There's nothing quite like devouring a few well-chosen books on holiday, especially in an inspiring setting in a new enterprise on the Suffolk coast, finds Joanne O'Connor.
Choosing which books to take on holiday is a serious business, one that gives me pleasure and angst in equal measure. I sometimes spend more time agonising over my choice of reading material than on choosing the destination itself. Then, having crammed the entire Booker longlist into my luggage, I'll buy a copy of Hello! magazine at the airport and spend the holiday happily reading about Kate Middleton's latest hairstyle. More often than not the books will return home unread.
Now I think the problem might have been solved for me. The Reading Retreat is the latest offering from the School of Life, a London-based enterprise that runs events and classes concerned with the art of living well. It works like this: fill out a detailed questionnaire about your reading habits, likes and dislikes. Following a telephone consultation with a "bibliotherapist", you will be sent a reading "prescription" – a list of books carefully chosen to suit your interests and your destination. Take your books and a couple of well-chosen friends off to a beautiful architect-designed house in a remote spot. Spend the holiday reading and discussing books. Come home, refreshed and inspired.
The retreats are run in collaboration with Living Architecture, an organisation set up with the aim of making modern architecture accessible to everyone by commissioning leading architects to design imaginative and unusual holiday houses around Britain. In the last eight months, three houses have been completed, two in Suffolk and one at Dungeness in Kent; a further two are under construction.
With a pile of books and my family in tow, I headed off to the most recent addition to the portfolio – the Dune House in Thorpeness, Suffolk. A quick peek at Living Architecture's online photo gallery had shown the house to be a slightly austere-looking creation – all cool glass and polished concrete. I wondered whether I might not be happier in a cosy fisherman's cottage, the sort this stretch of Suffolk coastline does so well. But as we drove into the village of Thorpeness and spotted the angular steel-clad roof of the house seemingly floating above the dunes, it was hard not to let out a little gasp of admiration.
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