“‘Overrated!’ ‘Brilliant!’ ‘Overrated!’ ‘Brilliant!'”
I’ve never broken up with a guy based on his literary tastes (or lack of same), but then, I don’t let it get to relationship status in the first place if the guy doesn’t read, or loves Patricia Cornwell (although thinking she’s a guilty pleasure is permissible, I guess, but he would have to feel really guilty about it).
But my reading taste isn’t the highest-brow, either, what with all the true crime…or the widest-ranging, what with all the baseball. And I don’t judge anyone for reading Harry Potter, but while I wouldn’t dump a guy who liked HP, I would dump a guy who evangelized about it.
Any lit deal-breakers for you guys? Ever spotted a spine on a likely lad’s shelf and realized, “I can’t be here”? Or do you let it go if everything else is working?
Tags: books publishing
No one book will deter me, but I have learned that bookshelves can speak, ahem, volumes. One really nice seeming guy had only biographies and autobiographies of Republican presidents and administration officials. I figured this did not mean much, because he knew my political leanings and he’d never, ever been critical or disparaging.
Then the war broke out and he showed his true colors. He actually yelled, “Get ’em! Get ’em!” as CNN showed the bombs falling and told me I was unpatriotic for questioning the war and its timing. I should have listened to the books.
Wow! Maybe a tomato nation spinoff site on books is not a bad idea! :)
My dealbreaker would have to be the not interested in media guy. Someone above (sorry cool pop media person!) mentioned ravenous ingesting of not only books but magazines, blogs, tv. I’m a pop culture junkie and I’m fine with that and you should be too. If we are in a relationship anyway.
I have to say that my husband was one of the ‘no tv’ people when we first met. I have so many goofy Simpsons/Seinfeld/Kids in the Hall/Dr. Katz etc…little things that I drop into conversation there was a lot of confusion when we first started dating. Luckily he’s a quick study. :) Actually it’s really funny to hear him say something just because he’s heard me say it and he has NO idea what show/reference he’s making.
I once dated a guy who had not a single bookshelf or book visible in his house. He later mentioned off-handedly that books were for pretentious people who didn’t have money for “real furniture,” and that reading material should be kept in a [singular, no doubt] box in the basement. Wow, yeah. Nice knowin’ ya.
I used to harbor a massive crush on Robert Gant, but on one of the Queer as Folk DVD extras, he was shown with The Da Vinci Code and enthused (with utter sincerity, alas) that it was the best book he’d ever read. Good-bye, Robert. It’s over.
Like everyone else in the world (and this thread), I read The Da Vinci Code and enjoyed the trashiness of it. But saying that it’s the best book ever? I don’t know how it’s possible to hear a guy say that and not SEVERELY lower your estimation of his intelligence.
I did stop seeing a guy once because he really didn’t read, and it weirded me out. Well, he read books about marketing. Because he was a marketing person. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good fit.
I also avoided a guy like the plague who started off telling me all about his mad “speed reading” skillz and how he loved “delectable” (his word, not mine) books by James Michener. Ugh.
My current BF is a total science/math guy, but also reads everything else (fiction/non, sci-fi, random lit journals, obscure blogs, the New Yorker). Sometimes it annoys me that I think he’s read more than I have, and I was a lit major! Whenever we travel, we always try to find (and buy something from) a local, independent bookstore. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And I’ve watched more TV than he has, so there.
Jaybird said:
“I don’t so much hate sci-fi as a genre as I deplore the boobalicious gun-totin’ leather porn it usually seems to be these days”
This made me laugh, but I seriously have no idea what books you’re talking about. I have to admit, I read mostly old stuff, so I’m not as familiar with current science fiction as I should be.
There aren’t any real literary deal breakers for me, but I do expect respect, none of this “Oh, you’re a reader” crap in condescending tones, it’s not like it’s the only thing I do. He doesn’t have to read (it’s preferable, but not required) but he does have to realize that I like to read and that I will ignore him if he tries to interrupt me. My last boyfriend used to complain until I told him to go play his video games and leave me alone. I didn’t bug him about the time he spent playing as long as he left me alone when I was reading. We broke up over other reasons.
