More than ten years ago, I read the Herman Melville novel Moby-Dick, which is a hefty 500 pages. At the time, I volunteered every week at a hospital radio station and I used the bus journey to tackle much of my reading. Over time, I began to associate the route with the narrative of the story, even though the two were very different.
I recalled this recently as I read the Richard Osman novel The Thursday Murder Club on a bus, and I realised I have a few of these associations.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a book I’ll always associate with a bar where I currently hold a writing group, while A Room With a View reminds me of another bar not far away. Catch-22 is a particularly memorable case, as the association covers both the physical place, namely the school library, and the backdrop of the emerging War on Terror.
This phenomenon isn’t restricted to novels either. On a poetry front, I reviewed a Michael Pederson book in a park, and finished a Lorraine Mariner collection by candlelight one Christmas Eve.
In some cases, it must be stated that the reading locations were more memorable than the books, but I won’t single out any of them – at least not today.