I would not judge someone by the books they keep. People keep books for all kinds of reasons. I like a person to just read... that's important, so if they have books that's a plus.

Seriously... If I ever see a girl here in Brazil reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham I'll immediately ask her to marry me!!

On the other hand... "the secret"?... I mean... really?????? 

PS. whats wrong with "mein kampf"? Ok, its Hitler, but its also history!

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www.myspace.com/carolconti

My roommate's copy of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is sitting on our coffee table with a bookmark about 3/4 of the way through. I can't wait til she has time this weekend to finish so that I may steal it from her. :)

 

http://legallyout.blogspot.com

After Ellen..came me!! 18 years to the day later to be extact!!

I have to say that I agree, I don't think any book in particular would send me screaming, but I enjoy reading and like that trait in other people. Childhood favourites are always fun to compare - I still have all of mine, and pick them up every now and then. I think its nice to have different tastes because theres always the chance of having your eyes opened to a new author or book you wouldn't have given a second glance.

If I caught someone with a copy of The Da Vinci Code, that'd be it for us. They'd be subject to a twenty minute lecture (minimum!) on how The Da Vinci Code is a zit on the butt of contemporary literature... and then I'd kick them out.

 

The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and you are standing in the doorway. - The Mountain Goats

http://dimethirwen.livejournal.com

 

i love ann of green gables.

but most of all i have to admit that a few monthes ago i made a similar comment regarding the secret.

it's weird that this are the books you chose to mention, but maybe it's about loving good books and knowing that real self help books are those that have great stories!

Oh this is funny and so true! I'm a librarian so spend all day judging people by what they read... and they mostly read stuff I personally wouldn't but they're reading something.

My personal favourites are Virginia Woolf/Jeanette Winterson type stuff and I wouldn't touch with a very long pole misery memoirs and wartime sagas of Liverpool and the like - not sure you get those in the US...?

 But the first poster is right, people have different reasons for reading stuff, it's the act of reading itself that's important.

I think you are doing Hitler an injustice by comparing him to Bill O'Reilly. Hitler was a significant historical figure....

I caught my parents buying that horrid O'Reilly book for my nephew for Christmas, and I got so mad they hid the book and didn't give it to him until I was gone.

There are tons of books that would pretty much discredit a person in my eyes if I thought they were reading them seriously--like someone reading Mein Kampf not for historical reasons but because she thought Hitler had some good ideas...

If I found out someone was a huge Ayn Rand fan, that would probably be a deal breaker.

Where the Red Fern Grows.. That was a good one! It takes me back like Bridge to Terabithia. I didn't see the movie, because I didn't want it to ruin that book for me. I actually have this weird old copy of The Velveteen Rabbit in my apartment. My mom had bought me the movie when I was really young, and I would always cry and cry. My little brother found it and watched it and had the same reaction. About a year later (he was in 2nd grade), he found the book at a school book sale, and bought it for me. It's just one of those things I doubt I'll let go. But I'm sure someone would judge me on it, along with some of those Sarah Dessen teen chick lit books like The Truth About Forever.

Books I love to see on people's shelves: Marya Hornbacher's memoir about anorexia and bulimia: Wasted. Name All the Animals, Cranberry Queen, Things Fall Apart,

I used to say I would run for the hills if I saw something like It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken on someone's shelf and then I read it, and didn't absolutely hate it.

I would probably politely make my exit. If it was on their shelf but surrounded by many other more interesting books (e.g. anything by Margaret Atwood, Terry Pratchett, Stephen Donaldson, Vikram Seth etc) I would excuse it as a by-product of an omniverous reading habit. My favourite authors that I like to see gracing other peoples shelves are Diana Wynne Jones and Tamora Pierce - childhood/teenage favourites that I am never going to grow out of.

Deal breaker would be if they didn't read at all!

Like some have said: It's important that a love interest reads, less important what they read. But it can still get them into trouble. If her ap. was full of murder/blood/sci-fi/psychological-kind of books, I'd run. I want to be with someone who is interested in emotions and feelings too. As in, what other people are feeling. A good mix would do. If someone reads only about horror or things that would never ever happen in real life, it tells me that this is a relief of some kind for them. Books are our own personal hiding places. What's in there is important. (I'm noticing that I feel quite strongly about this, who'da thunk dat?)

