When, and how do you read?

[Professor Angell.]

We are all here at the nightmare network fans of horror literature, but how and when do you read? Do you have a place you go to read? Stay up all night reading with a flashlight? Ambient music?

I find that my surroundings has a major influence on how I feel about a book/novel. For instance, I tried to read Ligotti on a subway once - couldn't do it. The environment didn't offer the focus needed to feast on the prose itself, I kept finding myself distracted by something.

In general, reading in a noisy environment sometimes (oddly enough) improve my focus - but not with horror. To read horror I find myself needing a calm, quiet room to really focus in.

One of the best horror reading settings was in my grandparents old cottage in the deep forests, no electricity, no running water..complete silence, apart from the next door neighbours sheep crying out in the night..the rain, and W.H Pugmire's "Sesqua valley and other haunts" and Laird Barron's "Occultation" to keep me company.
Either that or a Lovecraft-anthology during a snowstorm, both pretty ideal settings.

[waffles]

I can only read novels and non-fiction on the train. I do my serious reading in bed at night before I go to sleep.

[Derek]

I have destroyed countless books by reading in the bath.

When I'm soaking I'm always half-expecting someone to storm in and (Marat-like) stab me to death for crimes against bibliophilia.

[DoktorH]

At the office and the laundromat, I read ebooks on an ipod touch, with large "cans" style headphones on playing whatever music I think is appropriate. No Ligotti on there, but Robert Bloch, Laird Barron, and others. i just got home from such a session, using a Darkthrone/Burzum playlist to block out the outside world while I enjoyed Guilermo Del Toro's "The Strain"

In bed, with a mug of tea or cocoa and a small lamp on. no music, just me and the book.

living room couch, with a coctail or mug of tea/cocoa, no music here either. Living room couch is for special occasions, like birthday reading of Death Poems or Halloween reading of Agonizing Resurrection.

[Brendan Moody]

I do most of my reading alone in the bedroom with the door shut, sitting up in bed. Unless I'm reading something thoroughly engrossing (and sometimes not even then), I have a hard time concentrating when other people are around having conversations or watching television or whatever. I wind up reading the same page or paragraph for several minutes.

When to comes to horror and similar genres, I wait until it's dark outside. Between the silence of my closed-off bedroom and the blackness of the world outside, there's a sense of isolation that makes the frightening stuff more so. Really top-notch horror can frighten even in broad daylight, but there's so little of that I like to give the rest a leg up with suitable surroundings. This means, of course, that the time I have to read horror varies with the seasons; summer is my bane.

[Gray House]

I usually have a number of books going at once, so it takes me forever to finish any one of them, except occasionally I'll have one or more long night sessions with an especially enthralling book and get through it in a short time.

[Freyasfire]

I read wherever and whenever I can. I find that I never ever have enough reading time, and the demands of my life mean that I have to squeeze in little bits of reading time at the oddest moments. When in public, I always have my headphones on to block out the noise of others, and then I can escape easily into the world of the book I am reading. At home, my favourite reading sessions are usually in the morning on the couch with several cups of coffee, or late at night in bed with some wine or other alcoholic beverage on my nightstand. I usually save my rarer, limited editions for these night time sessions, and fervently hope that I will not stain the pages with wine!

[Karnos]

Usually is in isolation, although sometimes a quiet cafe does the trick. I read most of Mark Samuel's "The White Hands" in a small moody cafe in the old quarter of my former city and it did the trick quiet well.

Back in college I would sometimes skip entire classes if I was really into a book. I would go to an isolated out doors area at the back of the campus, between the industrial design labs and the mathematics/physics division, and spend hours reading there. I read the first two books of China Mievielle's Bas-Lag series like that (I didn't bother with the third one, too political) and I also read, with very good results, several of Ligotti's stories. I devoured all of Matt Cardin's "Divinations of the deep" under the same setting, as well as several non-horror but equally moody books, such as Borges' "Ficciones".

These days I usually read in the couch, I've got a big window with a wonderful view of some beautiful buildings, but I need to be fully charged otherwise I'd fall asleep. Unfortunately, weekend nights, the ones I happen to stay home, I cannot do that, since there is a bar with noisy people just on the first floor of one of such buildings and their horrid choice of music and the constant screams of the drunkards distract me from my reading.

[Spotbowserfido2]

Quote Originally Posted by Karnos

Unfortunately, weekend nights, the ones I happen to stay home, I cannot do that, since there is a bar with noisy people just on the first floor of one of such buildings and their horrid choice of music and the constant screams of the drunkards distract me from my reading.

The Height of the Drunkard's Walk Scream by Ramsey Campbell and Frederik Pohl.

[Karnos]

Quote Originally Posted by Spotbowserfido2

Quote Originally Posted by Karnos Unfortunately, weekend nights, the ones I happen to stay home, I cannot do that, since there is a bar with noisy people just on the first floor of one of such buildings and their horrid choice of music and the constant screams of the drunkards distract me from my reading. The Height of the Drunkard's Walk Scream by Ramsey Campbell and Frederik Pohl.

I haven't read that one, but I must say that I cannot criticize drunk people while myself being, many times, the center point of such foolery. Most of the time, while drunk, I get somber and suicidal, but there are special occasions when the jester comes out.