Paperback: Tunnel Visions by Christopher Ross

After a decade of globe-trotting, the author fibbed his way ("I told the necessary lies to convince anyone that I really, really wanted to go down the Tubes") into a position as part-time station assistant on Platform Six at Oxford Circus. The resulting account is an unclassifiable work about philosophy, autobiography and urban transit. While at his station, Ross is bitten by a busker, captures a rare mosquito ("the species is unknown in England," says a biologist), and notes how a female tramp searches for fag-ends just as our ancestors would have rooted "for berries or grubs 10,000 years ago."

We learn of the "strangely dissimilar" nature of platforms: the blue of the Victoria Line reminds Ross of a suburb of Tunis, while the brown of Bakerloo attracts dog turds. He is present at a "one under" (track suicide). One woman takes her vixen on the underground every day, another takes her baby chimp. A naked man runs "endless circuits" through the station. Ross's subterranean memoir falters at the end, with the ultimate cop-out of a bomb incident that turns out to be a dream. It is a stimulating and occasionally profound journey up to that point, though the publisher's classification "Travel" could hardly be more inaccurate.