I don’t have a problem with Anne McCaffrey, she’s actually a guilty pleasure of mine. :) She was the first sci-fi/fantasy author I read. My Mom had asked a fellow professor (who taught children’s literature) for suggestions since I had gone through the entire kids section at my library. And I love vampire/werewolf/supernatural novels (and movies for that matter!), so I really can’t judge. I treat the cheap Harlequin romances like potato chips and consume way to many in one sitting. In addition I have a ton of religious texts, everything from Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology, to Wiccan texts to studies on Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and others. Plus a large collection of folklore and mythology. And to top it off, I have a lot children’s books and Young Adult novels (Meg Cabot, Tamora Pierce, etc.)
So I don’t judge based on bookshelf content! I have some questionable books on mine. :)
My general preference is reading for enjoyment, I have gotten better about the refusing to put down and stop reading books that I am loathing while I am reading. But It takes awhile before I will admit defeat. Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat is one that my fellow vampire readers think I should love…and I just don’t!! I have picked it up and put it down 4 times, and it’s still on my shelf, I can’t bring myself to get rid of it.
I’m a definite book hoarder (I still own the books I read in grade school), but I am getting better about purging…of course the real trick is to get rid of them without getting new ones!
@cayenne – I’m glad that I’m not the only one with a complete Nora Roberts collection. In fact my best Xmas gift in the last few years was from my Dad when he got me a difficult to find, out of print copy of her first novel.
@Jo – I totally used to do that! Unfortunately I just remodeled my bedroom and there is no longer any room for a bookcase. But I do have the books that are “fit” for public consumption in my living room, and then others that I keep buried so that no one asks me questions about them.
Over all my general preference is reader versus not, but either way don’t dump your psuedo-intellectual attitude all over my entertainment. I’m reading to learn, I’m reading to enjoy.
Mein Kampf – he’s either a Nazi, or pretentious. Nothing wrong with having read it – giving it prime place on the old bookshelf though, is a no-no.
And… anything by Barbara Cartland, it also goes without saying – if a guy’s reading those, he’s so far out there from my patch of consensus reality, we’d need a translator.
The first has occurred in my life – the second thankfully remains in the realms of speculation!
I’m with many of the above: not a lot of individual deal-breakers – there are some things on my shelves that appall even me, so there’s a limit to how much I can judge. And frankly, I live in a land where the primary focus is on cheap beer, bad hockey and worse football – anyone with interests outside those three areas is worth a second look in these parts! A lack of outside interests, literary, musical or otherwise, is a big ole red flag.
That said, an appreciation for Terry Pratchett is kind of major for me. Not that I claim his stuff is high art, or insist that they love it. But if they don’t get Pratchett’s humor, they won’t get mine.
@Sars: When I read that article, the first thing it made me think of was your piece on the “kulturreich.”
Anway, I’m glad there are some people here showing some love for sci-fi/fantasy, because, yeah, that makes up about 90% of what’s on my bookshelf, and reading these comments was starting to bum me out. Also, I currently have a gf, but if I were to start dating again, I think I’d throw my copy of The Fountainhead under the bed. And the thing is, I’m not even a fan of Ayn Rand/Objectivism, I just wanted to read the book, but now I’m afraid of the reaction I might get from a woman seeing it on my bookshelf.
Also, I have to admit, this made me laugh:
“I’ll go toe-to-toe with the most ardent critics of Richard Dawson, but not when there’s a possibility of accidentally spilling my bourbon in their face.”
I had no idea the former host of Family Feud was so controversial!
@ Luna: Eh, it’s not a specific title I can name, just a few of the paperback SF crap I’ve seen at BAM (our town, being Hell’s Waiting Room, doesn’t have a Borders or Barnes and Noble).
My hubby reads one or two books a year, always Kerouac, always when we’re on vacation. I cannot tell you how much I love those moments when we are BOTH reading quietly. Sigh.
But I had to comment on the thread because I once visited someone’s house with a friend – friend was watering plants while homeowner was away. I was drooling over this unknown man’s bookshelf – literally every one of my top 10 authors were there, so many of my favorite books. I I announced, “I just discovered my soulmate – I could marry this man just based on his reading tastes.” Turned out he was gay; he liked my intellectual makeup, just not my chromosomal one.
