My friend RBelle sent me this article on commuting while reading, and while I don’t commute by train, I can relate to the author and to the comments. Well, some of them. I ignored the comments about romance novels. I can promise you, unless the cover is truly egregious, I’m reading a romance during my commute.
My commute in and out of Manhattan is about an hour to an hour and ten minutes. That’s not bad for the area, though I’m sure some of you are gasping in horror. I drive to a public parking lot, catch an express bus into New York City, then take the subway three stops to my place o’ business. I don’t often read on the subway because it has happened that I get so absorbed in a book that I end up in Queens. I introduced myself to Gayle Wilson this way: “One of your books was so suspenseful I didn’t look up until I was on Long Island. I was a half hour late to work!”
I carry an iPod for drowning out the loud cell phone talkers (and every time there is one, I wish I had a scrambler to interrupt their oh-so- not-important-but-so-loud conversation) and I keep my cellphone charged in case I finish my book and need to read the internet. But for the bus ride I HAVE to have something to read, unless I’m nauseated from the motion, and that 40 minutes or so is incredibly important to my mental state. The 40 minutes in the morning and evening that I read transition me out of work life to home life, and are my prime reading time and my prime recharging time.
Those of you who read and commute, what are you reading? What’s your favorite type of reading material – if not romance? A good number of the comments on that NY Times blog cite the New Yorker, and some of them name drop like they’re getting paid to mention famous dead authors. I’d love to hear what you read while you commute – you guys are a lot more interesting.
I just spent a month getting around by bus and train, and the ipod and reading were the only things that kept me from going batshit at the rotten transit system.
I don’t read anything different in public, but it does have to be easy to carry around. But romance, mysteries, YA, children’s, regular literary fiction, professional journals—they’re all in my bag. I also spend a lot of time staring off into the distance.
I have a 4.5 hour train ride and a one hour wait for a connecting train when i go home from uni and i read romance, romance and more romance! I love to get out my old favorites, Jenny Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
I’m envious of your reading time, Sarah – although I’m not sure I’d handle everything else that goes with the commute in NYC! I’ve never been able to read on buses or in cars, so even back in the dark ages when i did commute, I couldn’t read.
These days, I live out in the bush, 27kms from work, and it takes me only 30 minutes to drive, most of it through beautiful countryside. Which kinda makes up for not having as much reading time 🙂
I don’t communt now (am a housewife, so my regualr trips are to grocrey stores and such) but I used to use the bus to get anywhere, including college as I lived within city limits, but about an hour away from school. Anyway, I used to, at the time, read mostly sci-fi and fantasy. People in my life kept gioving me books, which I was VERY happy about, but I coupld not seem to get it though their heads to give me paperbacks, not hardcovers. So much easier to carry and deal with paperbacks, that even now, I hate having to have a hardcover. I useally trade books I get as hardcovers for paperbacks when they finally come out in paperback.
jordana
I have a 30 minute bus ride from the park and ride to my stop downtown. I always read and it’s always romance. I either have a paperback or I read ebooks off my Treo. A woman who gets on with me is in the middle of a JD Robb glom. She started with Naked in Death in mid-July and is at least half-way through the series now. At least one other woman on my bus reads romance, too. And at the downtown stop to meet the buses going home there’s a woman who stands at the stop reading one series romance after another. She gets on another bus though. I feel as though I have these kindred spirits commuting with me.
Once I decided to take a nap on the way home and nearly missed my stop. It’s way safer to read.
I travel for business and have to have something to read in the airport and on the plane. Most of the flights I take don’t have movies or only show stupid sitcom reruns.
I like scifi, horror, the occasional mystery and romance. My flights are usually 2-2 1/2 hours long and I usually am at the airport sitting for about an hour. I will read one book going to my destination and another book going back home.
my last 2 trips I read The Game by Laurie R King (a mystery-a twist on the Sherlock Holmes mysteries) and 3 YA books: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray—a historical fiction leaning towards dark fantasy; and 2 scifi books by Scott Westerfeld: Uglies and Pretties (books 1 and 2 of a trilogy)
I now drive a big ole SUV 20 minutes each way into work. But once upon a time, I used to ride the BART. I read anything I felt like, though at that point I was more into Sephen King and Anne Rice and so forth. But I was more into listening to ear drum busting loud techno on my CD walkman and giving eat shit looks to responsible adults. Eh, I was 19.
PS. I once got on the train in Berkeley, fell asleep and ended up in Daly City at like 2:30 in the morning. For those of you who know BART, I was supposed to be going to Concord.
When I used to do the 1-hour commute (solved that problem by moving downtown), I’d read romance…but the ones without the racy covers.
Never missed my stop while reading because I was the last stop.
