For those unfamiliar with the group, the MARTA Book Club is a loose— very loose— confederation of people who read while riding the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s public transportation. There are no meeting times, no organizational rules, no t-shirts, and no special fares. Very convenient. The only requirement to be a member of MARTA Book Club is to read a book while riding public transportation.
(Note: The Huffington Post recently posted a similar book spotting piece. See it here. And if you're visiting from Huffington, thumb through this blog you'll see we've been posting Atlanta's offerings the past year.)
What We Are Reading: Either our data collection skills (the furtive glance) have diminished or people just aren't reading as much since last month's posting, but MARTA book club offerings are a little thin this month.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Testimony: A Novel by Anita Shreve
CPT 2009 Standard Edition (CPT/ Current Procedural Terminology) by the American Medical Association. (The woman was carrying two volumes of these phone-book sized reference tomes.)
The Bible. A standard for the MARTA faithful
KnockOut by Catherine Coulter
Haunted Pensacola by Alan Brown
Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun. This is my contribution this month to the book club. Frank Reiss from ACappella Books brought Mun to Atlanta a couple years ago. I didn't go then, but later in the year I met her briefly at a book event in Cleveland where I picked up a copy of Miles. I finally got around to reading this novel about the life of a Korean-American teenager who lives on the streets in the Bronx in the 1980s. Not the cheeriest of subject matter. I felt Mun's gritty portrayal of the mindset of the people who flip in and out from life on the street and squatting in abandoned buildings to finding a way for a better life (“ a mailbox and a toaster” ) was authentic and worth reading. It is an especially relevant book for regular MARTA riders who see the homeless on a daily basis.
Tunnel People by Tuen Voeten. Similiarly, I saw a man at Five Points reading this book. It appears to be a fascinating book. Check out the details here.
Babylon Revisited And Other Stories (2 Volumes) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo by Peter Andreas
Whistling Dixie: Dispatches from the South by John Shelton Reed
Naked Cruelty by Colleen McCullough
Southern Lights: A Novel by Danielle Steele
Novels by Sister Souljah, Terry McMillan
What members thought: Readers are encouraged to keep their thoughts (and eyes) to themselves. No time is wasted talking about books when you could be reading.
Next assignment: Keep reading, and get to work on time. If you have anything you'd like to add please add it to the comments. (It is strictly an honor system.)
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