Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground

by Uli Beutter Cohen

Overview

From the acclaimed creator of Subway Book Review, Between the Lines gloriously takes to the underground and showcases in over 170 interviews what moves us forward—a thrilling ride as unexpected as New York City itself.

“Subway Book Review has changed how we look at books.” —Forbes
“[Beutter Cohen’s] rosy view of the subway is a refreshing contrast.” —The Cut, New York magazine
“Subway Book Review is one of the few purely good things on the internet.” —Esquire

For the better part of a decade, Uli Beutter Cohen rode the subway through New York City’s underground to observe society through the lens of our most creative thinkers: the readers of books. Between the Lines is a timely collection of beloved and never-before-published stories that reflect who we are and where we are going. In over 170 interviews, Uli shares nuanced insights into our collective psyche and gives us an invaluable document of our challenges and our potential. Complete with original photography, and countless intriguing book recommendations, Between the Lines is an enthusiastic celebration of the ways stories invite us into each other’s lives, and a call to action for imagining a bold, empathetic future together.

Meet Yahdon, who reads Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem and talks about the power of symbols in fashion. Diana shares how Orlando shaped her journey as a trans woman. Saima reads They Say, I Say and speaks about the power of her hijab. Notable New Yorkers open up about their lives and reading habits, including photographer Jamel Shabazz, filmmaker Katja Blichfeld, painter Devon Rodriguez, comedian Aparna Nancherla, fashion editor Lynn Yaeger, playwright Jeremy O. Harris, fashion designer and TV personality Leah McSweeney, designer Waris Ahluwalia, artist Debbie Millman, activist Amani al-Khatahtbeh, and esteemed authors such as Jia Tolentino, Roxane Gay, Ashley C. Ford, Eileen Myles, Min Jin Lee, and many more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982145675
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	1,157,467
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Uli Beutter Cohen is a New York City–based documentarian, artist, and the creator of Subway Book Review. She explores belonging to a time and place through writing and photography. Uli is a sought-after speaker and panelist. Her work has been featured in print, on TV, and online by New York magazine; Esquire; Vogue; Forbes; O, The Oprah Magazine; Glamour; the BBC; and The Guardian, among others. Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground is her first book. Uli lives in Brooklyn. Visit @TheUBC, @SubwayBookReview, and SubwayBookReview.co to hear more.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/02/2021

Cohen, creator of the Subway Book Review, goes underground to New York’s subway system in this rich collection of interviews. A slew of New Yorkers share what they’re reading: LaTonya Yvette at Brooklyn’s Clinton-Washington station reads Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which makes her ponder property, ownership, and her relationship with the land she inhabits, while Shea Vassar discusses her Indigenous identity at the 45th Street Station through Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford, and Ellie Musgrave in Prospect Park reads M Train by Patti Smith and photographs her way through the city. Well-known train-riders pop up from time to time, including author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who was caught reading Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt, an author he calls a “huge inspiration”; Roxane Gay, who reads her “favorite novel,” Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence; and Momofuku CEO Marguerite Zabar Mariscal, who says that Rules of Civility by Amor Towles “transports you to an homage of New York in a really cinematic way.” With a genuine curiosity for the city’s wealth of perspectives, Cohen’s interviews show how deep a person’s connection to a book can go; after all, she writes, “books are a reflection of our identities and souls.” Literature lovers will relish this insightful compendium. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

PRAISE FOR BETWEEN THE LINES BY ULI BEUTTER COHEN

"After these past eighteen months of isolation and despair, the radical connectivity of Between the Lines arrives like manna from heaven...These heartfelt conversations remind us that even in our most solitary activities, we’re never truly alone."—ESQUIRE

“Beutter Cohen, creator of the Subway Book Review, goes underground to New York’s subway system in this rich collection of interviews. With a genuine curiosity for the city’s wealth of perspectives, Beutter Cohen’s interviews show how deep a person’s connection to a book can go...Literature lovers will relish this insightful compendium.”—PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

“Delightful encounters with passionate readers.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS

PRAISE FOR SUBWAY BOOK REVIEW

“Subway Book Review has changed how we look at books.”—Forbes

“[Beutter Cohen’s] rosy view of the subway is a refreshing contrast.”—The Cut, New York magazine

“Subway Book Review is one of the few purely good things on the internet.”—Esquire

From the Publisher

★ 10/01/2021

When Cohen moved to New York City in 2013, she wanted to hear every resident's story but few people had time to share. Then, she writes, she discovered the subway—"the beating heart of the city"—and found the connection. Cohen traversed all five boroughs and every train line, meeting and talking with passengers. Her conversations with people reading on the train were documented on an Instagram account (@SubwayBookClub) and now in this book. Cohen photographs readers on the train and at stations and asks about books they're reading, but it becomes so much more than that thanks to the author's intelligent, sensitive questions and the famous, semi-famous, and absolutely fabulous reader-riders' replies. In loosely grouped chapters (Trees; Matriarchs; Space; Old New York; Reality), subway readers share their hopes, sorrows, and joy with Cohen, opening a portal into their lives. A complete reading list is included. VERDICT A vibrant, varied love note to New York. Readers will feel hopeful after hearing from Cohen's delightful subjects, and perhaps emboldened to engage a stranger in conversation.—Liz French, Library Journal

Library Journal

2021-08-18
What New Yorkers read.

Making an appealing book debut, Beutter Cohen, a documentarian and creator of theSubway Book Review, gathers excerpts from more than 160 conversations she had while riding every subway line in New York City. The subway, she writes, is “the city’s beating heart that never stops.” When she noticed someone reading, she became an inquiring reporter, asking why they had chosen a particular book, eager to learn about them as a reader, and she also took photos of each person holding their book of choice. Themes of race, sexuality, the environment, food, power, history, art, music, home, love—and living in New York—emerged as widely diverse readers talked about an equally diverse selection of books. “I saw bestselling novels, experimental poetry collections, self-help books brimming with sticky notes, provocative memoirs, and well-loved classics,” Beutter Cohen observes. The books mostly fall into the category of serious literature, no matter what genre. Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand bookstore, was reading Roxane Gay’s Hunger. Beutter Cohen noticed Gay herself at the 23rd Street Station in Manhattan, reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, which, Gay says, is a novel she has read at least seven times. Singer/songwriter Sophie Auster discussed Memories of the Future, by her mother, Siri Hustvedt. A reader who identifies as nonbinary chose Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Some readers Beutter Cohen met are immigrants, and their choice of books reflected feelings of exile and loss. A young woman from Southern India, living alone because her husband was deported, found comfort in Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City, which spoke to her own loneliness. Qween Jean, a self-described “Caribbean goddess,” read Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (“hella Black, hella feminine, and hella powerful”). Some readers were transplants from other parts of the country, as is Beutter Cohen. “A small town girl from Germany,” she lived on the West Coast before moving to New York in 2013. A list of the books mentioned is appended.

Delightful encounters with passionate readers.

Kirkus Reviews