WORD UNDER THE STREET
You know when you see someone on the subway immersed in a book and you’re dying to know what it is? We asked for you.
Charlotte Andrechek
Nurse, 29 Book: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks Station: Queen’s Park Review: Andrechek started reading The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by the late Oliver Sacks, a British neuropsychologist, on a friend’s recommendation. “It’s neuropsychology, which I think can be pretty advanced, but it’s written in laypeople terms so it’s easy to follow for someone who doesn’t have a big science background,” she said.
Jordana Greenblatt
University instructor, 34 Book: Orlando by Virginia Woolf Station: St. Clair West Review: Greenblatt was reading Orlando to get a head start for her gender studies and literature course at York University. “This book is a classic, a famous modernist novel,” she said. “But it’s also one of the most famous books to do weird things with gender, because the main character, Orlando, changes sex halfway through for no apparent reason.”
Lory Berger
Accountant Book: The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Station: Eglinton West Review: A novella by the author of Gone Girl, The Grownup was originally published in George R.R. Martin’s Rogues collection and weighs in at only 64 pages. Flynn told Glamour that the story was “a big, folkloric tale of a murder, and that idea that an act of violence can span time and lives.” “It’s first person, very free and it’s humourous,” Berger said.
Julia Lefebvre
Lawyer Book: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante Station: Dupont Review: Lefebvre got My Brilliant Friend, the first in the Neapolitan novels series, for Christmas. It tells the story of two girls who learn to depend on one another growing up in a neighbourhood outside Naples in the 1950s. “Apparently, the writing is fantastic and I can tell you from the first pages I read that I agree,” she said. “I spent a lot of time reading the index of characters because it looks like it will be a pretty complicated four-book series. It reads a little bit like an opera, all the characters that are involved.”
Lily Zone
Paralegal, 32 Book: The Birth House by Ami McKay Station: St. Andrew Review: Zone says she is never without a book. These days, she’s toting The Birth House, the story of a girl growing up in a remote village in Nova Scotia who apprentices to a midwife. Zone had made a 50-page dent in the book, which she bought at Goodwill for $3. “I like stories set not in this period, non-modern,” she said. “I’ve read a couple of stories that have to do with midwives. I think it’s interesting to read about what they used to do.”