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I'm a literary voyeur. I watch people reading: on the subway, on the streetcar, in cafes. And I post the sightings on my website, Seen Reading . I've been described as the “Gossip Girl of the book world,” a moniker I don't mind in the least.

We're social creatures, after all. We don't live in a time, yet, where our homes are voice-activated to produce “Tea, hot,” like an episode of Star Trek. Even if we don't care for company outside of friends and family, we venture into public spaces, going through the motions of shared community, if not for pleasure then necessity. I go to the market because I need food. I go to the pharmacy because I need toiletries. I go to my local pub because I don't have the upper body strength to change a keg of Guinness.

And to get to work, I take transit. In Toronto, transit riders are decidedly introverted. Courtesy aside – removing my knapsack so you can pass, standing up so you can sit, wearing fitted earphones so you don't have to share my taste in music – fellow passengers enter into an unspoken agreement that it's not rude to sit silently, making no conversation, gesturing only in the rare instant that you're sitting on my jacket, or I'm standing on your purse strap.

Perhaps this is why readers feel safe to pull out a book in these moments. During a rush-hour trip into downtown Toronto, the average subway car is a cultural cocoon. Standing at the centre, with little effort, I can spot up to 20 readers. Add in an streetcar jaunt and in one 45-minute trip I'll note 30, 40-plus readers, simply within my own line of sight.

It's possible that some use their books a practical distraction so they don't have to make eye contact with strangers. But for many, the commute is the only scheduled alone time they'll have all day. If you're like the woman I see who, each week, is 50 pages deeper into another book, or the man whose weathered copies of science fiction novels betray multiple readings, it's just as likely that the book you're carrying bears the splatter of last night's dinner, or the crumbs of this morning's breakfast, even the vague odour of your bed sheets, or your partner's cologne.

I can't help but think that this makes the publishing industry unique. While there are seasons in publishing, reading itself never goes out of style. Scan your bookshelf. How many titles were published before you were born, or certainly before you could read? How many will continue to be read when you and I are no longer around? Long after an author writes the last word, long after a publisher releases the finished product into the world, that little book hits the pavement, spreading its word, never to stop trying. We, as readers, live alongside our books. We evolve. Not unlike a well-seasoned pan, a well-worn book holds all of its past uses, making each reading more sophisticated, more personal, than that last.

This could be the biggest reason I like to note what people are reading. Because, in the very moment I happen to glance upon you as you turn the page, your eyes are just about to scan a string of words you've never seen, or words you know by heart. Your synapses will fire, and you will make endless connections of meaning, most of which won't register on any significant level.

Some, however, will stop you short and take you to some past, present, or wishful future – a narrative of your own design. With each reading, a book's value increases as each reader's interpretation fills every last inch of the page. And that is what makes the act of reading kind of miraculous.

Julie Wilson spots readers in the wild Monday to Friday at www.seenreading.com. She lives and works in Toronto.