One of my favorite things to do when I have an evening all to myself is to sit with a book at the bar at my favorite restaurant. It’s an old-fashioned, low-key kind of pleasure — the very best kind, in my experience — and when I was younger, it’s exactly what I imagined being a grown-up in the big city would be like.

The complication, of course, is that when you sit at a bar, there are always people on either side of you, and if it’s a crowded night, you get that slightly unnerving sensation of knowing that people are reading over your shoulder, which is a problem (or not) depending on what you’re reading.