I am the latest who say this has been great fun to read (oh, and Karen, I love Preston Sturges and hate Michael Bay). I have been a voracious reader since I was a kid, though because of work, other pursuits, and lack of free time because of same, most of my reading is now done on the subway to and from work. Although I own a wide variety of fiction, most of what I read is books being made into movies (except for a few authors, ranging from Frederick Forsyth to Alice Hoffman), and the non-fiction is mostly movie-related. So my turnoffs would simply be anyone who didn’t respect that.
As far as her tastes go, non-readers I could understand if they simply didn’t have the time, but lack of intellectual curiousity is a big turn-off. And I’m among the many who’d run screaming from an Ann Coulter fan.
On a third date with a man I met three years ago, I was invited to his home. He had a library filled with books from computer science, philosophy, pseudoscience, magic, psychology, politics, economics, objectivism, religion, etc. In the following months we learned a lot about each other in that library — spending hours discussing the books on those shelves. He had a couple shelves filled with books by Ayn Rand and Objectivism — neither of which I had heard of. The books on these shelves soon became my absolute favorite. I would never hide or not display any of my Rand books. In fact, I’ve taken Atlas Shrugged to read in coffee stores and hospitals and to my surprise had to defend my reading of it. I’ve come to love these opportunities! Why would I not display books that represent my beliefs. Oh…and I married this wonderful man who introduced me to Rand!!
“The fact that he didn’t really read didn’t bother me in and of itself, but I was always bothered by the sense that he thought I was lazy, that reading isn’t actually an activity”
@JR: my husband does the same thing – if he’s got free time, it’s used doing home improvement or the like. Before we got married, I did ask him if he thought I was being lazy by sitting on the couch and reading, his response? “If you’re reading, you’re doing something. If I need your help I’ll ask, and I’ll ask a couple times because I know you won’t hear me the first time. If I thought you needed to do more stuff I’d tell you.” Plus, he agreed to marry me barring my affection for bad sci-fi and fantasy novels.
Neither of us do a lot of heavy reading for fun, since we both spend a lot of time at a computer (he’s a programmer) or reading for work (I’m a biochem grad student). Sometimes I just want something I don’t have to think about while I’m reading.
Remember the Onion article from a hundred years ago where the guy was like, “you can tell from my CD collection that I am a sensitive guy” and points out his Tori Amos CDs and such? I think the book version of That Guy would be a deal breaker. Like he has lined his bookshelves with Sandra Cisneros and Barbara Kingsolver and Jhumpa Lumpari and Reading Lolita in Tehran and White Teeth and some back issues of Sassy, and maybe some bell hooks thrown in for good measure- just in case he can ever get a girl in here to see how enlightened he is.
I had that realization once when a guy burbled with enthusiasm over the wisdom of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”. Uhhh… no.
I was walking across my college campus and reading “…And the Ladies of the Club,” which is a huge surprisingly historical romance-y book with a hideous cover that involves pink, and ladies an antebellum garb, when a floppy-haired boy sitting on a bench actually snarled “You should try some Joyce!” at me. The disgust in his voice was so intense that for a few years I covered any book cover that looked non-intellectual with duct tape. Which probably wound up being more humiliating because people would ask what I was reading or I guess just assume it was something awful.
I also named the boy “Dylan” in my mind because it seemed like a very “Dylan McKay” thing to say, but maybe substituting Kerouac for Joyce.
Tom Clancy would not be a good sign, but my dad reads them, so… whatever floats your boat in your own leisure time.
My partner doesn’t read novels at all. He likes being outdoors, fiddling around making things, washing the truck, whatev. Whereas I get uncomfortable in the presence of an unread newspaper.
And that’s cool because we are two different people, and I can talk about books with my mum and sisters.
And the surprisingly cool thing is, I bought my partner a truckers magazine subscription for his birthday, and now we both read each month’s magazine front cover to back. If I had hooked up with ‘a fiction reader’ of my own tastes, I would not have ever been 4 wheel driving, or travelled interstate for a big awesome truck show, or (eee!) driven a truck.
Its not a bad thing to have different interests, is all I’m saying.
