Maybe it's because I'm in publishing, maybe it's because I love books, or maybe I'm just nosy, but when someone sitting near me in public is reading, I want to know what they're reading, why they're reading it, and why they decided to read it on the subway, at the doctor's office, on the airplane, or on a park bench. I end up setting aside what I'm doing in order to satisfy my curiosity, craning my neck and squinting my eyes to discern author, title, and if I'm lucky, publisher.
Lately I've been paying a bit more attention to what's being read publicly and here's what I and others have seen recently on the subway, at little league games and other venues:
Friday Night Knitting Club, Kate Jacobs
The Creation of Eve, by Lynn Cullen (forthcoming in March, someone was reading an advance copy)
The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max
Spiced: A Pastry Chef's True Stories of Trials By Fire... , Dalia Jurgensen
Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larsson
I'm in No Mood for Love, Rachel Gibson
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney
Nixonland, Rick Perlstein
The End of Your World, Adyashanti
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of The World, Haruki Murakami
Too Big To Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
Treatise on the Great Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Volume I, by Tsong Khapa (that was me reading on the 6 train)
We all have different ways of discovering books, and spotting them being read in public is just one. At Huffington Post, we are very interested in what people are reading around the country, and in particular we'd love to know what books you have seen being read in public. Just as we are now posting your reader recommendations, we'll post what you've spotted. So leave a comment letting us know the title and the venue in which the book was being read -- waiting room, bus, park bench, café, restaurant, airplane, airport, train, etc. -- or send e-mails to amyhertz@huffingtonpost.com. And let us know what you think of the books being mentioned.
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