Typically, reading lists published at this time of year are designed to help you with that crucial part of North American vacation decision-making: which book do you take to that house at the beach or the cabin in the woods? I’ve always found this a puzzling practice, since I rarely read when I’m on vacation, beach chairs being notoriously uncomfortable and cabins utterly devoid of decent lighting (or decent cutlery, for that matter). And frankly, good vacations and good authors compete for the same cognitive territory: the former compels you into the veritable moment, and the latter draws you into a contrived one. No, far too much effort on the part of the publishing industry goes into creating reading lists for that brief bit of summer fling that is best spent doing other things.
A far greater service to bibliophiles would be to offer reading lists catered specifically for those periods of monotony concomitantly blessed with comfortable seating and adequate lighting: the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices or the arrivals area of a major airport. And of course the suburban bus commute.
So, here is my modest contribution to such an effort: this is a list of what was actually being read* on my commute to and from work yesterday. Or at least, 60% of what was being read. Discretion prevented me from overtly identifying the other 40% obscured from my view:
The Morning Commute
Broken by Kelley Armstrong. (”…a pregnant werewolf may have unwittingly unleashed Jack the Ripper on twenty-first-century and become his next target…)
The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, the fifth installment in the Outlander series featuring the time-traveling Frasers.
The Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS): A Guide to Training. (Yikes)
Le Devoir, a French-language newspaper published in Montreal and distributed here in Ottawa (and elsewhere).
And The Return Trip
Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar. On the backcover: “He will undoubtedly go down in history as the number one salesman of our time!” – Mary Kay Ash
A Barbeque Manual. I couldn’t tell which manufacture, but the manual was thick and apparently engrossing.
*The advantage being that the choices made are intimately tied to the context in which they are read, and so we can have some confidence these are choices eminently suitable for the commute. This is of course in sharp contrast to typical summer reading lists that are crafted in the sun-free environment of publishing establishments.
Dispatch: On Summer Reading
In which I ponder openly about the lack of professionally designed summer reading lists for bus commuters, and modestly propose such a list.
Photo by Yuki*.
Tags
reading lists, shared knowledge & expertise
In This Series
Dispatches From the Back of the Bus
Typically, reading lists published at this time of year are designed to help you with that crucial part of North American vacation decision-making: which book do you take to that house at the beach or the cabin in the woods? I’ve always found this a puzzling practice, since I rarely read when I’m on vacation, beach chairs being notoriously uncomfortable and cabins utterly devoid of decent lighting (or decent cutlery, for that matter). And frankly, good vacations and good authors compete for the same cognitive territory: the former compels you into the veritable moment, and the latter draws you into a contrived one. No, far too much effort on the part of the publishing industry goes into creating reading lists for that brief bit of summer fling that is best spent doing other things.
A far greater service to bibliophiles would be to offer reading lists catered specifically for those periods of monotony concomitantly blessed with comfortable seating and adequate lighting: the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices or the arrivals area of a major airport. And of course the suburban bus commute.
So, here is my modest contribution to such an effort: this is a list of what was actually being read* on my commute to and from work yesterday. Or at least, 60% of what was being read. Discretion prevented me from overtly identifying the other 40% obscured from my view:
The Morning Commute
And The Return Trip
*The advantage being that the choices made are intimately tied to the context in which they are read, and so we can have some confidence these are choices eminently suitable for the commute. This is of course in sharp contrast to typical summer reading lists that are crafted in the sun-free environment of publishing establishments.