Dispensing literature

by Nicola Shepherd

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BOOK vending machines are being introduced onto platforms across the UK's rail network.

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Next time you are delayed by a late train, comfort yourself in the knowledge that you could be improving your mind while you wait.

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This is not an initiative by Railtrack to defuse commuter wrath at timetable disruption, but a business venture by two well-connected entrepreneurs to dispense short stories from vending machines on station platforms.

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The Earl of Iveagh, heir to the Guinness fortune, and Alexander Waugh, grandson of novelist Evelyn Waugh, have formed a business alliance�that intends to put literature dispensing machines alongside the chocolate variety in every station in the country.

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The scheme is designed to catch those commuters or travellers who find themselves with a delay or�with just nothing to read.

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On offer�will be self-contained short stories of between 7,000 and 12,000 words in length, as opposd to novels or extracts, and, because they are designed to be read in forty minurtes or so, they will be printed on one sheet of paper and will fold up like a map. Each story will cost �1.

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Authors selected so far include PG Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, and Katherine Mansfield. The board of editors is no less illustrious and includes Beryl Bainbridge, Martin Amis, Dame Muriel Spark and William Trevor. The latter two have even written short stories especially for this imprint.

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This is not the first time literature has been produced exclusively for rail travellers: Rudyard Kipling introduced reading sheets to the Indian railways in the early 1900s.

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The London tube system is the initial target of the machines and the first one was officially launched at South Kensington tube station last week. The plan is eventually to roll out the scheme across the entire British rail system.