Here we see two women reading their newspapers at a Lyon's Teashop on Piccadilly in London in a 1953 photograph by Bert Hardy for Picture Post. Sadly, newspapers are no longer provided for customers in British cafes (many European cafes continue to have national and  local papers, and what a joy this is) but readers still read and writers still write their books in cafes, just as Simone de Beauvoir et al did at the Café de Flore.