WORD UNDER THE STREET

You know when you see a stranger on the subway immersed in a book and you’re dying to know what they’re reading? Well, Geoffrey Vendeville asked for you.

Sean Parker

Grade 9 student at Rosedale Heights Book: The Black Book by Ian Rankin Station: St. George Review: Parker is a big fan of the Inspector Rebus series of mystery novels by Scottish author Ian Rankin. He read the second in the series in Edinburgh, where the story is set. Now on book No. 5, he says they only get better.

“It’s really dark, if you like the dark kind of mysteries. It goes into pretty awful detail and a lot of the murders, they’re pretty grisly.”

Joyce Chiu

Psychology and anthropology student at U of T Book: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Station: College Review: Perhaps because of her interest in psychology, Chiu says she decided to finally read The Bell Jar, Sylvia Path’s semi-autobiographical story about an aspiring writer, Esther Greenwood, who moves to New York and spirals into depression and madness.

Only 40 pages in, Chiu says the book is sad, but not too heavy. Give her a few more chapters . . .

Eddie Jude

28, community action centre support staff at George Brown Book: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Station: Wellesley Review: Winterson’s first novel, a coming-of-age story about a girl who was adopted by missionaries and eventually leaves the church for the woman she loves. Jude says she feels for the main character. “She’s a really quirky kid trying to understand why everyone around her thinks she’s really weird because she comes from (an evangelical) family where her way of thinking is normalized.”

Michael Lewis

44, youth in transition worker at Covenant House

Book: Pathways to Suicide: A Survey to Self-Destructive

Behaviors by Ronald W. Maris Station: Union Review: Maybe an odd book to be reading in public. Lewis picked up Pathways to Suicide to better understand the homeless and at-risk youth who seek help at Covenant House. “Early family issues can have a big impact on people’s mental health in the future,” Lewis says. “It’s pretty much what I see every day at work.”