
On my other blog -- a blog of personal musings about books an book culture called The Book Shopper, I have been periodically tracking what people are reading while riding a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority bus or train. I call it -- The MARTA Book Club. For nearly a decade the MARTA Book Club has been metro Atlanta’s premier transportation book club (first posting November,2009). One reason is that membership is easy. There are no meetings, no dues, no organization, no T-shirts and no one determines which book everyone must read. The only requirement is to read a book while on a train or a bus or waiting for a train or bus. Very individualistic.
Here’s a list of what members have been reading while riding MARTA in recent months:
Galapagos: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
Trouble Brewing by Susan Page Davis
White Death by Clive Cussler 
Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins and Peter Mallouk
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan
85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy by Jules Witcover and Senator Edward M. Kennedy
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia by Robert Hughes
In a Sunburned Country (Australia) by Bill Bryson
Early Riser by Jasper FForde
D-Day Illustrated Edition: June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose
The Seventh Babe by Jerome Charyn
The Solace of Monsters by Laurie Blauner
Year One by Nora Roberts
Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Tad Szulc
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Bible
Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child
Guards! Guards: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Michael Duncan
There is a healthy selection of books, but we are disappointed when nearby Gwinnett County voted down an opportunity to join the MARTA Book Club by 54 to 46 percent margin last Tuesday. We would have welcomed them to the fold, but we guess short-sighted residents there prefer sitting in never-ending traffic and contributing to the deterioration of the environment with their fossil fuel consumption.
But one of best strategies to combat ignorance is to read, (and think) and that’s what MARTA Book Club does.
(A variation of this posting appears on The Book Shopper Blog: Personal Musing About Books To peruse the previous 33 MARTA Book Club postings dating back to 2009 visit here.)