This is a full week old now, but I've been drawn away from the bloggy-verse lately, busy melting into the sidewalk. Anyway, forgive me, but I felt this appropos of our discussion on picking up young ladies, though this could certainly be useful for we women looking chat up men (or other women... whatever you're into). Many thanks to Seth for the reporting on this one.
The Guardian's Culture Vulture blog has an entry about judging/smiling/hitting on people based on what you see they're reading.
For those of you troubled by the lingering idea (instilled in youth by parents obsessed with the benefits of "enjoying the sunshine") that a life spent reading is a life half-lived, your worries are over. Not only does sitting with your nose in a book positively influence others' opinion of you, it could actually - get this - lead to sex. A third of those surveyed said that they "would consider flirting with someone based on their choice of literature". It's finally official, people. Reading is hot.
But before you trip off to the park clad in your most fetching sun hat and clutching your copy of the latest Jilly Cooper - be warned. Not just any book will do. Erotic fiction, horror, self-help books and the dreaded chick-lit were all, in fact, deemed turn-offs when it came to love between the covers. The genre most likely to help you pull - the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini of the books world - is the classics, followed by biography and modern literary fiction (think Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks, rather than Dan Brown and Martina Cole). Forget the gym: if you want to raise your dating game, head down to your local library and start borrowing.
Too true. Nothing leads to romance faster than brushing hands with someone reaching for the same Camus novel at the library. The brilliant thing about cruising the reading populace of a city like New York, is that you have a built-in conversation starter AND a sort of gauge of what kind of person they are. While I don't know that I've ever been hit on with my reading material as the impetus for attack, I'm intrigued by what my reading material says about me.
For instance, would the cute boy across the subway be intrigued/moved if he saw me weeping quietly over the first chapter of The Teammates, or just weirded out? No, no, don't answer that.
Of course, it all leads back to the theory that you are what you like. When invited to a person's home for the first time, you peruse the bookshelves, look at the DVD collection, examine the CDs. Though you couch this vetting as a friendly self-tour, really you are trying to determine if your new friend or paramour is some kind of wackjob or sap or a fan of Jewel's poetry.
It's all very unfair. Some of us may not have seen many seminal works of popular cinema, and some of us may think that The Time Traveler's Wife sucked ass. That doesn't make such a person a social pariah.
So, what books are total dealbreakers? What ones have you stripping your clothes off on the spot?
I'll start.
What gives me pause: A Million Little Pieces (ew. Who can tolerate that style?), books about the Yankees (obviously), anything by Jack Kerouac (again. ew.), and while I'll not brush aside readers of Safran Foer or Franzen, I'll think, "well, you read, that's good... but that's a bit, you know, obvious." Most poetry (I do like poetry, just not in a bring it for the commute, sort of way. And, if you can concentrate on a Wallace Stevens collection for that long, you may well be just a teense too serious for me).
What I find endearing: Harry Potter (I hate myself for it, but it's true), C.S. Lewis, The World According to Garp, Vonnegut, Sedaris, Chabon.
What'll likely have me gagging for it, if you will: The Cider House Rules, The Dubliners, ANYTHING by Flann O'Brien (The Third Policeman and At Swim-Two-Birds especially), Halberstram's books on the Red Sox, J.M. Coetzee, Chabon's Summerland. Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.
15 comments:
yea, here's the thing about "the classics." most of the time, people reading "the classics" on the subway are trying to prove something. now, if i saw someone reading The BFG on the subway, i think i'd have to scoop her up, put her in my cloak pocket and whisk her off to my cave (and then hide her from the fleshlumpeater) feasting on snozzcumbers all day long.
oh, that or Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky... the mad russian. good stuff... good stuff...
ok, i'm done now.
That is a good call, Tobs.
I'm generally less wary of "the classics" than I am of the prominently-displayed-in-Barnes & Noble works of contemporary literary fiction.
But, yeah, anything by Dahl is pretty hot, especially the BFG.
Remember when you carried around a small book entitled "L'anarchisme"?Or did you only threaten to do that?
guh -
i do recall, and i really only threatened to do that. and it was emma goldman's "Anarchism." the library copy, which was a plain, solid, black book with "Anarchism" printed in small letters on the front. and yes, i threatened to force it into my back pocket or something and walk around with it. o did have the book, and did attempt to read it, but kept it safely in my bad, lest i have to kick my own ass.
Ah yes. And we agreed it'd be cooler/douchier if the book was in French.
I once took a Sartre novel out of the library, but the protagonist irritated me and I returned it, unfinished. Also I kicked my own ass.
was it "the age of reason"? i read that. it was pretty ok. i like books and movies about people wronging each other. i also like wronging people.
oh and by "safely in my bad" i mean, obviously, "safely in my bag."
Might've been... Books about people wronging people is are fine. It's just that the main character was a little whiny about it, I found. Like, rather than unrepentantly wronging his ladyfriend, he had to talk about it a lot to gear up for it.
I once had a woman start talking to me because some shitty Hornby rip-off I was reading was published by where she works. I told her the book was a shitty Hornby rip-off.
I've also twice had men try to start conversations with me about a book I was reading.
Sometimes if someone is reading something shitty I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are reading it for work or have to write something about said book.
sheena, that sounds like "the age of reason."
josh, that sounds like "Fin" by some english guy who isn't nick hornby. am i right?
i never give anyone the benefit of anything.
hey sheena, what do girls think when you're reading a 600 page history of the crimean war?
Close, Fin was good I thought, whereas this book sucked a lot. I forget what it was called, maybe had "Penguin" in the title.
What do chicks think when you're reading a Hitler biography (which I'm not) on the subway Sheena?
i was once reading catcher in the rye on the subway, and i turned around and the man standing next to it was as well. i thought something terrible was going to happen , but it passed without incident. i think toby was there.
hey sheena what do girls think when you are reading books about small plane navigation or 3d animation programs ??
Toby - 600 pager on the Crimean War is pretty hot.
Josh - biography of Hitler is sorta creepy...
Seth - nerdy pilot. H-O-T.
Also, you totally should have made out with the Catcher dude.
I may make out with Sheena for her opinions of people who read Safran Foer or (particularly) Franzen. Franzen is a misogynistic fetishist with delusions of grandeur.
Also, I once almost assaulted someone on the train who was reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle when I was reading the same, until I remembered that the second most important subway rule (after Don't Lick the Handrails) is Don't Bother to Strangers Who are Reading. What's your advice on approaching the charming stranger with the alluring literary inclination?
Also, why are you moving to NH rather than making your living here as a service journalist?
I once had a moment of mutual recognition with a guy who was reading the third book in the baroque trilogy whilst i was reading the second. we smiled at each other. recognized the fact that we were both deep in a three-thousand page trilogy about baroque europe, and left it at that. i think that's about as much interaction regarding books as i'm willing to have.
seth/josh/toby - what about a girl reading a biography of rasputin?
Rasputin or anything by the Russian "masters" = awesome. I think Toby would plotz.
I also had an unpleasant moment of recognition with a guy when we were both reading, I think the Hobbit. And yes, we did make out.
That's a tough one, Erin. No one likes their bubble of invisibility (the headphones and book) to be burst. Then again, many of us would happily puncture said bubble for an attractive stranger.
Probably best if you start with a moment of mutual recognition. Exchange pleasantries about the book. Then make with the love. Awwww yeah.
Post a Comment