The art of the reading nook

To add a library to a house is to give that house soul – at least, so said Cicero. Unfortunately we’re not all as blessed in the book department as Ernest Hemingway, whose Cuban library boasted a ten-foot long desk ‘curved like a boomerang’. Modern living is often short on space. But that does not mean you can’t create a cosy corner to hide away from the world with a book.

Reading nooks are all the rage – everyone from Sophie Dahl to Nigella Lawson is carving out space for one. Even Jamie Oliver, who has spoken about his childhood battle with dyslexia, has sequestered a fireside armchair, snapped by his wife Jools for Instagram napping with a cookery book across his lap.

During lockdown, the wonders of zoom drew our attention to how other people organise their reading. We learned that Channel 4’s news anchor, Jon Snow, owns an impressive art book collection, with titles on Caravaggio, Andy Warhol and Aubrey Beardsley, and wasn’t above a little free PR for his distinguished historian cousin Peter and son, Dan Snow, with their joint 2016 title, Treasures of British History, in clear sight on the shelves.