Yet More Notes from Underground

Photo from Flickriver

I'm going to have another manic underground-going day quite soon, when I'll do more anthropological research into what people are reading on the tube, but in the interim I thought I'd post a simple list of books I've seen in the last fortnight. It shows a breadth of reading material that I found quite delightful.

Isaac Bashevic Singer
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (naturally)
A book by Mark Mazower
Hester by Mrs Oliphant - this was most pleasing. I don't think I've ever seen anyone reading this, even in a library.
The American Future by Simon Schama
Hunger Games (see Wolf Hall)
The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
The Arabian Nights
Things I Don't Want to Know  by Deborah Levy - in a striking purple Penguin paperback edition.
The Bolter by Frances Osborne
Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton - the hot new history book by my old chum. I saw an old lady reading it on the bus and almost tapped her on the shoulder to tell her I knew the author. Which would have been weird.
Huckleberry Finn
Cloud Atlas  by David Mitchell
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.
A book by Richard Power.

There is a lot to be heartened by here: an eclectic mixture of the popular, the classic, the heavyweight and the recondite. Londoners are reading still, and they are reading broadly, eagerly, and, perhaps thanks to the peace-inducing state of the tube, more thoroughly than ever.

Stay tuned for a full examination. A previous assessment can be read here.