Ten Best Places to Read

Simon Thomas, on his Stuck-in-a-Book blog, has issued a challenge to book bloggers:  post a picture that sums up your reading tastes.  I found so many pictures of beautiful reading spots from memorable moments in my life, I thought I'd make a Best 10 list.  Here is Simon's post, with his own "reading" picture: 
http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2010/05/tea-and.html

And now my choices:

1.  The Winding Stair Bookshop, Dublin, 1990s

Apparently this famous bookshop/cafe in Dublin overlooking the River Liffey has closed and re-opened since we were there, so I don't know if the atmosphere is as bookishly magical as it was when Peter and I spent several long and happy Irish afternoons there...reading.


 2.  The Accademia Pensione, Venezia, December 2005.

I don't think there are very many places in the world where I've been more delighted, exalted, happy, than in Venice.  After a day of showing Venice to Paul (it was his first trip there), to come back to the beautiful Accademia (a former palazzo, later the site of the Katherine Hepburn movie Summertime) and relax by the fire with a book and a cup of cappucino, was very heaven. When we left, the staff bid farewell to the "cappuccinistas," we drank so many of them!

1991
2009
Christmas

3.  The Novel Cafe (now known as 212 Pier),
Santa Monica, California

By rights, the Novel should have come first.  After all, this venerable bookshop/cafe is where all three of us have done most of our reading and writing daily (and nightly) for the last twenty years.  But it's so familiar, so every day, that beloved as it is, I began the list with the glamorous exotic ones instead!  In any case, this list isn't in any particular order:  it couldn't be.



  4.  Lake Temagami, Canada.  Most peaceful place where we've ever read.


5.  Tamarack Lodge, Mammoth.  An old favorite.



6.  Bearpaw. 

Is calling Bearpaw our most beloved spot on earth going too far?  No.  We've been to this back country tent camp, a 12 mile hike up the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia, maybe 40 times.  Don't know how many more times we'll be able to make the hike.  But it's our personal heaven...and a wonderful place to read.



7.  New York City - home town life

New York's our home town and when we go back to visit family, we often stay at my cousin the rabbi's apartment...which was his father the rabbi's apartment before it was his.  I remember Seders here, back in the 1950s.  A lot of family memories...and a lot of great reading.



8.  Greenwich Village...back in the day.

Cafe Figaro, as it looked in the '60s, when Peter and I first met there, age 17 and 19.  Me in Washington Square Park, 40 years on, sitting in the same spot as in my avatar picture.



9.  Homer, Alaska. 

One of our greatest trips...and my high school friend Denise's cabin is cozy, full of character, and a great place to read. 


         

      10.  And best of all - at home in bed with a cat!


8 comments:

StuckInABook said...

Lovely! I want to go to ALL of them, but perhaps especially Lake Temagami.

Cornflower said...

Wonderful! What a great collection!

christy somer said...

What a super photographic reading journey for You and Yours~~~So far the only books I will travel with these days are JA's~~~
And thanks for sharing Simon David Thomas's blog~~~
I was wondering about Him as He had only posted once(for some 'freindly' spelling) since I joined almost 2 months ago~~

Christy

Vic said...

What a fabulous post! These images make me salivate! I, for some reason, read best in coffee houses, restaurants, and other public places where the noise helps me to concentrate. You obviously prefer quiet, peaceful, and beautiful settings.

Hannah Stoneham said...

What a fantastic set of places.... I have visited Dublin but I managed to miss that!

thanks for sharing and a pleasure to read your blog

Hannah

mary said...

What wonderful places to read, wish I'd known about that bookshop in Dublin when I used to go there for work a few years ago!

Thickethouse.wordpress said...

This is really great! Like Simon I would like to go to all of these places, traveling in space and time.

You know how to enjoy life!

ETOGA WEBSOLUTIONS said...

Nice blogg and pictures


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