Now, I have no right to be a book snob, not really. I love Harry Potter, and I have a stash of bad romance novels. Sometimes, I read pop-lit. I really like Bridget Jones’ Diary (Though its telling that I typed and had to change it back from “Bitchy Jones’ Diary“). I despise Dickens. (Yeah, I said it. I. Hate. Charles. Dickens.)
On the other hand, I do like lots of books that give me some credibility. I loved Paradise Lost, and Dante’s Inferno. I adored Frankenstein. I’m still sort of obsessed with Lord of the Flies.
But I’ll be the first to admit that there are certain books that will totally cause me to lose interest in a person.
For example, if, on your O.K.Cupid Profile you list your favourite authors as “Dan Brown and James Patterson” AND THATS IT, I’m probably going to reject you out of hand. I can accept that nearly every one in America has read the Da Vinci Code, ok? But go read something else too. I mean, I like Jodi Picoult, right? But I read things other than her books. (Side note – ‘My Sister’s Keeper’? Fantastic. Go read it. I cried like a girl.)
Its not even really the lack of ‘quality’ reading material, since most of that is really subjective. Its more about knowing the other person reads, and reads more than one thing. Just reading Stephen King? Not so interesting. Reading Stephen King, and a wide variety of other authors? Much more interesting.
Conversely, some books automatically get you points with me. If you’ve read all of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” books, we are so going to get along. Also, ‘Day of the Triffids‘ and anything by Wyndham get you points too. The part of the date where I knew I was totally going to go out with Gabriel again was when we started discussing Day of the Triffids.
Very sexy is the man who can introduce me to something new. Daniel got me started on Discworld. He also got me into a graphic novel serial, Fables. In return, I taught him about fairy tales he didn’t know the story behind. (This ties into Fables, which is a series about fairy tale characters living in New York. Trust me, its not nearly at pathetic as it sounds on first blush. Its by Vertigo! They have nudity!)
You get a bit of wiggle room when this sort of info comes out during a date. But OKC and other dating sites that ask about your fav. books kill it. I check. Really. Lots of people do. And the least sexy thing to write in that section?
“I don’t read.” Ick Ick Ick. If you say that during a date, my panties ain’t coming down, and there is VERY little you can do to change that.
Why all this? To lead into a NYT book section Essay about books and love.
It’s Not You, It’s Your Books
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Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!”
We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast. At least since Dante’s Paolo and Francesca fell in love over tales of Lancelot, literary taste has been a good shorthand for gauging compatibility. These days, thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, listing your favorite books and authors is a crucial, if risky, part of self-branding. When it comes to online dating, even casual references can turn into deal breakers. Sussing out a date’s taste in books is “actually a pretty good way — as a sort of first pass — of getting a sense of someone,” said Anna Fels, a Manhattan psychiatrist and the author of “Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives.” “It’s a bit of a Rorschach test.” To Fels (who happens to be married to the literary publisher and writer James Atlas), reading habits can be a rough indicator of other qualities. “It tells something about … their level of intellectual curiosity, what their style is,” Fels said. “It speaks to class, educational level.”
Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes: sometimes, it’s the Howard Roark problem as much as the Pushkin one. “I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,” said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. “He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’ he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.” (Members of theatlasphere.com, a dating and fan site for devotees of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” might disagree.)
(Continued at NYT Website)
9 responses so far ↓
1 Rona // Mar 30, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Yay Discworld!
I once almost walked out on a date halfway through when I discovered that the boy didn’t read for fun. Talk about instant removal of any attraction. *sigh* Reading is sexy. I have a shirt that says so, which means it must be true.
(Also, I’m very excited about Fables. I’m going to go get a copy RIGHT NOW.)
2 Wendy // Mar 30, 2008 at 7:48 pm
ZOMG, Fables is SO GOOD! Srsly. Best thing ever. Ever. So. Fucking. Good.
Actually, while Daniel and I were dating, a new collection came out (we both read the arc collections instead of the one shots), and he came over, and we actually read it together, at the same time, laying on my bed. How adorably cute is that?
3 Rebecca // Mar 30, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I would have a hard time dating someone who didn’t read. Thy would have no way of appreciating my book collection. And what would we talk about?
4 Curvaceous Dee // Mar 31, 2008 at 4:01 am
Hooray for another Wyndham fan! I’ve just been on a re-reading binge after getting my Wyndham books back from a friend (it’s annoying how I always want to re-read something less than a week after I lend it out). Plowed through The Crysalids, The Kraken Wakes, The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, and a few short story collections – just as great as I remember!
xx Dee
Curvaceous Dee’s last blog post..Mad Sexy
5 Lily // Mar 31, 2008 at 9:59 am
Hah! When Daniel and I met, we had a big Discworld discussion. (We both loved Otto). And once I hooked up with a guy because he said he had read “Happy All The Time” by Laurie Colwin (my fave novel. EVER. No boy I know has read this book.) Oh, all right, I would have hooked up with him anyway, but this kinda clinched it.
And when I met my bf Dean, I felt really comfortable with him cause we’d both recently read “A Question of Attraction” (aka “Starter for Ten”).
Lily’s last blog post..Your Good Deed
6 Joy // Mar 31, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Yeah…I do cringe when I see overly limited or overly artificial booklists. I’m convinced that at least 90% of people who list _The Great Gatsby_ as a “favorite book” are just reaching for something with “credibility.” Argh.
Apollo doesn’t read much…but he does _think_ about what he reads, so that’s a plus. Besides, we both a like a good story on film, so we have those stories to share and talk about. And he got me a really wonderful bookcase…so it’s not like he doesn’t support me in my life as a bookworm.
And, as others have noted, Fables is now officially on my summer reading list. I’m just glad that the county library system has a good selection of graphic novels. Whee!
Joy’s last blog post..Spring Break Stories, Volume I
7 mnwhr // Mar 31, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I’ll truly do anything for a woman who reads Dickinson and Robert Barnard
mnwhr’s last blog post..The Pack Reunited
8 Elizabeth // Apr 3, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I don’t think this only applies to dating. If I see a person reading a Danielle Steele novel my opinion of them instantly goes down. Maybe I’m still bitter for having to shelve all those ridiculous books at the library.
9 SimonPaul // Sep 18, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Anyone who loves John Wyndham and doesn’t rate Rand is fine by me. I remember being in class and hearing “where would you classify Ayn Rand?” from an eager Randster whose tone suggested the expectation that the lecturer would place Rand somewhere above Shakespeare. “Subliterary”, he replied.
I confess to liking Dickens, while agreeing with Orwell who dissed Dickens because, while he wrote of poverty, he implicitly argued that all would be fine if everyone was a nicely mannered middle-class person. Tiresome.
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