Skip the Small Talk and Head Straight for the Bookcase

Rachel Donadio recently explored relationship deal-breakers of the literary kind in "It's Not You, It's Your Books":

...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.”

...

Naming a favorite book or author can be fraught. Go too low, and you risk looking dumb. Go too high, and you risk looking like a bore — or a phony. “Manhattan dating is a highly competitive, ruthlessly selective sport,” Augusten Burroughs, the author of “Running With Scissors” and other vivid memoirs, said. “Generally, if a guy had read a book in the last year, or ever, that was good enough.” The author recalled a date with one Michael, a “robust blond from Germany.” As he walked to meet him outside Dean & DeLuca, “I saw, to my horror, an artfully worn, older-than-me copy of ‘Proust’ by Samuel Beckett.” That, Burroughs claims, was a deal breaker. “If there existed a more hackneyed, achingly obvious method of telegraphing one’s education, literary standards and general intelligence, I couldn’t imagine it.”

...

...Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Vintage/Anchor Books and the author of “I Was Told There’d Be Cake,” essays about single life in New York, put it this way: “If you’re a person who loves Alice Munro and you’re going out with someone whose favorite book is ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ perhaps the flags of incompatibility were there prior to the big reveal.”

I have to admit that I laughed heartily when I read this essay. It does sound "ruthlessly selective" but I would definitely find it hard to take a man seriously if his favourite book was something like The Da Vinci Code or The Fountainhead, or, worse still, if he didn't have a favourite book at all. It is perhaps not surprising that my longest, most serious relationship (so far) was with a very literary man. Long after the relationship was over we were still buying each other books and showing each other our latest finds. I suppose the fact that it didn't work out shows that there is more to a relationship that literary compatibility, but it certainly can't hurt.

So how about you, bookworms? Do you have any literary deal-breakers, or, conversely, any literary turn-ons? Have you parted ways with someone over a book? Do you investigate a new acquaintance's reading habits as soon as possible? Or is literary taste of little overall importance?

via Stuff White People Like (via Biomes Blog)

Comments

[Stefanie]

I heard an interview about this on National Public Radio a few weeks ago. I am happily married to a bookworm, who liked science fiction and whose favorite author is Charles Dickens. Prior to husband I was less likely to want to go out on a second date with a guy who admitted he didn't like to read or, when finding out I was majoring in English, tried to impress me by saying he loved Faulkner or something like that. Though I suppose if a guy ever told me that Carlos Castenada or someone similar was his favorite author I'd be telling him so long.

[Sylvia]

LOL! The boyfriend I mentioned was into Castaneda as well... maybe that was the problem! ;)

[wil]

Literary preference is definitely part of the equation, but it's more important that the person read at all.

[Sylvia]

Yes, I think a non-reader would be a non-starter...

[Stefanie]

That is funny. Maybe GQ should do an article and let guys know that Castenada is a turn off :)

[Sylvia]

And who will tell them that reading GQ is a turn off? ;)