It was around eight o’clock in the morning and I was going to the station to take the tube for my first day at work in London, it was all excitement as I wanted to pay attention to every detail wherever I would pass by. Names of shops, stations, advertising posters and so on…

When I got inside the carriage, (quite full by the way), I noticed the absolute silence as the only noise was the train moving and the lady through the sound system saying the name of the stations that I could barely understand. But what made me feel amazed and at the same time ashamed was the fact of every single person on that carriage except me was reading something, a book, magazines, newspapers, etc. On that day, I realised that I had come to a city where people love reading.
So, if you love reading you are coming to the right place, if you don’t sooner or later you will fall in love for the reading habit as it is part of the English culture and it is a nice way to share experiences with others.

There are thousands of bookshops all around the city some of them have got a café area, a lounge, internet, tables for reading and other facilities. In the morning you can have a free Metro newspaper with the main news of the day, but if you miss it, no worries, there are two more free newspapers in the afternoon, and also Sport Magazine and City Am for free. There are book clubs and plenty of libraries where you can be a member and borrow the books. Trust me; there is not excuse to be uninformed.

Since that morning I’ve always tried to have something to read. Doing that you will always have something to talk about and then you can always go beyond the typical phrase: “the weather is terrible today, isn’t it?”

Take care and hope to see you soon here with us.

David Vieira/ Brazil

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 5:48 pm and is filed under London culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.