The exception is if someone loves to read but is a full time student and wants to do nothing else with her book-free time than to watch bad TV and movies (like me).

I love it when the girl i like reads... but if said girl reads any of the following books, i'd take it as a sign to run in the opposite direction:

the secret: because that book is common sense, and if ur reading it, it means u do not have common sense and u have to read about it.

ANYTHING by Dr.Phil: self help books about spiritual healing are cool, but again it means you do not have your own common sense

I am all about the vampire novels, lesbian romance, spiritual new age books etc.... if i find u reading stephanie meyer... I'll marry u!

Ameara <3

Anything by Ann Coulter or Dr. Laura is a deal-breaker, not that too many GLBT types are into them to begin with.

I think... if anyone I know where to have one of her books for anything other than scrap paper/coloring book purposes... I'd back hand then walk away immediatly.

Anything Sedaris related (Amy or David) and I would probably be smitten with them.

Having force-fed the love of my life some of my childhood classics (Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia) before allowing her to march off to the movie theater, I have decided that what seals it for me is being open-minded about books you are willing to read, rather than actually having pre-formed compatable reading interests. She's been okay about stepping out of her own book interests to share my excitement.

That said, I would swoon if she were to casually drop into conversation that she adored Five Children and It, or 1066 and All That, which were two other childhood favorites.

I think my David Sedaris is Sarah Vowell, whom I find screamingly funny. Look for The Wordy Shipmates coming in Oct. 2008! Luckily we found her together, so this is a shared interest. The relationship is safe! 

 

Deal Makers:
-Comic Books! (okay is this a total cop-out?)
-anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Milan Kundera, or Chuck Klosterman
-Lesbian erotica (come on now)
-Max Brooks' "World War Z: The Oral History of The Zombie War"
-Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife"
-books that my favorite movies were made from but don't have the movie cover on the book (yeah.....)

Deal Breakers:
-The Bible
-Chicken Soup for the Soul books

You know some one is a terrible waste of human when you compare them with Hitler and I find myself defending Hitler....

Like iamthehandcuff said, Comics and Vonnegut are complete deal makers. I could ignore dozens of character flaws if my potential girl had The Sirens of Titan next to The Long Halloween on her bookshelf.

Breakers? Catcher in the Rye. The Complete History of Envelope Adhesive: Volumes 1-4 (which, I hope doesn't actually exist),and maybe some other usual suspects.

I am actually more likely to reject someone based on their musical tastes than any other factor.

Jeanette Winterson – Art Objects.

 

if i were to walk into a woman’s place and see some combination of the following i’d know a wonderful friendship, if not luv itself, was about to form:

Geek Love, The Four Quartets, Strangers in Paradise, Wide Sargasso Sea, the Thursday Next series, Winterson, Virginia Woolf, early Kundera, Paule Marshall, The Mushroom Planet series, Donna Tartt, Y the Last Man, Li-Young Lee, Marianne Boruch, Carolyn Forche, Sylvia Plath, Native Speaker, Middlesex, and, umm, i could go on for a while now.

 

i used to have very firm deal breakers but worked in bookstores for so many years i figured out many intelligent people read, in Winterson’s words, printed television; mindless crap (in my opinion) like Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, and the host of other familiar names on the bestseller lists.  mostly because they’re too tired to think when they read, sometimes because they just enjoy mindless drivel, but i’ve learned not to judge the reader by the cover.  that said, however, if someone thought Ann Coulter wasn’t an expletive, expletive, lying, divisive, expletive, expletive the deal would be broken beyond repair.

 

And I have a suggestion for all you “wacky and wry personal essayist” fans – Sloan Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake.  She’s smart and funny and gay friendly to boot.  The smoking hotness must be the icing on said cake.

I have a bit of a judgemental and snobbish personality towards things I dislike, but it's not really reflected by what I do like. Like 'jennifer from pittsburgh' there's really no rhyme or reason to what I'll love or despise in terms of conventional genres. Over-all I tend to only read female authors. I love mysteries and crime fiction, but only by certain authors, and then not necessarily all of their books. I don't like books that only focus on character development, because that's boring, but I hate books that don't allow for it. I don't like books that take themselves too seriously, but I hate books that make light of important things. Books have to have a female main character, prefer it if she's gay, but it's ok if she's straight as long as she isn't overtly focused on being straight. I love lesbian romances, but I like them better if they're set against a backdrop of a mystery or some action. I like stories where the setting becomes a character in itself. I hate stories where the narrator attempts to address the reader, or refers to themselves as being outside the story - when I read I wanna be in the story, I don't like to be reminded that it's just a story, and that I'm not there. 

