This past week the 1 train literati were in full swing every morning — fighting the vampire-obsessed for a free seat in the subway car.
Our assertion that you’ll see STEPHANIE MEYER around every corner was confirmed by multiple sightings of TWILIGHT and BREAKING DAWN; with the movie coming out this month there’s little chance of a break from Meyer. This will be the last update from us on this front unless there’s a real vampire involved — we don’t want to be redundant at the Big Brother Book Club.
The star this week that everyone and their mother is reading: spiritual teacher ECKHART TOLLE. We can now spot his golden paperbacks from 10 feet away (at least last time we measured). This guy must have some good ideas about “living in the now” and forgetting our egos, because we’ve seen everyone from an octogenarian to a waify chick sporting moccasins and a fedora reading him. AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE, in gold, is the favorite around town, but THE POWER OF NOW, in green, has been recommended by a few reputable sources.
We might pick one up and make mom happy.
More in popular picks include PAULO COEHLO’s THE ZAHIR (remember him from last week?), a book we found way too pretentiously written for our taste when we tried it a few years back.
Ironically hot after the film’s underwhelming release last month, CHOKE by CHUCK PALAHNIUK made an appearance as well.
We also saw some theory and philosophy thrown in by a man in horn-rimmed glasses with ANTONIN ARTAUD’s THE THEATER AND ITS DOUBLE, the 1938 manifesto on how language, among other things, “inspires the repressed irrational urges of theater.” Go figure…
And yesterday morning, THE LIVING THOUGHTS OF KIERKEGAARD, provided a surprise, written by SOREN KIERKEGAARD himself and edited by W.H. AUDEN. Want to find out why “life must be understood backwards?” Check it out and impress others with your philosophical curiosity on your way around town.
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY, the buzzed-about epistolary collaboration between MARY ANNE SHAFFER and ANNIE BARROWS, also made an appearance.
Finally this morning, a personal favorite appeared, MILAN KUNDERA’s THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, read by a curly-haired girl in glasses.
– Angelina Venezia