Where is your favourite spot to read at home? What makes it such a good reading corner? I have quite a few! The window seat in my sitting room, as I can watch people going by, which I love. I am always spring cleaning my book shelves as I don’t have enough space for books and so about once a month I put a book box outside my house and I love to watch who takes what. Sometimes I’ll throw them an encouraging thumbs up. I also love reading in my bed, in the bath and in my daughter’s bed too - even when she isn’t there. I find the restricted parameters of her single bed oddly comforting.
What time of day is sacred reading time for you? The evenings. If I don’t have social plans, or have to work, then I’m horizontal as soon as my kids are down and reading. I also often read in the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep, and that’s always feels like precious reading time, as it’s so deadly quiet outside.
How do you display books at home? Do things have an order or process to them? Mainly in my study, but we’ve also built a few bookshelves outside bedrooms and above the stairs to accommodate the overflow. I organise them pretty anally, it brings me great joy. I have specific fiction and non-fiction shelves and then within those shelves, I colour co-ordinate them. And then I have shelves for books that I haven’t read. Upstairs I have an entire bookshelf of comfort books - easy to read, which I’ve read ten times before - for when I have insomnia. Apparently it’s a sign of psychopathy to colour-code your books…
"In all my childhood photos I am curled up reading a book and my mother would always find me asleep with my book over my nose. Some people cook delicious dinners every night, or go to the gym. Me, I read."
