The Millions: What people are reading

Back to Most Recent Posts

May 26, 2005

What people are reading

I spent a lot of time on the el yesterday riding all over Chicago, and there were lots of folks reading books. When you actually look at what people read, you realize that the reading habits of average folks range far beyond the coverage of newspaper book sections. In terms of what actually gets read, genre fiction certainly seems more popular than literary fiction. Here are the books people were reading on the red, purple, and brown lines yesterday.

The Tristan Betrayal (a posthumous effort by Robert Ludlum that inspires PW to say "Perhaps it's time to let the master rest in peace.")
Five Quarters of the Orange (Joanne Harris' follow-up to Johnny Depp-vehicle Chocolat)
Dutch II (part 2 of a trilogy by Teri Woods - and put out by Teri Woods Publishing - that scores an Amazon ranking of 1,229)
Devil in the White City (I think every resident of Chicago has read Erik Larson's account of murder at the World's Fair.)
Great Expectations (I love it when I see people reading classic novels on the el - it can restore ones faith in society, I think)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer is reaching the masses!)
Hotel Pastis (Peter Mayle's "novel of Provence")
Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen never goes out of style)
Deception Point (The obligatory Dan Brown thriller - law requires that at least one Dan Brown novel be present in every train car and a dozen on every airplane.)
Elantris (PW says: "[Brandon] Sanderson's outstanding fantasy debut, refreshingly complete unto itself and free of the usual genre cliches.")
Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth (Lana Turner never goes out of style either)
We Thought You Would Be Prettier (Laurie Notaro's "true tales of the dorkiest girl alive" - ranked 1,446 on Amazon)