I always have a book with me just in case I get stuck somewhere waiting. At one time I drove an hour to work and from work, I discovered “books on tape” and now I have a whole library of them. Any road trip over an hour long I take one of my fav. It’s usually a book I have already read in print or ebook and have enjoyed. That way when I get to my destination I turn off the car. Otherwise I would probably sit out in the car until I finished the book!
I’m a SAHM now, but even when I did work, my commute involved me driving~no public transportation where I live (midwest, small town).
BUT, I always have a book with me for waiting rooms, the park with the kids, etc. I’ll bring whatever it is I’m reading at home (romances) unless the cover is really racy, those I’ll just save for home. 🙂
My big time travel is airplanes [at least a couple times a month I have a 6+ hour flight] and I don’t know what I’d do without my pocket pc. I have a card that’s holding over 2000 books…if one in the TBR pile doesn’t suit I can reread an old favorite. Any paperbacks I may bring or buy there are left behind for someone else to enjoy 🙂
I read mainly romances [all genres, all heat levels] and mysteries [getting in to Ian Rankin these days]…and an occassional biography.
I don’t have a long commute anymore, either, so I get up early to do daily readings & meditations. But when I had a 50 minute commute from Grand Rapids to Lansing, Michigan, I read a great deal of poetry and essays and sci-fi…until I started having the Apocalyptic Dreams. Then I switched to Diana Gabaldon.
For 3 years I had a 60-90 minute commute (one way! depending on traffic snarl-ups) to work. After about the first month, I got sick of all the local radio stations. Someone suggested audio-books (which until that time I hadn’t ever listened to), so quickly got myself to the local library online and started requesting!
I worked my way thru nearly every romance book on audio they had in stock, but most notably the UNabridged Diana Gabaldon books, which took *many many* months! I tell ya, those audio books helped me keep my sanity while on the road, to say nothing of relieving my growing road rage …
Nowadays my commute is under 5 minutes if I hit all the lights just right, but I still use audio books for long distance trips instead of the 80s music that used to be my traveling soundtracks!
— Bonz
I wish I could read while on a bus, train, plane, car, horse-drawn carriage, mule train, etc. I can barely even read road signs without going green around the gills.
But there is always a book in my bag just in case of a wait. It is because of the book – often books – that I lug with me everywhere that I cannot carry a dainty, stylish purse. I must have a honkin’ huge bag. I tend to stick with essay collections, non-fiction, and poetry when I’m out and about. They can be more easily set aside when necessary. I hate being interrupted when I’m reading fiction. It sucks me right out of the book’s world, and it’s not always easy to get back in.
Big honking bag? Oh yes, I hear you on that one! I have a HUGE bag that I carry, with book, planner, ipod, phone, wallet, and those things that are truly for emergencies, like Sudafed and a backup notebook (still don’t know why I HAVE to have that one but it’s in there) and random things that fall in the bag.
I can only buy purses that will hold a paperback – trade – or smaller. Not a lot of dainty ones like that.
Now that I’ve moved, I go walking to the university. It’s only ten minutes. When I had 35 minutes on the metro, I hardly ever carried a book, because I catched it at rush hour. So it was pretty difficult to read with all that people entering and exiting. If I found the guys of the Metro (the free newspaper) that’s what I read.
When I do read, is at the airport and/or on the plane. I just get soooooo bored. I’ve got to have sth. If I am not reading a book, then I buy a magazine or even a book
*wonders how much money spends in airports a year*
I always take a book with me when I think I’ll have to be sitting around somewhere, be it rain, plane or various waiting rooms. I’ll pretty much read whatever book I happen to have at the time but if it have a cover that will promote comment I am more likely to hold it so people around me can see it – I just luv to start s**t.
Alas I cannot read in cars because it make me motion sick so I have to suffer through the various hour long trips to training sessions for my job in bookless agony…thank God for mp3 players and my fondness of napping
I ride the Metro to and from work each day, that’s about 30 minutes each direction. I always have a romance novel and my iPod too. The biggest thing for me was finding the perfect tote bag for the Metro, which I finally got last year for Christmas, it’s got two good sized pockets on the front. One holds my book, one holds my iPod and my Metro card. Works perfectly.
But when I’m on the train, I’m reading romance. Always. And, sure, I’d love to engage in a conversation with you about why I read romance and isn’t it derogatory towards women, or isn’t it chick porn. You betcha, I’d love to have a captive audience to talk to about it.
When I was commuting, approx a 45 min bus ride from the ‘burbs into downtown, I read my RWR or my NINC newsletter or whatever book I was into at the time, and since I read a lot of hardcovers, my bag was always way too heavy, LOL! But I loved seeing what the other riders were reading, and it ran the gamut. Lots of John Grisham and James Patterson, but also a lot of romance. I met a woman one morning who sat beside me and pulled out a copy of Writing Romance Novels for Dummies!
