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Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting

by Clare Pooley

A chance encounter on the daily train

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Regular price $27.47 USD Sale price $16.48 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praised by USA Today

    USA Today praises the book as “a hilarious and sweet creation about a group of individuals who form a family wit...

AlbakiReads Editorial

A chance encounter on the daily train

Iona Iverson’s regular journey from Hampton Court to Waterloo is shaped by familiar faces who remain strangers—until a passenger chokes on a grape and a nurse steps in to help. The incident disrupts the commuters’ unspoken routine and sets a group of people with little else in common on a path toward connection. With Iona, an advice columnist, and her dog Lulu among the regulars, the novel links everyday public encounters with questions of how people understand one another and themselves.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in contemporary fiction about unexpected connections among strangers.
  • For readers who enjoy ensemble stories set around everyday routines and shared spaces.

Themes

Chance encountersCommunity and connectionSelf-understandingDaily routines

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It's a rule. But what would happen if they did?

"A hilarious and sweet creation about a group of individuals who form a family with love at its core." --USA Today


Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do.
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He'd have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.
This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you--and even more about yourself.
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