Location Location Location

Sometimes – well, a lot of times – where you read a book can drastically heighten the entire experience. I’m talking the whole gamut from emotional and literary at the time of reading to satisfyingly satisfied reminiscing on past reads. (True blue book nerds like me often do this, especially on the solitary commute to work.) I’ve known this since my well-written-about adventures with Tolkien as a very young man. It’s probably why The Lord of the Rings is my favorite work of literature. But there have been others.

Most recently, I made the wise choice (yes, I’m patting myself on the back as I write this) of reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame during last spring’s once-in-my-lifetime trip to Paris. Another neat novel to do, should you ever have the opportunity, is to try Melville’s Moby Dick when visiting Cape Cod. It’s not that masochistic. I did it over a dozen years ago during my first real vacation with my future wife. Nothing like inhaling salty ocean air while on the deck as Ahab is going batty over the white whale and everyone else is looking quite uncomfortable about their chances of surviving their stint on the Pequod.

For ten years my parents had a weekend home in upstate New York. Though located on a somewhat busy road (for upstate New York), it was horse-shoed by a very aggressive and impenetrable band of thick fir trees. And when it got dark up there, it got black as squid’s ink. (That’s pretty black, I’d guess.) So it was quite conducive to spooky reading, especially in the fall, when things got colder and the moon got fuller and imaginations got more suggestible. I read quite a few Steve Kings there, as well as some creepy Clive Barker stuff – Cabal, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show. Made for some very fond memories.

Little things help, too. Back in my musical phase, as an amateur guitarist trying to become professional, I had a little recording / rehearsal studio in the basement. Very, very basic. Just some carpets and cushions to help dampen the sound. But I had all my amps and instruments there, and usually whoever was drumming for me had his kit there. So … guess where I read large portions of No One Here Gets Out Alive, The Hammer of the Gods, and ’Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky?

As a single-digit kid I read Watership Down in the grass of my backyard. Couple years later read Alien in my dark and musty basement. I read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose – a large part of which involves a mysterious medieval library – in the relatively ancient library at Rutgers College. Read Killerbowl the weekend the Oakland Raiders upset the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl (that counts as a “location in time” instead of place).

Location, location, location! It isn’t just for making money. It’s for investing as wisely as possible the hours you’ll spend with a good book.