This time of year it’s at its best. I open the bamboo blinds in the morning to let the warming sunshine in, though later in the day I close them because I like the privacy and, more, the filtered light. When we bought a new sofa a few years ago we banished our old beat-up one out here, where it has become my favorite place to read. I also keep a small writing desk wedged in a corner — I’m sitting at it right now, in a cheap molded plastic chair — but reading is, to me, what this space is essentially for. When I lie on the sofa I look north into my back yard, where the branches of a silver maple hang just outside both the northern and eastern windows. The sunporch is at ground level on the front but the yard drops off so that the northeastern corner is about fifteen feet up and therefore right in the midst of the maple’s branching. It’s like reading in a treehouse.