My Weekly Book

Bibliophilic article by Nick Hornby in today’s Graun. I find the condition described troubles me especially on public transport where I will perform contortions trying to discreetly read the title and occasionally the jacket of other people’s books. Also deals with the issue of people who are snobbish about what other people are reading:

Can’t put it down?

Engrossed outdoor readers were a common sight over the long, hot summer, noticed Nick Hornby. He found the variety of books on show gave a surprising insight into what we read - and why we read it

For those of us who suffer from the occasionally embarrassing condition almost certainly known as xenagorabibliomania - an obsessive curiosity about the books that strangers read in open spaces - then this summer’s heatwave has been a disaster: we weren’t able to walk five yards without seeing a head half-obscured by an intriguingly unlikely paperback. In the last month alone, I have spotted a beautiful young woman reading a copy of Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida outside a Starbucks in Islington (I know, I know - what else could one expect, in a borough where you can always find an emergency semiologist but never an emergency plumber), and a man in a vest reading a battered history of English prisons at the Gospel Oak lido. Sometimes it’s as much fun trying to fathom out a person’s relationship with a book as it is to contemplate the mysteries of his or her marriage. Read on here…

[Search for Nick Hornby’s books on eBay]

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