Chicago Is Turning The CTA Into A Surprise Lending Library For Chicago Ideas Week

By Justin Freeman in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 30, 2015 8:59PM

Photo Credit: Chicago Ideas Week

For this year's Chicago Ideas Week, the city wants you to read more books on the train. They're going to encourage this by placing “Books on the L”—in other words, literally leaving books on the CTA trains for commuters to read as they go about their rides.

Books will be spread throughout the various train lines for people to look at as they commute around town. No specific titles have been announced yet, but works by Ishmael Beah, Dan Harris, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Christian Rudder, Ron Suskind, Peter Thiel and several other authors will be available.

[CORRECTION: Books by Martine Rothblatt, Michael Strahan and Senator Claire McCaskill with be available.]

And if you find a book with a Golden Ticket inside of it, you get hooked up with free entry into a Chicago Ideas Week talk next week. Lucky you.

[CORRECTION: No Golden Tickets. That was bad information on their website.]

The books are not designed to be kept (though we have trouble seeing how that won't be what happens). The hope is that people will see a book that they’re into, grab it, read it and then put it back on the train for someone else whenever they finish with it. The books will be available from Oct. 12 through Oct. 18.

People are being encouraged to participate on social media using the hashtag #BooksOnTheL.

UPDATE: Chicago Idea Week's website, where this data was pulled from, was outdated and had the wrong information when this went to print yesterday afternoon. They have notified us and have updated their website. The report has been updated with the correct information.