Plane English "I was forty-two when the American Airlines aircraft I'd boarded in Chicago was set to explode in midair," writes Arthur Plotnik, in the opening line of the essay "Surviving the Unabomber". It's a compelling piece of prose, and one of the best of many contained in a new book, titled Airplane Reading. Edited by American English professors and scholarly travel writers Christopher Schaberg and Mark Yakich, this "re-examining [of] the strange and ordinary world of air travel" features both previously unpublished writing and essays submitted to their Airplane Reading website. Tony D'Souza's "Flight Benefits" is among the best. It tells of his experiences flying around the world for free as the teenage son of an airline employee, and accidentally discovering the seamier side of Hong Kong when his plans to fly from Japan to India go awry after one too many Asahis at Narita. One piece that didn't make the book but is found on the website is by Scott Saalman, whose great-great uncle, Joe Reed, was a wing walker in the 1920s, doing "loop-the-loops, barrel rolls and [hanging] from planes' axles". Saalman himself is terrified of flying, and his encounter with the fearsome roar of an aircraft toilet flush is comedy gold. Airplane Reading will be published in paperback next month (see amazon.com), but much of its content and plenty more, by both professional and amateur contributors, can be found at airplanereading.org. You can also submit your own writing for consideration.