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?
Ali Schofield, 30, works in not-for-profit sector Book: One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul Stop: St. George Koul is a culture writer at BuzzFeed and has also written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Hazlitt and others. Her flair for writing, which she displays on Twitter in fewer than 140 characters, extends to book form, Ali Schofield said. Without being gratuitously vulgar, Koul expresses things “you might think, but not say aloud or in print,” she added. The collection of deeply personal essays describe Koul’s experience as an Indian Canadian, including a piece called “Inheritance Tax.” Writing in the Star, Sadiya Ansari said it’s “a hilarious overview of intergenerational anxiety that translates into a fear of dying.”
Stefania Miceli, 23, makeup artist Book: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Stop: Glencairn
Six of Crows came up repeatedly in Miceli’s Goodreads.com recommendations. When her friend suggested it too, she finally gave it a try. In the fictional city of Ketterdam, the experienced thief Kaz Brekker, a.k.a. Dirtyhands, is asked to lead a heist that even he can’t do alone. So he recruits a band of outcasts with skills including demolition and sharpshooting. “It’s action-filled, quite dramatic. It’s very dark and very mysterious,” Stefania Miceli said.
Cem Domanic, 23, student Book: I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic by David Lagercrantz and Zlatan Ibrahimovic Stop: St. Patrick The six-foot-five Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a forward at Manchester United, has an ego even larger than he is. “I can’t help but laugh at how perfect I am,” he once told reporters. Cem Domanic says Ibrahimovic’s memoir, written with Swedish journalist Lagercrantz, gives readers a different perspective on the striker. His parents came to Sweden from the former Yugoslavia, and Ibrahimovic was bullied and had to train harder than his peers to prove himself, Domanic said. “He doesn’t deny the negative publicity,” he continued. “He’s telling stuff from his own perspective, but he accepts that he’s a different kind of person and player, and that his statements have always been untraditional.”
Matt Margulies, 28, works in finance Book: The Heist by Daniel Silva
Stop: Museum Matt Margulies admits he’s not a big reader. When he cracks open a book, at least when he was younger, he usually reads about finance: Michael Lewis’s Moneyball or Liar’s Poker. He picked up the spy thriller The Heist after his mom suggested it. The story follows Gabriel Allon, art restorer and Israeli secret agent, as he tries to solve a murder, clear his friend’s name and recover stolen artwork. “Day and night I live numbers, finance and markets, so it’s nice to take my mind off (it) with fiction,” Margulies said. Would mom be glad he’s reading something different? “She’s happy that I’m reading,” he laughed.