I can’t imagine any real dealbreakers because I read such an eclectic array of shit myself. Old Judy Blumes are sandwiched between Terry Pratchett and David Sedaris on my shelf.
Although, heh, wouldn’t it be hilarious to visit a guy’s living room for the first time and find the entire Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley High series lined up nonchalently on the bookshelf?
“burbled with enthusiasm over the wisdom of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”. Uhhh… no.”
Uch – “No” is right. I remember having a big argument in high school with some people who didn’t understand that however noble the sentiment of a book might be, I couldn’t ignore crappy writing. I think this was appropos of a different Bach book, but the principle’s the same.
I agree with whoever said waaay upthread that movies are more of a deal-breaker than books because that’s something you’d expect to do together. Yeah, if buddy’s got a whole library full of neo-con lunacy I’d run the other way, but so long as he reads something himself, and as long as he’s okay with me rereading Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries when I already know whodunit, I’m fine.
But with movies… I was ever-so-briefly involved with a guy who willingly saw “Patch Adams” twice. Should have known then that wasn’t going to last.
eat pray love
the celestine prophecy
It would depress me if any female friend of mine felt enlightened by ‘he’s just not that into you’ and the like
I stopped being friendly with a friend who told me that she had thrown ‘The Wounded Animal’ across her sitting room in a fit of Philip Roth hate. I suspect though, that it was a pretext rather than the real cause.
Drat, hit send too quickly “the dying animal”.
My husband isn’t a huge reader (I still can’t believe I’m married to a non-reading sports fan – how did this happen??), but does read periodicals a lot and a fair amount of non-fiction about history. He loves the fact that I read, but has learned NEVER to try to buy me books. He bought me ‘The Celestine Prophecy’ for my birthday (not knowing anything about it, to his credit) and I had to try SO HARD not to laugh out loud. I even pretended to read it for a day or so, but it was far too painful and I had to tell him the truth. (It’s a damn good thing he’s got a nice arse, I tell you.)
A guy who is trying to pursue me on an online dating site mentioned, during our only phone call, that he reads preteenage girls’ fiction–Meg Cabot, etc.–and nothing else. I usually applaud when people do their own thing, but it seemed like an odd-bordering-on-creepy trait to brag about (he’s 28 and teaches high school math) and very limiting. Apparently, he likes that they’re quick reads, and they also manage to compensate for his not having grown up with sisters (?). That isn’t the only reason I’m not going to respond to him again (he also managed not to ask anything about me during the phone call, and then started talking about what else he was doing online while he was talking to me), but it was a red flag.
Now-Irrelevant Boy Criteria
1) Has to read.
2) Has to read scifi and fantasy, plus classics. Four years majoring in English has actually confirmed what I knew going in: that most modern lit is pretentious, depressing, and about as much fun as Brillo toilet paper. I had to read it in college; I had to write papers on it in college. Fuck. That. Noise.
3) No Ayn Rand. Well, he can have *read* Ayn Rand in high school or whatever, but he can’t name it as a favorite. Or identify as Objectivist, because…douche.
4) No Catcher in the Fucking Rye. I always wanted to go into that book and tell Holden to stop whining or I’d give him something to whine about. Ur-emo little prick.
5) Other stuff that will get you ruled out if it’s a favorite:
Dan Brown
Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind–I read *good* sf, thank you very much.
John Norman. See above, plus a guy who reads Gor non-ironically is a guy who has horrible misogynistic views is a guy who should be shot in the head and buried in a peat bog.
Also, I don’t get the hate for taking books to the bathroom. Not to be vulgar, but what else am I supposed to do if I’m spending some time in there–long division?
Late to the game, but I haven’t seen this addressed yet: Guys who only like Big Strapping Male Authors. Palahniuk, Hemingway, Bukowski–and weirdly, always Dostoevsky as well, in my experience–these are all fine authors. But if you believe these are the ONLY fine authors, and that Austen was an overrated hack–not because she was a chick, mind you, no, just that she wasn’t bold or daring or powerful or whatever euphemism these guys choose to brandish–then I’m better off leaving now. Same thing with music: If a guy thinks Mick Jagger is all that, but Janis Joplin was just okay, well, I’m going to prophylactically decide that he can fix his own damn sandwiches, y’know?