I don’t commute, but I do drive a few hundred miles a couple times a year. I LOVE books on tape.
I have an hour commute each way every day and take the Metrarail into downtown Chicago from the burbs.
I stick mainly with romance or urban fantasy. I could care less about the racy covers but I won’t read the erotic stuff on the train (out of respect for the yahoo sitting next to me who is leaning over trying to read my book without being obvious).
Can I say, though, oh, the pretention of the NY comments? Give me a break. Sure, you read Tolstoy. Sure, you do. Mmm hmm. I see these people on the train from time to time, trying to read “big, important books” and they mostly stare out the window the entire ride. On the way to and from work, the last thing I want to do is “think hard”—give me entertainment all the way.
Audible.com and my ipod—actually I have three ipods, a 4 gig, a 30 gig and a bigger one which might be 80 gig. I just keep the smallest one in the car and the other two in the office for grabbing when I have to travel. I have a connector that lets me connect it to the RCA inputs on any television so I download video as well as books and watch them on the television in hotels when there is nothing I want to see on that night. I automatcially grab The Closer, Damages, and Saving Grace right now. All have unusual and strong female characters. Jury is still out on Saving Grace although I really liked the first episode.
Right now I’ve been listening to Phil Rickman’s first Merrily book, Wine of Angels. Merrily is a 35ish female cleric
who has taken up her first post as a village vicar (ok, they aren’t called vicars now, something like “priest in residence”.) He does a good job on female characters and it is part mystery, part social commentary and part low key horror. The narrator was criticized in one review for mumbling but I don’t hear it—or maybe my ear for dialects is better. I used to have to translate what was said on British tv programs into “American” for a friend, so I know some people have trouble with things I find perfectly clear.
spam filter word: turned34. Don’t I wish!
The show I’m busily trying to DVR lately is Burn Notice. I tuned in half way through the season on a couple recommendations. Fiona is wicked cool. Little bit psycho and way hot.
My entire professional life has been centered around some type of commute (usually 30mins+), so my commuter-reading time is precious. I’ll read anything as long as it’s not a large, bulky hardcover or a fat trade paperback. I do love me some romance on the train/bus. The steamier the better. In my heart of hearts, I hope that there is someone reading over my shoulder during the moments of purplest prose. What fun to have a little titillation on your morning/evening commute!!
I have a commute that takes about 90 minutes with 2 trains, subway and trolley. I always read novels on the ride home and usually on the way in (unless I have last minute prep work to do). The novels I read on the trains are light, because I read them to relax, and many of them are romance novels.
Most of the the time I keep my i-pod in my ears and other people leave me alone. I have had people make condescending comments about my reading material, which I’m usually pretty good at ignoring, though I’ll admit that the last time my seat mate felt the need to interrupt my chapter to chide me for reading such trash, I smiled sweetly, and pulled out a text book to study instead. He decided to move seats soon after that. Apparently he preffered the lurid romance novel cover to the color pictures of dog castration… shrug…who knew? Sometimes being a Vet Student is fun.
I wish I could, but the C-Train is no more conducive to reading during rush hour than the Tokyo subway, and for much the same reasons.
I’m expecting the City to start hiring oshiya one of these days.
My commute is much shorter these days so not so much reading. But at one time I spent about thirty minutes on the bus. I would read my paranormal vampire romances and cosy mysteries. When the city bought these new rapid transit buses the whiplash from the constant breaking caused me to switch to my mp3 player. I tried to listen to audiobooks but it was hard to follow the story so I listen to music now.
When I used to take the express bus in from Queens, I had to have a book. This was because if it rained, or Crom help us, snowed, my one-hour commute could become three hours.
Typically I liked long, complex novels. I read all of Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles on the QM3.
Then I relocated and now I take the LIRR. My train ride is a mere 20-30 minutes (depending on if I get an express or a local), and suddenly I can’t read on the train anymore. I play Snood on my phone, or I take a nap. Most often I close my eyes and daydream, which more often than not turns into great brainstorming for my own writing—that half-awake state is like an invitation to my subconscious.
I used to have a 40 minute train commute. On the way to work I always read two papers (one free, Metro, and one awesome paper I subscribe to), on the way home I read… well… anything. As long as it’s paperback, I’ll read it on the train. I actually shy away from the more ‘intellectual’ stuff because I get distracted too easily with all those people around. I usually read 3 books at a time: one for commutes, one before bed, and one that I read when I can actually focus on it completely.
When I go back to school next week I’ll have a 2+ hour commute (one way) with at least 90 minutes on the train, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to use that time for catching up on class reading or writing up notes. And of course I’ll be an English major, so I can’t be seen with romance ever again.
