Sunday, June 19, 2011

Bookspotting: Week 21



This week, I saw a tall Western man on the MTR reading a small paperback and for about four stops I tried to figure out what the title was without staring. I was rewarded for my persistence when he exited the train and I saw that the title was Shannon's Way. The next day, I saw a Chinese woman with a stack of three books on her lap. The bottom two had Chinese titles, but the top one was Many Lives, Many Masters. I stopped by the Pacific Coffee Company in IFC on my way to pick up some friends at the airport express. I saw a young couple with a book on the table called Modernes Russisch, which I took to be a Russian book for German speakers. Another young man was reading a book that had a black cover with a big red scorpion on it. Does anyone know what book it was? This weekend I took a few friends to the Temple Street night market, and on the way home I saw a young Chinese woman reading Tuesdays with Morrie on the MTR. I saw an additional four Chinese books in the hands of MTR readers this week.

What are people reading in your town?


Note: For a little something extra, my words and photos recently appeared on the lovely blog The Art of Staying Up All Night for the Amazing Bookshops Around the World feature.

9 comments:

  1. The only books I see people in my little suburb reading are bodice rippers. Drive into Houston, though, and it's drastically different.

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  2. I love to read your bookspotting and walking tour posts, and look forward to them (at least I can live vicariously :) Rae

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  3. Success! The scorpion cover is the UK version of "Scorpia Rising"..I played detective :) Rae

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  4. +JMJ+

    Hooray for Rae! I tried searching, too, but only found a children's novel with a red scorpion but no black background (The Curse of the Red Scorpion) and a collector's edition of a Stephen King novel which was all black but had a small red scorpion (Desperation).

    As for me, I've deduced that the fifth-grade boys in a certain school have been assigned Wringer by Jerry Spinelli in English class! =P

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  5. Wow, I'm very impressed Rae! That was some quick detective work :).

    Thank you all so much for coming back for bookspotting each week!

    Jennifer, I laughed out loud about the bodice rippers.

    Enbrethiliel, that's funny that you caught so many 5th graders doing their homework.

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  6. I really like this feature, as I like to see what people are reading! Unfortunately, I haven't spotted anyone in my town, reading anything more exciting than the newspaper......

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  7. I love this feature! Quite a good number of people are reading in the train when I am on my way to work, but it's so hard to get a good peek at the title. Last week I saw this guy reading a huge book that must have been at least 800 pages and I was dying to find out which book it was! He must have thought weird things the way I kept looking in his direction all the time. Never figured out the title though...

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  8. I find myself constantly looking out for what people are reading, especially on Mondays, as a result of this blog. I like it!

    Today I saw a woman on the bus reading Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I swear, I cannot go even one week without seeing SOMEONE reading one of those books. And then I saw a man reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.

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  9. What a neat idea to go BookSpotting....love it.

    NEW FOLLOWER and NEW E-MAIL SUBSCRIBER.


    I will be having two different giveaways on my blog......one starting tomorrow and one posted right now.

    http://silversolara.blogspot.com/2011/06/book-giveawaythe-night-train-by-clyde.html

    STOP BY.

    Elizabeth

    http://silversolara.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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