Book café 📚

Seventeenth-century London coffee houses were nicknamed "penny universities": for the price of a coffee you could read the papers and listen in on other people's arguments. A book café keeps the quiet half of that tradition. You don't have to buy the book, and you don't have to finish it. One drink buys you most of an afternoon.

The lowest adventure reading in the pack. Whatever the rest of the week was like, you want a weekend with nothing new in it. Nature is low too — a regular spot not far from home beats a long trip.

Aesthetic is fairly high. You don't pick just any café; the lighting, the chairs and what's on the shelves all matter. You don't need to finish the book. An afternoon with a book open and a coffee going cold is the point.

You go well with someone comfortable with silence. Talk non-stop in a book café and neither of you reads anything. If you can sit across from each other with separate books and feel at ease, it's the perfect weekend. In a bracket the book café collects the votes of tired people — the harder the week, the stronger this square gets.

The nearest square is the palace walk, then the bakery crawl; all three are slow, sit-down weekends. The furthest is surfing. One wades into the waves; the other takes the window seat.