"Condom purses" prohibited

This Hopper's painting is strickingly similar to my morning commute - empty train, a good book as my companion. I am loving my reverse commute: I go the opposite way of the thousands of people coming to downtown Chicago early morning. You literally see all the bridges over the Chicago river 'flooded' with people, hurrying... So I stop (I have the leisure and the time to do that) & look at them before taking my train.
Coming back to Chicago at around 7pm I love the feel of downtown: it's peaceful and empty (but not menacing empty, like it might feel in some other American cities where the downtown has been abandonned, unfortunately, Minneapolis is one of the cities that come to mind). It's such an immense joy to go past historic buildings, have them all to yourself: the Rookery, Mies Van der Rohe's all-glass Post Office...

Anyway, from lyrical to cynical: I started by talking about the commute & reading on the train. I am not a huge fan of backpacks (practical but they cramp my style), so purses should do the trick of fitting everything in.
With regard to that, I have noticed that my criteria for buying a purse for years have been the following: it's a no-go if it's too small for a book to fit in (and believe me, I even have very small format books, but there are still some purses smaller than that, aptly baptised by me as 'condom purses', for that's the only thing that would fit there...).
I'm definitely up for protecting myself from many things (mostly bad but some good, too, as I am being repeatedly told by some 'friends'? now), but I will never deprive myself of the joy of reading.
Empty computer train just enhances the beauty of it all.