How to read the following books:
The Art of Fielding by Chris Harbach
In Chicago, while riding the EL, specifically the Red Line, while a Chicago Cubs baseball game is going on, at night, while the train passes Wrigley field, which is all lit up, and you can hear the roar of the crowd even over the rattling of the train.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
In public, on a beach, while wearing a swimsuit, hopefully a very revealing swimsuit, after you have applied your suntan lotion but before it is fully absorbed into your skin, when the temperature is above 90 degrees.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Alone, entirely alone, or alone in a crowd, preferably in a place where you can set down the book and gaze at something larger and more beautiful than you could possibly imagine, like a mountain or an ocean. Suggestions: a rooftop bar or garden, on the roof of any building with a view, while resting during a hike, while on a ski lift (somehow) and you are dangling above a snow-covered mountain.
The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
Out loud, to a thirteen or fourteen-year-old, preferably not your own child, preferably the precocious child of one of your siblings or a close friend.
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
In Los Angeles, in the wintertime, at night, in a cold apartment with no insulation and no central heating, wearing at least two sweaters, wrapped in a blanket, sitting in front of a space heater that is on the highest setting, drinking a stout or some other dark beer.
Lolita by Valdimir Nabokov
In the bathtub, preferably one filled with bubbles that smell like lavender, while drinking dry sparkling white wine, while you are waiting for a moisturizing clay face masque to dry, while wearing a lanyard anklet and/or a toe ring.
Anything Haruki Murakami has ever written
At a dimly-lit Italian restaurant, while slowly eating a large plate of spaghetti with marinara sauce, while drinking a half carafe of the house red wine by yourself, where it is just a little bit too noisy and the drunker you get the less able you are to tone out the chatter of the other diners.
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
While on vacation with your grandparents in Colonial Williamsburg, first on a bench in the gardens, then wherever you can sit down in one of the historical buildings after shrugging off your tour guide in period-dress, then on the airplane, then in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where you live.
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