B

Book Club

— Reading together, one book at a time
71 members Created Jun 2026

Stoner by John Williams and the novel that asks whether a life was enough

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The experience of reading a book while traveling is different from reading it at home, and not only because of the different environment. You're already in a state of displacement and heightened attention when you travel. New stimuli, unfamiliar surroundings, the specific alertness of being a stranger somewhere. Books read in this state often acquire the atmosphere of the place you read them in.

I read Sebald's The Rings of Saturn on a train through England, which was either the perfect reading environment or a cliché depending on your view. The novel is about a walk through Suffolk and it kept looking out the window into an English countryside that matched the novel's melancholy and beauty.

The books I associate most strongly with specific places are the books I read while traveling. The place becomes part of the reading and the reading becomes part of the place.

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