Three Stories - Alan Bennett

Do English people usually read while travelling or in the train? I usually read in my room, almost nowhere else except for the book store. I have noticed people reading in trains and other places, but from all the people in this room who talk about reading as if it were something done at the beach, the train or the airplane, it seems that reading is something that is exclusively done to keep one's mind off of the waiting time that it takes to get from place to place. Italo Calvino's "On a Winter's Night a Traveller" also reminds me of a novel that is about waiting and what to do while waiting. It's a perfect travel book for a person and even if you lose your page, you can usually get right back in. At the end of the travel, the author and reader are supposed to meet in the realm of understanding... that unless we learn to enjoy our lives now instead of waiting for something incredible to happen to our lives, the novel is over.

That sounds truly interesting - I shall get a copy. If you spent 4 hours a day travelling, as I do, then you would read as you went! In London I would estimate that one person in ten is reading a book as they go around the tube - but that number drops dramatically on the bus - I would guess that's becasue there's something more interesting to look at our of the window. On the London to Brighton train it's about every other person who is reading a book.

I do almost 4 hours a day travelling, but as I am driving, I cant do books. I did get outbid on ebay recently for some alan bennett tapes tho (grrr)

Travelling is about the only time I get for reading at the minute, which drives me mad. I find reading time to be an essential to living, if I don't get any reading time I feel like I'm slowly dying on the vine. How soft and coddled does that make me sound?