After years of living in a cramped London flat, I’m now in a house and have more space than I know what to do with. Then I realised that this awkward spot beneath the stairs works perfectly as a reading nook.
The basket is full of books and magazines on nature and hiking, the stack beside them is full of books on walking, and there’s a couple of pieces of landscape- and walking-inspired word art on the wall from a couple of people I’ve interviewed for The Writer’s Walk: poet Tim Rich and artist Mike Abrahams.
I talk a lot about walking and writing but less so about the reading that it goes hand in hand with. Beneath these pages are stories of adventure, resilience and connection with nature and ourselves. Books have always been my safe place, offering comfort when life has been chaotic, answers when I’ve felt lost, and inspiration when I’ve felt doubt. There are books here by people I know, and there are people I now know through reading their books and then reaching out to them.
In the few weeks since I created the nook, it’s become my favourite place in the house. I sit here every morning with my first cup of tea of the day. I dip in and out of the pages, I stick post-it notes to the ones I want to return to, and I scribble quotes I want to think about in a notebook. It’s the loveliest gift I could have given myself.
What about you? Do you have a special place where you like to curl up with a good book?
That looks so lovely! I don’t have one at home but I’m staying somewhere at the moment with a book nook in a window and would definitely like somewhere like that at home to curl up in!