The Reader: Uli Beutter Cohen

Published: April 13, 2020, 7:29 p.m.

In December 2013, artist Uli Beutter Cohen asked a young woman on the Q train what she was reading, and if she was ok to have her picture taken.\n\nIt had caught Uli's attention that New York City was a place where more people would read on the subway than anywhere else \u2013 always with a special sense of pride, and many emotions.\n\nUli posted the picture of the women \u2013 a young dancer \u2013 reading \u201cCatching Fire\u201d on Instagram, on a new account she called Subway Book Review. The caption read "I liked the first two movies and wanted to read the book. I like post-apocalyptic books\u201d.\n\nToday, the Subway Book Review is a global community and social media phenomenon, portrayed all the way from the BBC to Glamour to DER SPIEGEL. \n\nIn episode 3 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Uli shares how growing up in Germany shaped her, how moving to Portland, OR, turned her into a young entrepreneur, and how she built Subway Book Review into a platform with hundreds of thousands of followers. In our update call at the very end, she shares her radical reinvention in the current crisis.