Books: April 2006 Archives

Reaching out beyond the confines of my small commute, I asked you to send in the best, worst, most beloved, and/or interesting book moments of the week. On Fridays I hope to post one or two selections from my inbox. It may not happen ever week, but, like the G train, I hope it’ll come every once in awhile, and possibly even when you’re interested in its arrival. In the hope of reclaiming available surface area in my apartment, I’ll be giving away selections from my library to the winner.

The best find this week came courtesy of Cheryl, who writes,

“Last week on the morning 4/5. I get in at Boro Hall and am stunned to see some schmuck standing in the middle of the car, placidly reading that gross Neil Strauss book The Game in front of god and everybody, holding it up in front of his face so everyone could see what it was. Not that anyone can tell, since it’s only leather bound with gold edges like a friggin’ bible, with the title blazing across the front. Dumbass. Should one not perhaps take that one in at home? Way to be subtle. He got off at Wall Street, naturally.”

For her vigilance, Cheryl gets a slightly used copy of The Rice Mother: A Novel by Rani Manicka, a story that traces a family through three generations in Malaysia, detailing the horrible, horrible things that happen to these people.

Runner-up goes to newyorkette for her bilingual prowess on the 1 train, near 137^th Street, who saw a woman reading a religious pamphlet: “cómo moriras” (“How will you die?”) next to a man reading a health book: “nutricion y salud” (“nutrition and health”). A moment sure to spark coincidence versus irony debates for much time to come.

Feeling jealous? Send your sightings here!

Please welcome our newest contributor, La Penguina, as she re-starts the weekly list of what's being read on the subways. La Penguina knows a bit about books and is excited about the chance to peek over your shoulder on the subway to see what you're reading.

I was to stick to the original plan.

Dedicated readers of abrooklynlife will remember the ill-fated Subway Reads postings, a brief compendium of the most popular tomes to be found in the hands of commuting New Yorkers. It was one of my favorite features, even if, however tragically, one which was to be short-lived. So recently I was given a proposition: one car, one train, five commutes in underground observation.

In New York we like to believe that we are the nation’s epicenter because we deserve such distinction. “Look at our museums, our galleries, our newspapers!” we cry. Our public transit system is justifiably the best in the world, and on more than one occasion I’ve gloated to my car-shackled friends about the mornings of solitude aligned with so many strangers – our noses buried in books, our minds far from the dreary monotony of screeching iron and jostling crowds.

Compiling each week’s Subway Reads would be such a simple task. Yet this week I found myself distracted, even distraught at each successive stop. Was that Kant triumphantly snatching the last seat? Nora Roberts curled up in the corner? Truman Capote stepping into the car ahead? My fertile imaginings banged shoulders with the Post on the way to work and got jumped by a gang of anorexic ipods making the commute home. Each day seemed more barren than the last. Where were all the books? Is the “subway scholar” a fiction we’ve created to justify those glorious nights squandered in front of America’s Next Top Model? Do we deserve our annointed place as the most educated, informed and erudite of the nation? Or, is the F train just one disjointed thread running through a larger, greater, more prose-friendly city?

In truth, lots of people read on the subway. They read maps and newspapers and magazines. They read printouts from class and photocopied essays. They read the advertisements (“Beautiful, looking skin!”) and occasionally the poems that lie next to the advertisements. It is true, some people read books. But from my admittedly small vantage point, the long lists and careful tallies fled like so many rats skittering away into the recesses of a rumbling platform.

But this was going to be about books, and through the din of idealism's death throes, a few sweet notes sounded. Below are this week's winners, chosen without hash marks or complicated ranking systems. I Paint What I See, Gahan Wilson titled his 1971 collection of drawings. This week I scribbled my visions in the margins of the New York magazine that lay open on my lap.

Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown

Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior
by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson

Middlesex
by Jeffery Eugenides

Avalon High
by Meg Cabot

Player Haters
by Carl Weber

[All images shamelessly stolen from Amazon.com. Neither the writer nor abrooklynlife supports the sole use of online retailers. Be a good neighbor and buy your books local.]

On your lap: Want to contribute your book-thoughts? Send the best, the worst, the most incredible book sightings here!