As you read this, where are you?
It’s none of my business, I know, but I’m doing a survey, asking people where they like to read.
I’m sure if you’re on a computer, or on your phone, you could be anywhere. Still, you may have a favorite spot.
Maybe, if you’re in a coffee shop, you’ve been lucky to snag a comfortable seat, cushioned even.
If you’re camped out there for a while, and reading, it’s OK if you read me, but that shouldn’t take that long.
Pull up a novel on your phone or Kindle or in print. Read it, get lost. Let the story sweep you up.
If you do some work in your preferred space, I don’t mind. I’ve done that myself.
When I was in college, I would find a table within the library stacks. I could settle in, do my work.
Sometimes the lights, which
were on a timer, would suddenly go dark. I wouldn’t panic. I knew my way around. I found the switch.
But I could work only so long. I would wander down to the Periodical Room. It was another quiet space.
That day’s newspapers were there. Each slipped onto a long wood pole. I would go to sports first, baseball or basketball. I would move from the Utica Observer-Dispatch to The New York Times. I was in heaven.
Sometimes, too, I would go the main reading room, just to be with other readers for a while.
I would try to sit in the same chair at the same table. Those around me camped out in their same spots, too. It was a little like church, my mother getting a pew about three in from the front as often as she could.
My mother did her reading in a comfortable chair in the living room, right beside a radiator.
I suppose if I were giving reading location advice. I would recommend your place be radiator-adjacent. Fireplaces are nice to sit by, as well. You knew that.
I asked AI about favorite reading spots, and it quickly named some of the spaces I’ve mentioned here but forgot to mention anything about radiators.
It did send me via footnote to the Substack “Point of Departure,” by E.J. Johnson. It ranks the 11 best places to read.
Worst place for Johnson to read is on a plane. That’s the best place for Anthony Jeselnik, the comedian and host of an online book club.
“I’ve got earplugs in and I’m tearing through a novel while everyone around me is asleep,” he told The New York Times Book Review.“A flight attendant comes by once in a while to fill my water glass.”
Kids who like books can read anywhere. They can read in bed, in tree houses, in cars, while eating, maybe ever while sleeping.
In their classrooms, if they’re lucky, there are also designated corners where, if they need space, they have space. They take a book and they just tune out. All of that is good.
So whether you’re young, old, or in- between, let me know where you read. Extra points if a radiator is part of your story.
Remarkable Rochesterian
Speaking of reading, and, by implication writing, let’s add the name of this trailblazing Rochester journalist to the list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at: https://data.democratandchronicle.com/remarkable-rochesterians/:
Jean Walrath (1907–1992): As a reporter for 42 years at the Democrat and Chronicle, she broke barriers by being one of the first women to move from a society page beat to reporting general news. She covered social issues, as well as crime and education before moving on to be a film reviewer and art critic. In 1944, she ran for Congress as a Democrat losing to James W. Wadsworth, the Republican incumbent. A founding member of the Newspaper Guild of Rochester and the recipient of several awards, she was born in New Mexico and attended schools in Clifton Springs and Canandaigua before graduating from Keuka College.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott writes Remarkable Rochester about who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Where you read may be as important as what you read
