Reading alfresco

COUNTRY LIFE staff pick where in London they most enjoy getting lost in the written word

- Will Hosie

BOOK lovers, rejoice: reading is back in style (Stuff & nonsense, June 25). Which really means that being seen reading has come back in style. Books have taken on the mantle of fashion accessories, with each new title offering an opportunity for personal branding. Are you leafing through yet another biography of Napoleon (intellectual), clutching a copy of Asako Yuzuki's Butter as if it’s a mini-Birkin (in the know) or using Irvine Welsh’s Men In Love as a cocktail saucer somewhere in east London (edgy, if a little try hard)? Presumably, you've tossed out your copy of The Salt Path by now.

Summer reading has become a conspicuously performative activity: books left on the side of a counter as you sip a coffee (Lavazza, please) in Italy or dusty anthologies piled up in the corner of a living room for an architectural feature in a glossy magazine (this is a lived-in space, thank you very much, and the people who live here are actually total bookworms). In any case, it’s tempting to write off books as props—which is a shame for those of us who genuinely love reading alfresco. Why shouldn't we?

Yet where we choose to read our books is often as revealing as the books we've elected to read. It seems futile to keep eschewing the poser allegations: we're better off leaning in.

With London enjoying Mediterranean weather since June, it feels odd that some still insist on heading to, say, Greece to live out the fantasy of the literary loner under the dappled shade of a tree. Much of the city can simulate the same conditions (even the strumming of Greek guitar is never far away —just ask the man who plays his bouzouki every day outside Highbury & Islington station). So, dear reader—if that is what you are —save your beach reads and air miles for a rainy day and find out where in London to tuck into your next novel.