Do you ask strangers about books they're reading?

[sweetpotatoboy]

I never do this but am frequently tempted to. Commuting every day, I see people reading books that either I've read or I am thinking about reading. I really want to start a conversation with them about the book but I don't (British reserve probably playing a big part here).

Does anyone ever do this?

[nona]

yes, If I'm curious and something caught my eye and I try not to be rude, just "hey I don't mean to intrude but..." and most people I found once you start chatting they enjoy talking to you.

[Calgal]

In an airport a woman was really torn between finishing her book and talking about books with me. She told me that all the flying she was doing for her job had changed her into a reader.

Also, I met another woman who turned into a friend because we shared a taste in books and for reading. She used to own a specialty publishing house and does editing since her husband died. I still email her. Since that time, she has published a memoir. No surprise to me that books can be a basis for friendship.

[Misfit]

I travel alone quite a bit for pleasure and I always find someone to talk with about books, along with other things.

[EC2]

I do if I feel the 'vibes' are right. I can usually tell by intuition whether a stranger will want to talk books or would rather be left alone and I act accordingly.

[LCW]

I never have before but if I saw someone with an interesting looking book I'd strike up a conversation. I don't think I'd interrupt someone who was actually reading but it the timing was right I'd go for it.

Once I was reading a bunch of biochemical papers on a flight and the lady in the seat next to me offered me her magazine if I wanted to "read something less boring", lol! That made me laugh!

[Rowan]

I've never done it, but I think I'd be more likely to say something if they're reading something I've already read.

[nona]

there are two or three ladies at work that always ask what I'm ready and we chit-chat about what were reading for a few minutes before work and after, it's nice.

[diamondlil]

I always take a look at what people are reading on the train around me, just to see. Every now and again I will have a conversation with someone about the book they are reading, but not as often as I am tempted too!

[Vanessa]

I always try to take a sneaky peak at what others are reading, but as to starting up a conversation with a stranger, I'd be too shy unless they said something first.

[Divia]

I sometimes ask, but rarely. Although when a teen is lost and confused in a bookstore the librarian in me wants to take over and say "can I help you find something? What are you interested in?" :D

[Amanda]

When my little boy (now almost 9 months..hard to believe!), was born it was an emergancy c section. So I've had a quick glimpse of him, and he was rushed off to the special care nursery (he was severly anaemic and needed transfusions). They fixed me up and rolled my off to recovering.

Then they told me I had to be there for about an hour. And I think "What!!! I don't have a book! What am I going to do laying here for an hour?" All I had to think of was which of the names we had chosen I liked best for the new little boy, and hoping that everything was alright with him. Then a nurse came back from a break with a very big book tucked under her arm, and I could tell it was a fiction one too. She stopped at her assigned patients to check on them, and I was trying to get a look at her book! But I couldn't see it. My nurse came to check me and when she was finished I asked her what book the other nurse was reading, and she looked at me kind of strangely and said that she didn't know. I never did find out!

Then a few days later, I was up in the middle of the night in the special care nursery expressing milk with the breast pump, and one of the nurses came in from her break with Cross Stitch/Outlander, and we chattered about that series for a while with the other nurses, until they scuttled me off to bed because it was 2am and I had to get back up again for more expressing at 4am. But I wanted to stay and chat!

[EC2]

Oh my goodness Amanda, what a story!
And what books get you through eh?

[MLE]

I love to talk books! I don't interrupt someone who is reading or doing something else, but if they are just waiting in the same line at Costco and they are buying a book, I ask about it, what they read, why they picked up that one. I've had some of the most lively conversations over books.

[pat]

I do, and have been talked to about what I am reading, but I also use intuition as to discuss or not!

[Madeleine]

I love looking at what books everyone else is reading, but wouldn't have the nerve to talk them about it. However I was on the train once reading Gormenghast, and the man next to me asked what I thought of it.

[JaneConsumer]

I commute 4 hours every weekday. It's a great icebreaker - a way to get to know someone. I made a very good friend this way. I've always considered myself knowledgeable about fiction generally. But I very quickly learned she knew much more than I did. It lead to a great friendship.

I only once asked someone and then discovered I really didn't want to know. While it didn't seem to bother the person to answer my question, the topic was a sensitive one. I suppose this is the risk.

[Divia]

To be honest though I only ask this question when I am in a bookstore becuase most of the tiem I have found out people aren't reading anything. :(

[Tanzanite]

I do sometimes. Recently during a flight I asked the person sitting next to me about her book and at the end of the flight, she had finished it and gave it to me! I thought that was awfully nice of her.

[Kailana]

Yep, I ask everyone! I talk a lot to begin with, so it just makes things even easier. I have a lot of people ask me about the book I am reading too. Even if I am not reading it and it is just sitting on the table near me, people ask.

[princess garnet]

Asking what people what they'd like to read next is part of my job. ;)