Question: I want to tell someone the following:  

"I bring an e-reader with me on the bus every day so that I have something to do during my commute to work."  

Does the phrase "commute to work" clearly refer to the trip there **and** the trip back from work? Or is it more proper to say "commute to and from work" in order to ensure that it is clear that I mean both directions?

Answer: 
In OP's context, "commute" would normally include both journeys, but since "commuting" in this sense invariably implies "to and from **work**", the explicit mention of "to work" *could* mean only the outward journey.

Having said that, I think it would be a perverse interpretation to automatically assume only the outward journey was intended. But I wouldn't think it was unusual if the utterance went on to *force* that interpretation...

**...so I have something to do during my commute to work, but on the return journey I have a drink in the buffet car with colleagues.**

[Here's](http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=commute%20to%20and%20from,commute%20to&year_start=1950&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3) an NGram showing over 110K instances of "commute to", with less than 5K for "commute to and from". By definition 50% of every commuter's journeys are coming home – I seriously doubt they're talking about the outward journey over 95% of the time!
"Commute to work" does imply, as you suggest, your morning trip in the direction towards work. It is not obvious that it refers to both directions.

The first definition of ['to' in the OALD](http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/to) is:

> 
> (1) in the direction of something; towards something  
> 
> *I walked to the office.*
> 
> 
> 

Many other meanings are similar: the word that follows "to" will usually be understood to be the second half of a comparison, or the item that an action is directed toward. So, you are correct that 

> 
> My commute to and from work
> 
> 
> 

would be a clearer way to state this. You might also say, "my commute," if you don't mind a little ambiguity (a listener will have to determine from context whether you mean your commute in general or a specific direction), or "my morning and evening commute."