Books and relationships

The New York Times had an interesting and amusing piece on literary taste in relationships last Sunday:

It's Not You, It's Your Books

Basic premise:  people eliminate potential mates based on their choices in reading. Subpremise: women are choosier in this regard because they read more. One said, “It’s really great if you find a guy that reads, period,”  although another said, "If I went over to a man’s house and there were those books about life’s lessons learned from dogs, I would probably keep my clothes on.”

The claim is, "Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books." Not that the author takes a solely hetero view: Augusten Burroughs tells of his horror in meeting a guy for a date who was carrying  a worn copy of Proust by Samuel Beckett.  “If there existed a more hackneyed, achingly obvious method of telegraphing one’s education, literary standards and general intelligence, I couldn’t imagine it.” 

I'll fess up to a certain amount of snobbery in this regard. Back when I used to peruse match.com on a regular basis, anyone who listed The Da Vinci Code among  her books last read was right out. And that particular standard appears in the Times piece as well.

Comments

[Kevin]

So that copy of Wolfram's A New Kind of Science'was what was keeping the ladies clothes on...

[RMA]

I'd think his one on cellular automata would be even more off-putting!

[starrtoons]

I don't scour a buddy's house for books to prove quality, though if something on the shelf looks familiar I'll admit to a warm feeling, and I've won even more than a friendship if I find a title in their collection so intriguing that I have to go get it for myself.
But there's also the matter of matching up our odd little offshoots of taste -- does the mate share my fondness for volumes on local history and etymology, or absolutely despise my regrettable taste in old science fiction?
When my own mate and a friend recently thoroughly kicked my ass at Heinlein trivia, I must admit I not only felt validated, but found it the most cheerful threesome I'd enjoyed since the 70s, though the circumstances were quite as different as they possibly could have been.
Literally speaking.