The Reader on the 6.27

Guylain Vignolles leads a dull and solitary life. He hates his job and his only company at home is a goldfish. Every morning he takes the 6.27 to his tedious job at a book pulping factory. He hates his boss and his assistant but he finds companionship with the factory's guard, an eccentric aficionado of classical literature. On the train each morning on the way to work, Guylain reads aloud to his fellow commuters the disparate pages that he rescues from the jaws of the monstrous pulping machine. One morning on the train, he finds a USB stick which contains the diary of a young woman. As Guylain reads the diary, he finds himself falling love with its author . . . This enchanting novel is a warm and funny fable about literature's power to uplift even the most monotonous of lives; and how there can be dignity and poetry for even the most misunderstood.