We spotted an out-of-print Sidney Sheldon on the F train, Bloodline , and discovered through some trick of Amazon’s search semantics that an awesome-looking movie called Burn Witch Burn exists, if only on VHS (the film is directed by an entirely different Sidney). A D train reader held Blood Meridien , the best Cormac McCarthy novel Oprah didn’t tell you to read. We were shocked to see A Million Little Pieces on the Q train: proof of James Frey’s comeback or was the reader simply too young to know that he’s a lying liar who lies and his publisher is still offering refunds (as long as you bought the book before the Oprah skewering).
Also spotted: Freakonomics ; Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle , a paragon of the “difficult childhood” genre; James Michener’s uber historical epic, Alaska (we wonder if Sarah Palin has ever read it); Sandra Brown’s Chill Factor ; Sistah Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever , and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline , which we clearly need to get on board with — as we had recurring dreams about having to choose the “right” mother from a hall of witchy doppelgangers when we were growing up.