Books a Man Has Given Me That Made Me Swear NEVER to Go on Another Date with Him EVER Again

rrobyn, Houellebecq is hard to digest but he's an interesting writer, if somewhat of a facile cynic.

Also, it kind of is endemic, but not necessarily just among men. I run into a lot of people of both genders who don't read. I am constantly amazed by them.

Why, just the other night, it turned out my housemate had never heard of Geoffrey Chaucer. I mean, I can understand not having read any, but never having heard of him?

me too. i LOVE the books, i saw the play twice and the first time it was GREBT, second slightly less grebt (but partly cos y'know you get attached... and the girl who played lyra was the first girl who was called "upstairs" or whatever in doctor who in the simon pegg episode so i got more attached). seriously hope they don't fuck this up - the prob is it *can* be done really well - if they can do lotr they can do anything, right - so it's inexcusable if they do an h2g2 on it.

http://www.jimriegelphoto.com/Images/BookCover.jpg

because this is the weirdest thing i have ever seen and i must know more.

http://www.campaignleadership.com/blogger/uploaded_images/200px-Atlas_shrugged_cover-732433.jpg

yeah, even though parts of the story and some of the writing were compelling, the facile cynic part killed it for me. esp the facile part. i think i would've been into it when i was 17 though.

ok i decided that most books as gifts are going to fly with me, somehow, but if a guy gave me a card or notebook or godforbid a framed picture of, like, a black and white photo of two little kids in hobo outfits kissing and holding a hand-coloured red balloon or some crap, well, then no more dates.

This would annoy me with almost any book. Book club or relationship, not both.

Srsly Andrew, that's mental talk.

A lot of the sort of rock boys I used to date just didn't read. They'd read magazines, but not books, and certainly never novels. (that said, some rock boys are literate, but I was surprised by how many aren't.)

Also, office people. I work with a lot of people in IT or accountancy. I swear to god, the last bloke I dated, he owned five books - 2 of which were Grisham and 2 Dan Brown. He simply did not read. I could not get my head around it.

My girlfriend in high school was forced to keep her books out of sight because her mother thought they were "messy". They watched TV in her family - even her sci fi/fantasy books were viewed with suspicion.

I kind of take it for granted that people read, because that's the kind of family I come from, and the kind of people that I have for friends. But there are lots of people that simply do not.

It's hard not to make it sound like a value judgement or snobbery, but honestly these people's way of thinking and worldview is so far removed from mine that I've learned not to even contemplate a relationship with someone who doesn't read voraciously. It just doesn't work, it's like you're speaking different languages.

And - again, this is my opinion, not a value judgement - I would never date someone whose only reading material was bestseller standards. I mean, it's one thing to read Harry Potter or Dan Brown as a supplement to a well-rounded reading diet, but quite another if that is the only thing a person reads.

-- accentmonkey (tris...), February 14th, 2007. (accentmonkey) (later)

yeah, really! there's something misaligned in your head/soul, my friend.

(Hrrmm, now that is one of my biases - I automatically equate "not reading" with "no imagination".)

I think the only books that could actually put me off someone if they were given to me would be extreme right-wing politics. I don't think I would dump someone just because they had different taste in fiction.

Cycling has kind of killed my bookreading - it should in theory get me home in time to get an hours reading in at the evening, but it never seems to work like that.

For example, many of the people in Mister Monkey's office do not read books or appear to engage in much culture beyond the internet and computer games in any way at all. And even, Andrew, a lot of the people we both know from the Place You Used to Work are not readers. As an example, I offer you the case of our friend C, who now runs his own company. He only reads books like "How to Maximize your Money" or else textbooks. My old friend Stephen C is the same. It's just how things are.

Is this our friend C who's now worked in two jobs with Mister Monkey? I didn't know he has his own company, but I'm not surprised. He's got a missus who does all the reading, no?

Framed black and white photos of two hobo children kissing made me think of this:

http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/0740735403.01._BO2,204,203

It's not so much that I would dislike someone who liked this book as I would dislike someone who was so dim as to have ever spoken one word to me and yet still somehow think that I would like this book.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1559120177.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

That is the very chap.

Anne Geddes wants kicking.