What they're reading in the city

Last Thursday, a man in his 50s with a gray beard was reading Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon on a bench in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. On Saturday, a woman in her 20s, wearing jeans and a tank top, was asleep on an commuter train with a library copy of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen on her lap. The previous Wednesday, another young woman, wearing a red skirt and pink shoes, was spotted reading Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver on the F train.

I know about these people because I've started reading CoverSpy, a strangely interesting blog in which self-described "publishing nerds" make note of who is reading what in and around New York City.

I am unsure why I find these little descriptions so compelling, but I do: the man with a ponytail and a Harvard t-shirt reading Erik Larson's Devil in the White City. The woman with silver earrings, reading Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and using Russian currency as a bookmark. The lady with the romance novel, with red fingernails and leopard-print umbrella. The three different people who, three days in a row, were observed reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

It's almost a little novel, all by itself. I can't explain it, but I check in almost every day to see what those New Yorkers are reading.