Where's the most lovely place you've read? What did you see in the space around you that permeated how you were reading? How did space outside a page play with the space you imagined?

(question spurred by the conversation in the link above)

I liked reading walking up to my desk at Berkeley. You start out coming out of BART in the charming grime of downtown and then you quickly get to the edge of campus and ascend a gnarly hill through lovely trees and imposing buildings. By the time you get to the top, your lower back is sweaty, but you can turn around and see all the way to the golden gate bridge, or whatever fog has eaten it.

At Northwestern, there's "The Lakefill," which is an artificially created peninsula and lagoon that shelters the campus from Lake Michigan. I started Moby Dick on the first really warm spring day a few years ago while sitting on "the rocks" looking out across the lake. Every time I've heard "Call me Ishmael" since then, I'm immediately brought back to the smells and sounds and warmth of that day and that spot.

I think a lot of my best memories of reading involve large bodies of water, whether on beaches in Hawaii or on a bus rattling down Lake Shore Drive.

I think one of my all-time favorite places to read has to be at lake powell, on a boat, during summer, in the shade of a giant over hanging rock. The calm, the gentle breeze, the sway created by the water hitting the rock.

I still maintain that the best place in the world to read is the NYPL's Reading Room. The high ceilings, the splendor of the place... I bet if we still crowned kings, we'd do it here.

Reading is like singing: it's fun to do on your own, but it is nothing compared to doing it with other people. It's like book church! (Except, Ghostbusters was here.)

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Is there any particular book you remember feeling magnified or deepend by being in that spot? (Like Andrew with Moby Dick)

I'm beginning to realize I like that room so much because it is the opposite of my usual experiences in NY. While going about the city, I'm usually in claustrophobically small spaces contributing to some general clusterfuckery. The Reading Room, though, is so spacious, open, and orderly. It's an oasis of idealistic sanity. All in all, I think everyone is answering the same answer: whatever is escapist for that particular person.

Following the work of Deleuze and Guattari, there is a new trend in philosophy, called GeoPhilosophy, which basically states that all thought takes place in relation to something. It's even been suggested that some of the greatest inventions and thoughts happened specifically in relation to a particular place. For instance, Nietzsche could only have discovered the thought of the eternal return in Sils Maria or...do you have other examples?

When I was at The Getty (getty.edu) a couple there were reading back to back on a bench. I talked to them a little bit and they said they were locals and would just go there to read. The best part was he was reading a leather bound tome and she was reading on her kindle. I'll try to dig the photo up later.

I'm a librarian who has worked in five libraries now, and while each one is very different from the other I've always found that the areas around the non-fiction and reference collections are the best to zone out and read. Granted, most of the library resources found in these areas are going digital but libraries are making up for it by creating some awesome reading spaces (for example, this is where I currently work simonsarchitects.com)

I like reading by Ocean Beach in the Outer Richmond in San Francisco. Not in the beach itself as the prevailing winds make page turning almost impossible but near the windmills sitting under a tree and smelling the earth and sea.

Reading the Maltese Falcon years ago and then moving to San Francisco years later and then walking the foggy streets made the passages from the book seem real. Anybody has experienced the same feelings?

My favorite place to read is the University of Costa Rica's campus. I lived near the campus all my life and walked it's gardens since I was a kid.

During my years in college I loved reading while I walked. I knew the place by heart, so I didn't have to think about where I was headed. There's only one thing to watch out for: the sidewalks in Costa Rica are extremely crappy. They're full of cracks and holes. So I developed a technique to look ahead every few seconds, watch for any dangers ahead, and then just keep on reading.

Wish I was there right now.

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This place is nice, on the Sonoma County coastline, around 30 minutes along the Kortum Trail.

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best place to read...is inside...near a window...with it cracked...on a rainy day...with a cup of coffee...and the smell of the rain...the aroma of coffee...and the warmth of the story found in the pages

Jardin des Tuileries in Paris.

I've never been so lost in a book and so comfortable among strangers at the same time. People watching in between chapters of classic lit.

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I just noticed that hardly anyone has mentioned what was being read in these places. I wonder how much of the loveliness of the place has to do with the book influencing the atmosphere.

A lot since both the location and what is being read should harmonize.

So let me put my own experience in context. The time I experienced the University campus as the loveliest I was walking and reading "The Cather in the Rye" for the first time. An old and worn edition I had just got form the library. I was hypnotized.