Ugh. I have those coworkers. One yelled at me that I was going to hell for reading Harry Potter. Another decided I must not be Christian because I was reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Maybe I’ll see ladybug there?
I have never had this happen to me that I can remember and I’ve always been a fairly heavy, although not voracious, reader that takes books along with me to read pretty much everywhere.
Such people do not usually bother me. Perhaps it is because I usually read with a slight scowl on my face. This doesn’t relate to the subject matter of the book; it’s generally because I can’t see as well by the afternoon or evening (when I usually end up reading where other people are) as I can in the morning. I’m squinting, and therefore scowling, so I can see what I’m reading a bit better. I apparently look like I’m going to stuff my book down the throat of anyone who dares ask me about it. When people do ask what I’m reading, I usually just hold up the cover so they can see it. This is because, like Kricket, I often read books with hard-to-pronounce words, or scary covers. There was the Jane Austen omnibus I borrowed from the library and brought to work last summer to read at lunch. It had no scary cover, but contained six novels.
“Wow! That’s a big book,” people would say.
“Yes,” I would reply. Apparently the reading of any book over two hundred pages is a serious mental disorder.
I’m sure this has happened to me, but thanks to my being deaf in one ear, I have the phenomenol ability to tune people out even if they approach me with a bullhorn in an echo chamber.
So if they succeed in actually getting my attention, the book probably isn’t THAT engrossing.
Oh my lord. The conflation of Mr. Crisp’s kindly old British landlady with Rob Schneider is making my brain bleed. As is reading the word betenoirister. But I probably had too much blood in there anyway :D.
I’ve tried to do this myself. It never works. If I’m in the break room on lunch, three or four are in the room within minutes. Not one of them has mastered an “indoor” voice. Even if they aren’t talking to me, they are trying to talk over each other. I used to use my mp3 player as a shield, but I had to turn the volume up so high that I started to worry about my hearing.
I do have one escape book. “The Structure of Evolutionary Theory” by Stephen Jay Gould. Tis a massive book, and very intimidating. One of my assistant managers asked me what I was reading. When I told him, his eyes got real big and he walked out of the room. Everyone else assumes that it’s some sort of homework and leaves me alone. It’s a shame I’m not in the mood to read it more often.
This happens to me all the time, but it was worse when i was a temp worker and I would bring a book to read on the mandatory lunch hours/breaks. (Honestly, I’d rather just have worked through and left earlier). Anyway, they seemed to think “Oh, the poor temp girl! We don’t want to leave her alone! Let’s go interrupt her, she can’t possibly be enjoying reading!”
This, ladies and gentleman, is why I own the Necronomicon. I cut the cover from the binding, and now I attach it using magazine-insert gummy strips to the cover of whatever novel I happen to be reading. People do not bother you when you’re reading a black book called NECRONOMICON with a pentagram displayed prominently on the cover.
It works even better if you can train yourself to subconsciously mumble random snippets of whatever you’re reading in a very low voice, à la Satanic spells.
That may be the principle behind my friend Kasey’s bringing of witchcraft books to work. Though, with the kind of folks we work with, the Jane Austen worked just as well.
Shoot the hostage.
One word: headphones. Put 'em on while you read. They don’t need to be connected to anything, but for some reason people interpret headphones to mean “don’t bother him.” At the very least, you can pretend not to hear what someone is saying.
I usually don’t have people asking me what I am reading, rather if I (Og forbid) don’t have my nose between the pages of something I get pestered. “Where’s your book?” “Library closed?” “How can you NOT have a book?” “Are you feeling okay?”
If a book I am reading is particularly engrossing, I will walk while reading back to my cubihell. That opens an entirely new line of pestering. One cow-orker will stand directly in my way hoping I’ll walk right into him. Never happens, I walk around him. EVERY damn time he laughs and says he’ll get me next time. Hunh? Get me? Other cow-orkers will stop me - one has even put her hand on the open book - only to ask how I can walk and read at the same time. I don’t reply, I just shrug and keep walking.
During lunch I have a Norm! thing at the pub next to my office. I buy a soda, smoke, and read. Every once in a while another customer will attempt to start a conversation, but the bartenders will tell him/her that I prefer to be left alone. I like that place.
HA! 
The Pity of War?
Gah! What a flashback! When I was in the rehab hospital, I worked hard on rehabbing my mangled body, and in between workouts, I read. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up on all of the great stuff I’d bought, but hadn’t had time to get to.
Except for the roommate issue. Roomie was one of these guys who had no interest in books, and when all of his family wasn’t crowded into the room, yapping, would either watch TV while yapping on the phone, or just yap on the phone. He kept trying to interest me in the TV-“Didja see that?”
No, fuckwit. See this funny papery thing full of words? I’ts called a book, and I’m trying like hell to read it, while stifling the urge to leap outta this wheelchair on my good leg and beat you twelve ways for Topeka with your bedpan. Shut up! I swear, another week of that and I’d have rolled the wheelchair down Route 30 just to escape. 
Dave Lister, contemplating his wasted life: It’s not fair. There’s loads of things I’ve never done. Like … I’ve never had a prawn vindaloo. And I’ve never read [pause while he searches his memory]… a book.
If the said reader is one Mrs EG, I would suggest that one go ahead and interupt her. At the risk of losing ones testicles.
When LoTR movies came out, I was all a titter, having read the series many times and suggested the Mrs read the books first as Zealandwood was bound to mangle the story beyond reconignition.
Imagine my suprise when she read the book in what was effectively one sitting. I have seen her read before but never anything that long. It generally takes a low yield nuclear burst to break her concentration. Pity the fool (me) who actully nudges her to get her attention with such mundane information as “honey dinner’s ready.”
Interrupted her once too often, did you?
Just kidding.
Or failing that, mumble whatever in Latin. Latin sounds creepy when done right.
{Brian Glover, from Porridge} “I read a book once. {long pause} Green, it were.”