what new yorkers are reading on the subway


Sunday, July 20, 2008

Kick Up Your Heels; The Subtle Knife

The F Train at 7th Avenue in Brooklyn
Susannah, an artist, was reading two books when I spoke with her earlier this week. She was reading a non-fiction book, Kick Up Your Heels...Before You're Too Short to Wear Them: How to Live a Long, Healthy, Juicy Life, by Loretta LaRoche, which she described as a "humorous book" about middle age and mid-life. Quickly, however, she pulled another book out of her bag, about which she waxed with more enthusiasm, The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. "This is really good. The series is really good." The Subtle Knife comes second in a trilogy. She said that Pullman's series "is so hard to describe." In the world of the novels, "people's souls are animals." There is a church that is trying to separate the souls from the animals. Susannah then stopped and made a brilliant suggestion, the kind my high school students love: Go see the movie. The first book of the trilogy is The Golden Compass, which starred Nicole Kidman, came out last year.

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