Notes from the Underground [Archive]

What people were reading on the tube in 2013

As I’ve been rather busy this week (workshops, magazines, etc.), I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to write a new Substack this week. I’ve truffled through the archives and found this blogpost from 2013, which I thought might be interesting, as it’s a snapshot of what I saw people reading on the Underground thirteen years ago. I don’t spend as much time on the tube as I used to, but I thought it might be fun to resurrect this on a day that I am rushing about the capital.

First published: Tuesday, 8 January 2013

A while ago, during the course of my working day, which can tend to take me across London several times, I did a totally non-scientific semi-survey of what people were doing on the tube. I discovered that they were mostly still reading real books; and in this time of uncertainty in the book world, I felt it was time to have another look.

I know that I am biased. I think e-books are really quite pointless, unless you want to carry around a hundred books at a time. I admit that they have their uses as textbooks and teaching aids; but replacing a bookcase, a library, a bookshop with empty space is something too horrifying to contemplate.

A book is a friend, a totem, a signifier of so much in your life: when I think of the way that I carried around with me my copies of Lord of the Rings and The Once and Future King when I was ten or eleven, as if they were my teddy and I was four; I can't imagine anyone doing that with a Kindle. You cannot fall in love with an electronic device. They break, are outmoded; whereas your favourite paperback will be with you for ever. I have dutifully noted everything I saw today, and we can draw our own anecdotal conclusions from it. Know that Jasper Fforde, in particular, should be happy, if nothing else.

Early this morning, on the snazzy, hipsterish overgound from Whitechapel to Canada Water, I saw a - you guessed it - hipster reading Slaughterhouse 5 on the platform; near him was a woman in her 30s, engrossed in a Jo Nesbo. The hipster looked pretty deep into his Vonnegut. I hope he had been up all night but he was probably just on his way to work.

I switched from the cool orange line to the silvery, ultra-modern Jubilee; and as if in concord with the line's spirit, a woman was reading that most modern of hits, The Hunger Games - the adult version, of course. A young man was peering, carefully, at a large hardback, which turned out to be Putin's Oil by Martin Sixsmith: it took me a long time to find that out, as one of the problems with looking at what people are reading is that it's very hard to conceal the fact that you are trying to look at the books, and asking people what they are reading on the tube is tantamount to saying, "Hello, I like cheese!" and dancing around playing Imagine on the recorder. There was a middle-aged lady reading a self help book; and a girl with orange hair perusing a Batman graphic novel. I mean comic. No, graphic novel. This was at around 830 in the morning.

On the Jubilee Line from Green Park to Waterloo, a man had a yellow paperback peeking out of his pocket, which I hope against hope was a Gallimard. In the same carriage, another chap was ensconced with The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson - he loved it so much that he didn't even stop reading when he walked off the train. There were plenty of Metros and Time Outs; and only one, paunchy buffer, flicking at his tablet. This was at 1030.

On the train from Waterloo to Clapham Junction there were hardly any people, let alone books; on the way back from Clapham South on the Northern line, there was the first of a brace of women reading the latest Jasper Fforde, and sitting opposite her, a woman reading Ali McNamara's From Notting Hill to New York Actually, which happened to have a quote from Katie Fforde on it, who is Jasper Fforde's cousin, so if you are a Fforde, then you are in luck. A woman at right angles to the Ffordes was engrossed in Psychologies magazine; there were no Kindles.

When I switched at Kennington to the Charing Cross line, I stalked a lady clutching a paperback to see what it was; after the police had been called and explanations made, I saw that it was a Tim Winton. I don't know who he is. Someone in the next carriage was, alas, reading The Guernsey Potato Peel and Yawn Society; at Waterloo, a woman reading a book called The Village climbed on. This seems to be the book group line.

The horrible, touristy, gaspy Piccadilly line yielded fewer results. There were plenty of cross people in puffa jackets poking at their phones. A girl with a Kindle got on at Piccadilly; there was a woman reading The Guardian, angrily. That is all I have to say about the Piccadilly line.

Later, on the way up to Kings Cross on the hated blue line, I saw something to make me feel better: a lady holding a battered copy of some Sherlock Holmes stories - she was reading The Speckled Band. Here was the other Jasper Fforde - of course, it may have been the same person, which is a coincidence that Fforde himself would approve of, but I doubt it. My favourite person of the day was also on this carriage: a young man in a red jacket and a stripy bow tie, reading a fat paperback by Neal Stephenson, who I see writes historical epics. Kudos to you red jacket man. This was quite the carriage for real-book-ophiles: a blonde with a book by someone called Edwardson; a man reading one of those In the Merde books: and then someone had to spoil it all by coming on wearing a beanie and firing up his damned Kindle.

Homeward bound, from Kings Cross to Whitechapel on the old-maidenly Hammersmith and City line, was heartwarming. There were two youngish men, both reading battered paperbacks, so intently that I could not see the spines or the covers; they hardly looked up. One finds oneself, on this exercise, wishing that they would; but it's nice to think that they are so mesmerised. And further down was a girl reading a proper, jacketless, black-bound hardback; I wanted to shake her hand. There was only one Kindle.

So a broad spectrum of lines; a broad spectrum of books; hardly any electronic devices. Of course it's entirely possible that there were carriages full of them on either side of me. Maybe I have radar for book people. But maybe what I thought about, when Kindles first appeared, is true: that people will buy them, or get given them for Christmas; download a hundred books; and then, gradually, put them away, and return to the tangible charms of their beloved paperbacks.

Who knows. All I know is that I'd rather see a carriage full of dog-eared tomes than bland, grey devices. Think about this: in science fiction films, there are no books in any of the ships, ever. And what are people like in science fiction films? Generally, very dull indeed. Go into a house with no books, and you will see what I mean.

Here's to the real book, and its continued future, which, from my brief delve underground, looks to be relatively secure. (Oh, and just for the record, I had a Vintage paperback of John Burnside's A Summer of Drowning - which, bizarrely, I only seem to read on public transport.)

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I wonder what this experiment would like like today? And was I right about the future for real books being “relatively secure”? Hard to say…