Heh.
I read just about anything. I’ve got 40 -70 minutes in each direction counting waiting times. Everything from Romance to YA to every Pulitzer winner for fiction since 1948 (I’m getting along, The Caine Mutiny is quite good).
But I can’t read all the time, I mix it up with studying, knitting and crosswords. I always carry reading and knitting. The funny thing is, it’s the book I pick when I’m worn out. Reading is easier than cables I guess.
I drive my kids to/from school every day, and listen to my audiobooks on my iPod through the car sterio with a cassette adapter. In addition, I’ve just about always got a book of some sort with me, just in case. Don’t ask in case of what… one never knows.
but I’m so hooked on audiobooks that I’ve had to get a part-time job working in an audiobook store just to feed my habit.
I have 90 min train travel both ways every day. I tend to read Historical fiction, general fiction, mysteries etc on the train, and read romance at night, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. If I feel like it I will read romance without too many concerns. It’s interesting seeing what other people are reading. The other day I was sitting next to two ladies – one was reading Lover Revealed and the other Twelve Sharp. It was all I could do not to lean over and start talking to them, but that would have interupted their reading time, and mine!
Thanks for the recommendation on Burn Notice, LorelieLong. It isn’t on iTunes yet so I’ll have to check the tv schedule.
I’m one of those people who always has a book and these days, it’s generally a romance. I don’t commute anymore but I do read while at the gym every day, using a handy dandy book cover. I got a charming one from ebay, saves me endless blushes.
I will read anything when I am on the bus. I have never had anyone make a comment about my books. I even read the occasional Star Trek book on the bus and have never had anyone yell “GEEK” at me or anything! lol
My commute is only ten minutes one-way (on the light-rail train in Minneapolis), so I tend to go for fiction that’s easy to drop in and out of. Most of the past 12-18 months it’s been romance, except for the times this summer when I convinced everyone on the train that I was both SMRT (reading The Name of the Rose for my Early Books and Manuscripts class) and lemming-like (rereading the Harry Potter books in the weeks leading up to the release Deathly Hallows).
In all cases, I go for mass-market paperbacks or trade paperbacks. That HP re-read made me hate hardcovers with a passion (at least as far as commute-books go). I tend to carry around books with covers I don’t mind other people seeing. Right now I’m reading The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, which has a cover so gorgeous I want to hold it up to the other passengers and do a Vanna White-style hand gesture when I take it out of my bag.
As for what other commuters are reading, I see some romance and a lot of contemporary literary fiction like The Kite Runner.
Oh, and I’d like to add my vote to the Burn Notice recommendations—fantastic and fun TV series. Sadly, there’s only one episode left, but USA is running a marathon all day September 15, so set your TiVos or VCRs!
I have a commute on the Washington metro of about an hour which I use for my fun and research reading, currently Fay Weldon’s autobiography.
I have special awards for writers:
The Missed Stop Award, won by both Colette Gale and Eloisa James.
Ms. James also won the Wrong Line Award.
One very important feature of a book is that it has to be comfy on your chest in case you fall asleep; you don’t want anything too big (which is why I left HP at home).
I switched jobs earlier this year from one where I could take public transportation (40 minutes either way) to one where I have to drive. And I have to say, I miss that unadulterated reading time. It was perfect for unwinding, for ‘just me’ time when I legitimately couldn’t do anything else.
And I’d read anything. If it was too-too even for me, I’d just hike my knees up on the seat in front of me and lay it flat across my legs.
😉
secret password: private65 – for all those Emma Holly covers I kept private!
In Melbourne, my commute was 1.75 hours each way. Here in Singapore, it’s 1 hour. So, yeah, I read. Romance or science-fiction, on my iPaq.
I never listen to music. In Melbourne, I found that the afternoon commuter traffic was particularly fractious and there was always a fight/shouting incident/scuffle every week. After being caught almost in the middle of one because I was listening to music and completely tuned out, I made it a point never to get into that situation again. The habit continues.
LOL, Janet Mullany!
I have a 40-minute commute by train. It’s my lifeline, too – I actually don’t get much reading time in the rest of my life.
I have no problem reading romances, and no one has ever commented to me about it, though I got some double-takes when I read “Lord of Scoundrels” with that glorious clinch cover…
In the tote bag right now: “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”, a mystery, and a Catherine Coulter I found on my bookshelf that I can’t remember the name of. I switch ‘em up based on my mood.
I see La Nora on the train all the time, including one woman lugging a huge hardback anthology with several Noras in it. She was suffering for her reading, I tell you. One woman last week was reading a cheesy Harlequin Presents – I wanted to give her a high five.