If you go on a BART ride one of these days, take a look around the station and the car you’re in. You’ll probably see any of three new posters East Bay artist Owen Smith has created for BART for a series called “Literary Journeys.” The posters depict BART riders lost in Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon”, Jack London’s “Call of the Wild”, and Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club.”
Until I joined the Alameda County Library as a staff member almost five years ago, I commuted each work day by BART.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
Now I don’t miss the late trains, crowded cars, fare increases and the occasional threats and actuality of BART employees going on strike. I do miss the reading time that each BART ride guaranteed. Boarding a train three stops from its Fremont starting point assured me of a seat, but the return trip was more of a game of chance since Fremont-bound trains did not come as often as passengers would have preferred. Still, I usually had the opportunity to read and block out the mass of humanity around me. I knew when it was time to disembark by the section of the daily newspaper I had just set aside or by the number of pages I had just read of the book that was in my tote bag.
One of the books I know I read as a BART commuter was “The Joy Luck Club”. I remember clearly how touched I was by the passages about the mother abandoning her young twin daughters by the road side while escaping the foreign power occupation of her town. I remember I dared not look up, hoping no one noticed me as I pressed a tissue near each eye to stop those tears and being careful not to dislodge my contact lenses. Looking back, I think my hormones were at play at that time since just months earlier I had given birth to my second child.
Take your own literary journeys on BART. Check out works by Dashiell Hammett, Jack London, Amy Tan and your other favorite authors from the library’s collection.
Jack London’s The Call of the Wild
Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon
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