I'll have a B please Bob

Bryson and Brick Lane

Last autumn it felt like most people I saw on the tube were reading Middlesex. This year or even at Xmas I haven't noticed a trend at all, but the two readers below caught my eye this evening.

Firstly, the woman below pulled a book out of her rucksack with a really nicely designed spine. Then I noticed the exotic looking cover with its gorgeous shades of reds and orange, and thought "Crikey I wonder what that is?" and it turned out to be the paperback version of Brick Lane. The first time I had seen the paperback and for the first time I actually felt like reading it. (Strangest reader review in amazon - "One dimensional characters; boring story; but very readable")



Then the guy opposite me pulled out Bill Bryson's Down Under. I've never felt compelled to read much Bryson, although I spose Notes from a Small Island might be interesting particularly in light of the "tube map confusing tourists" story he tells (along the lines of it's faster to walk to certain stations than slavishly follow the tube map and travel five or six stops taking twenty minutes or so to emerge a few hundred yards down the road from where you started)



I actually had a very sharp picture of Down Under, but quite liked the accidental butterfly effect of shot.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, March 03, 2004 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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