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“Reading has been unfairly maligned as an indoor activity for far too long,” Bekah Waalkes wrote this past spring. “As a child, when nice weather came around, I was told to put down my book and go play outside.” But why can’t reading a book be a form of outdoor play? Reading outside can also be a practice in sustained attention, Waalkes writes: The act of focus can actually sharpen “one’s perception of the trees, the soil, the friends chattering at the next table in the beer garden.”
Today’s newsletter offers a guide to reading outdoors—how to make the most of it, and which books to take with you on your adventure.
Six Books You’ll Want to Read Outdoors
By Bekah Waalkes
Reading has been unfairly maligned as an indoor activity for far too long.
24 Books to Get Lost in This Summer
By The Atlantic Culture Desk
The Atlantic’s writers and editors have chosen fiction and nonfiction to match all sorts of moods.
The One Book Everyone Should Read
By The Atlantic Culture Desk
The Atlantic’s staffers on the books they share—again and again
Still Curious?
- Take your book outside: Reading al fresco isn’t always idyllic, but it can be sublime, Emma Sarappo writes.
- The unbearable smugness of walking: Literary walking has long been celebrated, Michael LaPointe writes. Is it really worth the hype?
Other Diversions
- How Justin Bieber finally gave us the song of the summer
- Alexandra Petri: “How I came to be in the Epstein files”
- The psychological secret to longevity
P.S.
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparked their sense of awe in the world. “I had awakened early on this morning in July 2016 and tiptoed out of the hikers’ dorms at Rifugio Lagazuoi, which is perched at 9,000 feet in the Italian Dolomites,” Tim Tumlin, 74, in Darien, Illinois, writes. “As I hoped, the silent overwhelming beauty made the climb the day before more than worthwhile.”
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel
The post The Pleasures of Reading Outside appeared first on The Atlantic.
