Franco is taking too long for me.

Macon Leary recommends always carrying a book in your bag that you can take out on trains and planes to prevent the passenger sitting next to you from starting a conversation you didn't ask for. The deterrent book, the shield book, the passive-aggressive book. It would be funny if that book were The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler , since Macon Leary isn't a real person but the protagonist of that very novel, a gray man whose life is changed by a multicolored woman and her son. The other day, without realizing it, I followed Macon Leary's advice and, when my train companion seemed to be in the mood for some small talk, I took my book out of my bag. And what a book it is: Julián Casanova's biography of Franco, a volume as interesting as it is, of course, conversationally deterring.

Shortly after, the train stopped unexpectedly, in the middle of nowhere (see: Monegros ). My traveling companion began the obligatory round of calls ("another delay, I don't know when I'll arrive, you guys go to bed") and then disappeared. I suppose he went to the cafe car. At that moment, I was flying with Franco in the Dragon Rapide before causing a big fuss. An hour later, we were still stopped, and the siege of Madrid, Serrano Suñer, and literary Francoism in general were starting to get to me. Casanova's book is magnificent, but I don't see it as appropriate for tense situations . A train abandoned to its fate isn't exactly my definition of tranquility. We arrived in Sants more than four hours late.

I read The Accidental Tourist at the edge of the pool where I worked as a lifeguard, back in the 90s. That was certainly peaceful. Three months of work-related boredom and chlorinated water gave me a lot to talk about: my hair lightened to a ridiculous but then-fashionable shade, I was actually tanned for the first and last time in my life, and I read countless books: from The Firm (which terrified me) to The Old Mermaid (which I loved), from the overrated epistolary hodgepodge of Dangerous Liaisons (the movie was much better) to Astrakhan Claws.

Now that I think about it, these last two books are essentially the same. I read everything I could get my hands on, and, forced by the hours spent on the curb and under the umbrella, I finished it all. It's as if I didn't get to the end of El Ocho , the brick that made me eternally distrust the best-seller section. I have to thank him for that, I suppose. I measure books based on the number of Madrid-Barcelona journeys they'll last me. In fact, I've written a few with that metric in mind. But I'm not infallible: I calculated that in three trains I'd have finished Franco (ahem) , and I've already made five trips with him under my belt .

I devoured Fiesta by Asier Ávila way ahead of schedule and had to spend half the journey wasting time on Twitter. Something worse happened to me with Quiero y no puedo by Raquel Peláez : I was so caught up in that posh story that I forgot I had to get off the AVE in Zaragoza and continued all the way to Madrid. Then I had to retrace my steps, but I had no more books to read. So back to Twitter to waste my brain cells. I try not to go on the train watching TV shows or movies on my laptop, although sometimes I have no other choice.

But it's awkward when the guy next to me knows you're watching Elite . I'd tell him that watching those things is part of my job, but I'm afraid that at that moment he'll pull out his shield book, his passive-aggressive book, his Franco, and I'll become that annoying passenger wanting to tell his life story to the first idiot he sits next to.