Jessie Newburn, Uber Chronicles

Jessie Newburn's Uber Chronicles is a collection of vignettes of some of the rides she's given as an Uber driver in the Baltimore area. It's a quick read, and entertaining enough. It's an interesting idea for a book, and one that every Uber driver could write a version of (assuming they could write reasonably well, of course; Newburn writes pretty well). As the author describes, Uber rides offer drivers a brief window into the lives of their passengers, who come with all manner of different back stories. They are polite or withdrawn or rude (but rarely, in my experience), comfortable to be with or not, and they hold down jobs of all sorts—the tuxedo fitter, the nail art specialist, the wine salesman, the guy who works at Subway. Mostly they're nice people. At any rate, Newburn has collected her vignettes, and along with them she provides her takeaway from each encounter. She's a little more airy—or maybe spiritual—than I would be were I to write the book, and she has a weird penchant for starting rides before riders get in her car—that's a no-no. But one interesting thing about Uber is that the drivers can be as different as their passengers. Vive la différence.