Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (@McClellandBooks) #seenreadingTO

Southbound, Greenwood and Dundas

Caucasian female, early 60s, with short grey hair, wearing red-framed glasses, long black trench coat and green and red silk scarf.

Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson (McClelland & Stewart)

Page 72:

Knowing already of the town's carefully nurtured reputation for gentility, I moved there in 1977 with the idea that this was going to be a kind of English answer to Bad Ems or Baden-Baden - manicured parks, Palm Courts with Orchestras, swank hotels where men in white gloves kept the brass gleaming, bosomy ladies in mink coats walking those little dogs you ache to kick (not out of cruelty, you understand, but from a slmple, honest desire to see how far you can make them fly). Sadly, I have to report that almost none of this awaited me.

She was at the age now of the mother of that author, the one who wrote a family column on raising a son as a single mother, trying to date while starting a new novel and the recent addition of her mother living steps away in the converted garage. It had been her study for years, but now it housed the woman the author described "as alien to me as if she'd fallen from the stars, beyond the stars, far beyond the stars where it's common sense to wear a cable-knit sweater on a summer day, and, judge me if you will, all I could imagine in that moment was her head facedown in the sand, my hand holding her in place, catching just a few solitary moments of sunshine against my bare shoulders." At the time, it had horrified the woman. She'd always been coldblooded and dreaded the day her own child might resent her for needing to layer. But there was something to be said about these small dogs, their neighbour's in particular, no bigger than the base of a compost bin.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond (Penguin) #seenreadingTO

Northbound, University and Spadina

Caucasian male, late 50s, with short grey hair, wearing blue windbreaker, black dress pants and Blundstones.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond (Penguin) 

About halfway in:

But it needs to be said at the outset that an individual should not expect to make a difference through a single action, or even through a series of actions that will be completed within three weeks. Instead, if you do want to make a difference, plan to commit yourself to a consistent policy of actions over the duration of your life.

On his way to the Kiss and Ride, he listened to the morning DJs run over the day's entertainment, the most bizarre story about a Chilean newspaper vendor who had over 82 tattoos of Julia Roberts covering his torso. 82. Had Julia Roberts been in 82 movies? Was he choosing stills, promotional shots? Oh, maybe the one from that award show when she turned up with short, blonde hair. Did her appearance on Law and Order order count? Or Friends? Who would bother to know this much about Julia Roberts? He listened on. The tattoos started with Erin Brokovich. Really, he thought. Well, she did show more cleavage. And her hair was at its best. And there was the motorcycle guy. Huh, did the Chilean man envision himself as the motorcycle guy? And what about his wife? If he had a wife. How would she feel making love to Julia Roberts for the rest of her life? Or . . . what if it was her idea? He listened on, intrigued suddenly by man's commitment to the marital cause.

Crush It!, by Gary Vaynerchuk (@HarperStudio, @HarperCollins)

Southbound, Spadina and College

South Asian male, mid 20s, with bright, red hair, and wide, black-framed glasses, wearing green jogging jacket and low slung jeans.

Crush It!, by Gary Vaynerchuk (HarperStudio)

The Internet is only fourteen years old or so—it's so young it hasn't even had sex—yet it has already crushed many of the biggest communication platforms known to humankind, and it's not done. The Internet is as powerful as oxygen, but we have not seen its full capabilities.

His twin brother was fourteen when he slipped beneath the undertow off Matagorda Beach in Texas. Swim parallel to the shore, he thought. He thought it hard. Swim parallel to the shore, brother. When his brother emerged covered in sand, but calm, he spoke of a pocket of air that had saved him, their cousin's inflatable surfboard pinned to his face like a mask, and a glorious blue light that had cradled him, rocking him safely to shore. Grabbing his brother's hand, he pulled him to the water's edge, thinking, You must see for yourself.

Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography Of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela (@LittleBrown)

Northbound, Yonge and Summerhill

Caucasian woman, early 60s, with curly grey hair and black-framed glasses, wearing beige winter jacket and matching red hat and mittens.

Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography Of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela (Little, Brown And Company)

Page 95:

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, From henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise. 

One time, there was a final straw. Missed birthdays and grandiose tales of sprinting through the airport, the gate closing as he slapped the side of the plane as if he’d made his way past security onto the tarmac where he gestured violently at the pilot that he would dare to keep a father from his son. And planes only took off in that one moment, the miracle of flight postponed until next year when we’ll try again, bud. Promise. One moment was all it took. And a mother liberated her boy’s father from making the same mistake again.

Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book. Editor: Sean Manning. (Da Capo Press)

Eastbound, Queen and Pape

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with long blonde hair and nose ring, wearing red buckled jacket with white scarf.

Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book. Editor: Sean Manning. (Da Capo Press)

Page 46:

Elissa Schappell on Naked Lunch (Burroughs)

The first thing I noticed when I spotted my future husband, standing under the departures and arrivals board in Penn Station, was that he appeared to cut his own hair. The second, he was drinking a cup of coffee and reading a book. The third, the book was Francis Steegmuller’s Cocteau.

I couldn’t help but notice how the book’s purple cover complimented his black turtleneck sweater and pants, safety orange socks, and high-tops. He looked like an artist (given the hair, a starving one). Was he, like Cocteau, an avant-garde filmmaker? A poet? An opium addict. Was that too much to hope for?

What does this book say about her, she wonders, glancing the seats for future mates, a woman who will carry her first child, the book’s deep red cover designed to look worn, the product of obsessive readings. Or does it look worn as if taken from a library, or as passed down from grandmother to granddaughter, her fondness for the object betraying an inability to live in the moment? All considered, she decides that no matter how much she looks to the books contents to determine her future, anyone looking on would hasten to guess she’s nostalgic for the past, which based now on the curious gaze of another woman at the back of the streetcar she hopes is a good thing.