“The Last Book” is an interesting series of images collected by Dutch photographer Reinier Gerritsen, who spent 13 weeks over 3 years scouring the subway system of New York City for riders reading books. Every time he saw one, he would snap a picture and make a note of the book that was being read.
Gerritsen shot thousands of photographs during his many hours in the subways, and what resulted was an extensive catalog of subway riders and their books of choice. He has selected a large number of them for display on the project’s website where they’re arranged in alphabetical order by author’s last name.
Here’s a selection of the images in “The Last Book” (the author and book names are displayed in the captions):
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
Tennessee Williams. Four Plays.
Robert Louis Stevenson. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Daniel Silva. The Rembrandt Affair.
J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Jodi Picoult. Second Glance.
Stuart Neville. Collusion.
Hamish McDonald. Ambani & Sons.
Carson McCullers. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
George R.R. Martin. A Feast for Crows.
Deepak Malhotra. Negotiation Genius.
Mary MacLane. I Await the Devil’s Coming.
Stieg Larsson. The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Patrick Lapeyre. La Vie Est Brève et le Désir Sans Fin
Paul Krugman. End This Depression Now!
William Hubben. Dostoevsky, Kierkegard, Nietzsche and Kafka.
Chris Gardner. Pursuit of Happyness.
Jane Gardam. Old Filth.
Jonathan Franzen. The Corrections.
Mark Epstein. Thoughts Without a Thinker.
Carol Dweck. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
John de Crevecoeur. Letters from an American Farmer.
David Byrne. How Music Works.
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
The images in “The Last Book” also been published as a photo book with the same name.
The Last Book [Reinier Gerritsen via Slate]
Image credits: Photographs by Reinier Gerritsen and used with permission
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.