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For the true bookworm, one’s reading environment can make or break a book.

This article is for the university student in Turin, Italy, who wants to get out of her dorm room or other unattractive, standard study space, and/or for the wanderer who likes to take a break from his travels to update his journal or read a novel. The combination of decent lighting and low, pleasant background noise at each of these spots makes it easy to settle down with a book. Waiters don’t hover. Bathrooms are available. And there is plenty of strong Italian coffee nearby for those long assignments …

1. Museum Café at Palazzo Madama

Ambiance is everything, and this museum café has plenty of it – floor to ceiling glass windows flood the robin’s egg blue room with natural light, a crisply vested waiter serves coffee from a silver tray. I came here on a rainy day to have a coffee and read the newspaper, and stuck around undisturbed for about a lovely, luxurious hour. You have to pay the museum fare to get into the café, but if you have a museum pass it’s free, and if you don’t… it’s worth it to check out the museum, too!

Museum Café at Palazzo Madama
Piazza Castello, 10122

2. Mood Café

This bookstore/café in the city center is great for reading, note-taking, forming outlines. If you have a hard time concentrating with lots of people around you, come between the breakfast and lunch crowds. Pull up a chair at one of the small brushed steel tables, wave down the waiter for a foamy macchiato, and take scholarly encouragement from the scores of books lining the interior walls of the café. The chic ambiance implied by its name extends even into the bathroom, which is cleaner and sleeker than even those in some nice restaurants. (Its deep purple interior and spacious wash-up counter, standard toilet, and fat roll of toilet paper contribute to an unusually luxurious bathroom experience.) The last time I was there, Mood’s background music featured hits by The Police, Michael Jackson, and Sinead O’Connor—a nostalgic line up for an American 20-something.

Mood Café
Via Cesare Battisti, 3/E – 10123

3. Il Circolo Dei Lettori

Chi legge vola. He who reads, flies. This is the motto of Turin’s literary society, the headquarters of which is nestled into this beautiful old palazzo building. Pass through the doors that open onto Via Bogina and hang a left at the manicured courtyard; ring 1115 and wait for the buzzer to open the door, then follow the plush carpet up the stairs to the reading rooms. Old tapestried palace parlors have been converted into spacious studies, each room scattered with hanging basket chairs, small tables and reading lamps, bookshelves and mantelpieces stuffed with books (mostly in Italian, but some in other languages)—every romantic literature fanatic’s dream. There are plenty of outlets to plug in your laptop. You can sit here all day, enjoy a coffee or small lunch at the brightly lit bar, and read to your heart’s content.

Il Circolo Dei Lettori
Via Bogino, 9 10123 Torino – Ring 1115

Photo by Jody Art