Places

A sweeping multigenerational epic about drowning, grief, and grace… read on a man-made island where the gravest threat was accidentally setting up next to the group that brought a soundbox. Verghese gave me monsoons, medical tragedy, and spiritual renewal. Amager gave me blistering red tan lines and passive smoking. Still, something about reading centuries of South Indian family pain while watching Danes bravely wade into 16°C water felt oddly fitting. Everyone’s confronting mortality in their own way.

Idyllic streams, existential horror. Mishima’s sailor shimmered with heroism, then slipped beneath the surface — much like my faith in humanity as the boys plotted his downfall with cold-eyed precision. Ducks napped beside me as the narrative spiraled toward ritual and ruin. It was all very polite, very scenic, very psychologically brutal. The contrast was... something.

I drank tea, not coffee, and didn’t travel in time. Still, the bamboo grove rustled like a ticking clock. Around me, influencer photoshoots unfolded at five-minute intervals — wistful gazes, forced candid laughter, a kimono caught on a selfie stick. Meanwhile, Kawaguchi’s time-travel café served quiet heartbreaks and emotional what-ifs. Melancholy wrapped in whimsy.

One moment a monk loses faith in humanity, the next a wife and thief argue about what really happened — and nobody tells the same version twice. Each tale twisted like the branches above me: lovely, shadowy, unnerving. Even the petals felt suspicious. A place for contradictions. Perfect.

Under the glass dome, surrounded by Roman busts and 19th-century silence, I read about the slow erosion of self. Beauty doesn’t erase horror — it just frames it.

Mountains. Mist. A valley so dramatic even Tolkien might’ve blushed. I kept waiting for hobbits. Instead, I got sheep posted by the front door of the cabin like woolly sentinels.

The geese were loud, but Kristóf’s cold, clear prose was louder. Each sentence cut through the lake’s calm like a child’s lie you wish wasn’t true. Brutal beauty.

Extra plus for the cute dogs.

Stillness. Wind through leaves. Vuong’s poems hit like whispered confessions in a sacred place. Someone rang a bell.

A massive lake and an even more massive novel about wandering mystics. I lost my place in both several times. History blurred. Ducks stared. I kept reading anyway.

As Myshkin wandered through moral collapse and spiritual agony, I sat surrounded by Teglholmen’s waterfront utopia of sterile cubes, private saunas, and architect-approved patio furniture. Couples in matching Arc'teryx discussed renovation fatigue. A Tesla purred by. Myshkin, bless him, just wanted people to be kind. Here, even the dogs had anxiety therapists. The gap between Dostoevsky’s decaying soulscape and Teglholmen’s artificial, polished veneers was vast, echoing — and probably covered by insurance.

Reading Dust Bowl despair in a sleek Scandinavian museum should’ve clashed, but somehow it didn’t. Capitalism’s sharpest edges look better with sea views. Also: Steinbeck would’ve hated the gift shop prices.

Wild grass, scattered junk, and a herd of sheep made the perfect audience for Tokarczuk’s mythic weirdness. As I read about a village outside time, they stared blankly, like they knew something I didn’t. Reality hiccupped. Or maybe that was just an alpaca chewing plastic.

Tiny boat café, massive philosophical drift. Sebald’s melancholic prose floated between cappuccinos and creaking wood. I wasn’t sure if I was reading or dissolving. I think, neither was he.

A mossy forest waterfall and Calvino’s absurd origin myths — both seemingly random, yet weirdly orchestrated. While Qfwfq narrated the Big Bang, squirrels fought overhead. Science fiction? Sure. Forest opera? Absolutely.

Reading Bourdain while surrounded by designers in black hoodies at OFFF Festival felt like a collision course. He was ranting about veal stock, rage, and cocaine, while someone nearby pitched a brand refresh for a kombucha startup. Design, meet chaos. Bourdain would’ve hated everyone here, then gone straight to the bar.

Still water, sharp air, and a book about Persephone not choosing. Everything echoed — especially the silences.

Reading Oliver among graves was almost too on-the-nose. But her reverent, joyful grief turned tombstones into punctuation marks in some larger poem. A magpie cackled mid-haiku. Probably wanted a piece of my croissant.

At a café that feels like it was designed mid-REM cycle, stylish but disjointed, cozy but vast, trendy but slightly off-kilter, I read a book set entirely between dusk and dawn. Espresso met existential fog. The girl next to me wore headphones; maybe she was also stuck in a parallel timeline. Or maybe she was just answering emails.

Among tropical ferns and glasshouse humidity, I read about self-disassembling beings. Surrounded by plants going further back than my family tree (the parts I know, anyway), the future felt suspiciously like a well-maintained greenhouse.

In a perfectly curated Moroccan garden, I dove into a metaphysical well with Murakami’s passive protagonist. Surrounded by tourists photographing cacti, I questioned time, memory, and whether my mint tea was actually real. Ten out of ten, reality slightly warped.

Under blazing sun and salty wind, I read about men chasing dreams and losing them in the dust. Steinbeck’s dry Californian fields had nothing in common with Shek O’s blue waves, but the view was splendid non the less.

The name means “Red Lychee Road Rest Garden,” which sounded innocent enough until I cracked open Camus and began contemplating mass death. There were three old men playing Chinese chess nearby, unfazed by my literary descent into existential despair. A very chill apocalypse.

Among cooing doves and swan-shaped pedal boats, I read about a murdered girl watching Earth from heaven. Perhaps not the optimal choice.

A delicate garden with koi ponds and trimmed hedges seemed like a cruel backdrop for Bukowski’s raw spittle of poems. As tourists posed near the red bridge, I nodded along to lines about decay, failure, and whiskey. The irony was not lost on me.

Aboard a fake cruise ship that never leaves port, I read about expats drifting through Spain. Hemingway’s aimless crew felt oddly at home beside joggers circling the concrete blocks. The sun set (of course it did), and I imagined Jake Barnes would have sipped his coffee at the nearby Pacific Coffee, had he ever had a chance to visit Hong Kong.