The Bus Reader

A few weeks ago, I started a new job in Mississauga. For those of you not versed in Toronto geography, picture a postcard with the CN tower. Roughly, that is the center of Toronto. Now, start going west until you fall off the edge of a postcard and into a strip mall. That is Mississauga. Next, go east, past the other edge and into a concrete parking lot. That would be where I live now. The journey from point A to point B requires a long subway ride and an even longer bus ride, each trip taking an hour and forty minutes. 

Fortunately, this gives me over three hours, total, of prime reading time a day. That's at least 100 pages, unless I'm reading Saul Bellow's Herzog. For reasons unknown, my Mississauga bus gets suddenly re-routed over the Khyber Pass before it shudders into Islington Station. It's hard to concentrate on beautifully-wrought sentences while your ride is clearing two metre wide craters, so I gave up. Yes, the ride would probably be smoother if I didn't insist on sitting in the accordion part of the bus, pretending it's the same thing as a free ticket to Canada's Wonderland, but maybe Bellow could have written shorter sentences. It's called compromise.

And there's an art to picking out the perfect bus book. Either it's respectable enough to read cover-art, or it's a paperback so you can curl the cover around. But don't be too pretentious - you don't want to be that person reading Kant on the bus, because then you're likely that asshole putting their bag on the empty seat too. Then there is the question of value vs. volume. I favour a hefty book, but not so thick that it won't fit in my side bag. Unfortunately, I've started to feel like I've already read nearly every book meeting those criteria, which means I'll soon start in on Fifty Shades of Grey, which can only end in the gutter. That is, Metro, the free daily newspaper, or more accurately, "Stock Photo Daily."