WORD UNDER THE STREET

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

Alessia D’Angelo, 19, college student Book: Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

Stop: Dupont Week after week, I’ve combed the subway hoping to find a reader brave enough to be reading Fifty Shades in public. I’ve finally found one. D’Angelo says she catches other TTC riders staring at her while she reads E.L. James’ best-selling erotic romance series.

“My boyfriend gets really mad at me. He says, ‘It’s so embarrassing; put that away,’ ” she said.

Fifty Shades may not be common subway reading, but, worldwide, D’Angelo is in good company: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty

Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed have sold more than 100 million copies.

Bindi Dulku, 26, nurse

Book: The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Stop: St. Patrick The fictional Plumb siblings, who live in New York City, squabble over their late father’s hefty inheritance in this acclaimed debut novel by former copywriter Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.

Word Under the Street caught up with Dulku the same afternoon she bought her copy of The Nest, encouraged by her friends’ rave reviews on Facebook. Only five pages in, she says it appears to be a breezy read — exactly what she was looking for. Jonathan Celani, 29, cook Book: Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

Stop: Union Celani has been hooked on fantasy novels since he devoured the seven-part series,

The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, many years ago. He’s reading Half a King by Joe Abercrombie, the tale of a disabled prince who seeks to “regain a throne he never wanted,” according to the book’s Amazon summary.

“It’s very similar to Game of Thrones, especially Tyrion Lannister’s story,” Celani said. (For the uninitiated, Tyrion is a cunning and snarky dwarf, a member of the wealth House of Lannister, who is one of the main protagonists of George R.R. Martin’s universe.)

“I don’t want to ruin the book, but it gets very interesting.”

Silvina Rose, 24, student Book: Lover Mine by J.R. Ward Stop: St. George 50 Shades may do for some readers, such as D’Angelo mentioned above, but E.L. James’ best-seller pales in comparison to The Black

Dagger Brotherhood, a paranormal erotic saga by J.R. Ward, a “veteran of the genre,” according to Rose. “It’s kind of corny, but the corny you can handle,” she said.

Although the plot involves lusty vampires, the similarities with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books stop there, she added.

“If you don’t like Twilight, you’ll probably like this,” she said.