> 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, Ryan Porter asked for you.

Stephanie Fernandez

20, Student STATION: Bloor BOOK: Fractured by Karin Slaughter REVIEW: “It’s very explicit,” Fernandez says about the second of the seven crime novels in Slaughter’s Will Trent series. She found the book abandoned “among the dishes” of a restaurant where she used to work as a server, but now Fernandez can’t put it down. “My face is to this book all the time now,” she says. “I go to the washroom and I’m sitting there reading this.”

Yolanda B’Dacy

43, Union representative STATION: Dundas BOOK: Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labour Movement by Jane McAlevey and Bob Ostertag REVIEW: The former classroom teacher was recently named to the Elementary Teachers Union, where McAlevey’s book is quite literally required reading — the staff were given copies to prepare for McAlevey’s upcoming speaking engagement. “Those of us who hadn’t read it yet were all given a copy,” B’Dacy says. “We are trying to change our focus from grievances and strikes to becoming grassroots organizers. It’s not just about what teachers can do for teachers. It’s about a bigger sense of empowerment and community involvement. That’s what she’s talking about.”

Noorbakhsh Hooti

51, Professor STATION: College BOOK: Power/Knowledge by Michel Foucault REVIEW: Foucault is one of the visiting Iranian professor’s favourite philosophers. “Since I’m teaching literature I apply philosophy,” he explains. “I like his ideas about the world. About discrimination, egocentrism, things like that.” The French philosopher has been a hit in the classroom. “I’ve received positive reactions from my students, which has inspired me a lot,” he says.

Angeline Scoburgh

35, Customer information clerk for the TTC STATION: St. Clair BOOK: Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan REVIEW: Scoburgh visits a lot of Christian websites, and saw the evangelist’s memoir of his missionary work in Asia advertised for the hard-to-refuse price of free. “I love it,” she says. “Sometimes we just aren’t open in terms of other parts of the world. How they struggle. And so this is just opening up my eyes in terms of what we have in the west and how we can share with the other parts of the world.”