Comments on: Carrying the right book on Muni

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:23:41 +0000

I finally had to ban my best (male) friend from dating girls who read The Lovely Bones or Eat, Pray, Love on public transit. The books are harbingers of seriously passive-aggressive potential girlfriends.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: tara

tara — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:54:26 +0000

OH DEAR GOD, no not Atlas Shrugged. Cloud Atlas. Atlas Shrugged is a terrible book and should not be read by anyone, in any setting!

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: jeff

jeff — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:31:58 +0000

Atlas Shrugged? *Shrug*

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Tara

Tara — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:24:38 +0000

I’m also a motion-sickness girl, but I have to admit that I try to carry the “right” book on public transit. My current one (when I don’t forget it) is Atlas Shrugged, and before that, I proudly brandished a number of David Sedaris books.

But I do judge people for reading self-help in very (very) public situations like that. I personally think such books are for one’s alone time, at home or in a park somewhere. Or maybe I should just stop looking at what other people are reading.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:57:56 +0000

I use a book cover for this reason. 1) It helps me cover my shame in reading Harry Potter while avoiding other people’s comments and/or judgments. 2) The lack of disturbance helps me get more reading time on BART. Anna Karenina is taking enough time as is! 3) It also helps protect the book for when I reach my stop and have to shove the book into my bag. I get a monthly newsletter that’s printed on decently heavy stock. I have a stack of them for reusing for different sizes of books–as they wear out, just grab a fresh one and it’s reasonably easy enough to fold the cover on the book in a not-too crowded bus.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Beth W.

Beth W. — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:44:16 +0000

This makes me a little sad that reading on buses makes me so motion-sick I’d likely barf on anyone interested in what I was reading. I used to read on BART sometimes, but now that I need reading glasses I almost never do because it’s a hassle to put glasses AND book away by the time I get to my stop. c

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: eugenia

eugenia — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:36:02 +0000

You might attract some quality ladies with Wuthering Heights, you never know!

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Yoz

Yoz — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:38:37 +0000

Considering I’ve been reading Wuthering Heights on the bus all week, you probably don’t want my advice about this.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Erik

Erik — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:09:16 +0000

Ebook readers are handy if you like to read things that you don’t want to be seen in public. ;-)

I would also feel bad about interrupting someone who is reading.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: whir

whir — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:36:40 +0000

I took a class in the bible as literature at SF state for a semester, which along with a lingering procrastination habit necessitated that I read a bible on Muni. Not a little pocket bible, either, a pretty substantial NIV edition which weighed roughly 100 pounds and had those shiny gilt edges that apparently call out the book as more precious than any other book, or something.

Number of cute girls I met while reading the bible on the bus: 0. This is despite my attempts to appear wholesome and yet with a raffish, secular humanist air about me. I suppose I should just be glad that I didn’t get any rants from militant atheists about how I was BRAINWASHED into worshipping an INVISIBLE SKY SUPERHERO, blah blah blah…

I will say that girls reading Tolstoy are instantly 5 times more attractive to me (I think this is similar to how some girls I know feel about dudes carrying guitars). At the same time I don’t want to break in while someone’s reading one of the towering works of literary achievement in order to make small talk about the weather, so I’m not sure whether a good book makes an efficacious flirting device.

(PS: nice to meet you guys at the mixer thing…)

Like or Dislike: 0 0