3 Classic Books To Finally Get Around To On Your Commute

Apart from your morning coffee ritual, one of the best ways to kickstart your brain into action is to read (it’s also a great way to unwind on the way back home). And by read, we mean something slightly more substantial than 140 characters long. The most recent study finds that the working New Yorker spends just shy of 6 and a half hours commuting each week, whereas their London counterparts clock up around 6 hours total. If we muse on the idea that the average adult can typically read around 275 words a minute, with a 6-hour commute you may be taking each week, you could make your way through some 99,000 words and still be afforded the time to check out your twitter.

To further put it into perspective, that’s the equivalent of reading To Kill A Mockingbird, Nineteen Eighty-Four or Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets! Granted, that’s making the assumption that your daily commute entails taking public transport and there’s enough personal space to be had where you can unfold a book in your lap.

Even so, if you can somehow manage it, here are our choice of 3 books that we recommend you start off with.

Day of the Jackal

________________________________________
Author: Frederick Forsyth
Words: 133,920
________________________________________
From pen to paper and written in only 35 days, this thriller will assuredly be read even quicker. Influencing an entire generation of writers to come, Forsyth’s tale of an unnamed assassin who meticulously goes about planning the execution of French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962 brings a realism to the genre unlike no other at the time due to the author’s real life experiences as a journalist posted in Paris.

A Perfect Spy

________________________________________
Author: John le Carré
Words: 193,440
________________________________________
Perhaps the most semi-autobiographical work produced by Le Carré, “A Perfect Spy” centers around a hidden senior British Intelligence officer, penning one last memoir to his son as the net closes around him and the years of lies and deceit finally catch up to him.

The Hobbit

________________________________________
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Words: 95,022
________________________________________
An easy introduction into the works of Tolkien and the vast world he created. The Hobbit is a swashbuckling tale of adventure where the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, reluctantly undergoes a dangerous journey only to discover that there is more to himself than even he ever thought possible.