The physical act of travelling, especially on London underground’s less salubrious lines, can be a rather tedious experience. Particularly without anyone or anything to keep you company.
To counter the boredom that often afflicts a journey various initiatives are present throughout the underground to get Londoners reading, and indeed reading good books.
The first of the underground’s book exchanges was set up at Raynes Park station in 2005 when a local library underwent refurbishment and offloaded a large stock of books. It immediately proved a hit with commuters.
Anthony Fairclough, the leader of the Liberal Democrats for Merton council, was inspired to follow suit at his home station of Wimbledon, setting up a book exchange there in 2009.
By 2011 the craze was official – the Book For London campaign became the first winner of the #ideas4Mayor competition at the London Policy Conference, with then-Mayor Boris Johnson praising the effort to promote literacy.
A separate, perhaps more romantic, initiative to do just that is Books on the Underground. The premise is rather more itinerant – books are deliberately placed throughout underground stations and carriages. They’re labelled with a sticker so as to not be mistaken for lost property and are then announced as ‘drops’ on social media.
The scheme was set up in 2012 and has recently been revived to push the agenda further forward.
Even actress Emma Watson had a go at it, leaving over 100 copies of Maya Angelou’s Mom & Me & Mom in spots across the network.
An unfortunate incident did mean that one book exchange had to close in 2016 however. After reports of extreme religious material accompanying pornography to its shelves, the powers that be at Archway station decided to remove the exchange.
Station staff could not be reached to answer where the pornography consequently went.
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