Let's look at book nooks

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Time to put away beach reads and find something engrossing for the great indoors. I'm a big believer in making space as well as time for reading, which is why the title "Book Nooks" caught my attention a while back. The book itself was nestled in a nook, demonstrating the very principle it celebrates.

I've finally added it to my book collection and have already combed through its pages for inspiration. The book's cover promises a mix of coziness and style...

... and for the most part, it delivers. The breakdown of nooks into types of room and types of interest, plus a few other descriptive categories, gives a foretaste of what you'll discover inside:

One of my favourite bits are the two-page spreads introducing sections, each with a handsome vignette illustrating the theme. They're great examples of how to mix books with other objects:

But they also hint at one of the book's weak spots, its tendency to get sidetracked by display techniques, forgetting about book nooks as places for actual reading. Some photos veer into admittedly impractical territory:

Still, it's a handy set of prompts to get you thinking about how you're make space for enjoying books, and what you could improve. It had me mulling over what I think are the book nook essentials.

I spotted some of them in a recent visit to the Design Within Reach showroom, where this enticing corner felt like something to emulate:

It has the first two things I consider essential, a comfy chair and a place to set down your book, with other titles in easy reach. What it's missing is an adjustable light source. Here's how I balance those three things in my own book nook, shown here while my Mom is over for coffee a few years ago:

The Soren chair from Stylegarage has plenty of reading mileage on it and it's still going strong. Sturdy armrests make holding books effortless. The vintage floor lamp from Atomic Design has a dimmer on it, permitting the right intensity for any time of day. And although my shelved books are in another room, there are surfaces around the chair to hold whatever I'm reading now.

Come to think of it, there's a fourth element I consider essential:

It's somewhere to look when you lift your eyes from the page. I'm fortunate to have a view of the midtown skyline from this armchair, with enough sky to see the occasional plane passing by. Try positioning your reading chair so that something conducive to daydreaming is waiting for you: a painting, an arrangement of favourite objects. I recommend a view without a clock, so that you can get truly lost in your story.

The books close at hand can be part of that view. Over on my radiator, I have a stack of fiction. The vintage Graham Greene Penguins from The Scribe are there mainly for the pleasure of stacked orange spines, while the other titles are there for their contents, "Station Eleven" already finished and "The World According to Garp" just started:

A single book can serve both purposes at once:

I picked up this vintage book of poetry at Acadia Books for the moody artistry of its cover, but I also want it on my coffee table to tempt me into its depths.

Growing up in a book-strewn household, I absorbed the value of having certain titles close by. These tomes were living room guardians in one house...

... and again in the next. Even if no one read them, they conveyed the comfort and security of being a well-loved child. I may not inherit these exact volumes, but I've inherited what they signify.

Over to you

Do you have a book nook? What are the essentials that make it work? Have I missed anything in my list of four? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

Thank you for reading.