The one author excempt from pretty much all of the above is Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings is on of my all-time favourites. Although not so much The Hobbit; the narrator's presence is much more obvious and annoying in it.

Deal-breakers: liking stupid books without being able to satisfactorily explain why (again, reason isn't really at play here). Liking the Da Vinci code because it's a fun action book is fine, but liking it because of all the interesting religious tie-ins would be unacceptable.

Hannibal by Thomas Harris. It is the one and only time I have thrown a book in the trash that wasn't in tatters. If a woman liked it, I'd walk away. 

Dealmaker....Winkie by Clifford Chase. If I saw that on a woman's coffee table, I'd definitely want to get to know her.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Winkie/Clifford-Chase/e/9780802143105/?itm=1

 

After reading this, and marking my calendar for June 3, I just have one final question for you Ms. Snarker...what are your thoughts on children??

Oh man, when I read the topic name first thing I thought abt was: The Secret. If I was interested in smn and he/she told me it was reading any kind of self-help books, I would think long and hard abt if I still wanted to have smth with that person. But if the book was this prostitution of quantum physics, The Secret, I would just loose all interest in that minute.

And I think any Brazilian girl would agree with me that if your object of desire is reading Paulo Coelho, you better run for your life.  

What can I say, I'm an omnivore when it comes to books: Erich Maria Remarque, J.K. Rowling, Connie Palmen, Jeanette Winterson, Armistad Maupin, Ali Smith, Mikael Niemi, James A. Michener, Erich Kästner, Agatha Christie, Michael Cunningham, Jack Kerouac, Hilde Domin, Elizabeth George, Donna Tartt, Orhan Pamuk, the whole crazy Mann family, Andrea Maria Schenkel, Monica Nolan, Judith Herrmann, Kurt Tucholsky live among others and in peace on my bookshelves ... even Elfriede Jelinek is if not accepted at least tolerated, and she's trouble, so I have to be pretty zen about other people's reading taste :)

If they've got still shrink-wrapped books on their bookcase though (or even worse: in addition to a slipcover on the couch), I'd rather run.

I hadn't the faintest idea that he had a new book coming out... *So excited*

I don't know how I'll contain myself until June 3rd...

I can do it ...

Insta-love = anything by:

Thomas Hardy
Ray Carver
Jane Austen (obviously)
Ali Smith
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Ntozake Shang
Sherman Alexie

Insta-run = anything by:

Dr. Laura
Bill O'Reilly
Anne Coulter
Or anyone with the ENITRE [or majority] collection of Oprah's Book Club Books

 

 

 

 

 

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It's always our self we find in the sea

 

why do you have something against self help books? im severely depressed and socially anxious and have a low self-esteem, i visit a pyschologist and i read books on how to become more self-confident, how to change my self-destructive behaviour pattern , now not everyone has that ability to be chatty or happy all the time. now why on earth are other people AGAINST it? And want nothing to do with me?

k i understand the whole world is full of some extremely highly egoistic extraverts who just have soooo many people to choose from and can just 'throw' a woman away by the books they read *roleye* g'luck then!

My favorite genre is travel writing. Love, love, the stuff. My absolute dealbreaker - is if s/he is a devotee of Paul Theroux, I am out the door, down the block, and downing 3 fingers of Bushmills. The more you read of his stuff, the more you wonder why anyone would have anything to do with that racist, misogynist, sexist, xenophobic, weighist (is that even a word?), tool - even if he does write about taking the trips we'd all love to take.

One the other hand, if you have a full set of LP guides, some of the Irreverent guides, a few Rough guides, a few Eyewitness guides (hey, having pictures of the local currency is genius!), Dava Sobel's book on longitude, and a battered copy of Nothing to Declare (Mary Morris) then we need to talk about your preference in breakfast beverages.

If, in addition to the above, you have Blue Latitudes (Tony Horowitz) in hardback 'cause you keep lending out your other copy and you keep a Spanish/English edition of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Pablo Neruda) with your passport because it "comes in handy" - we are soooo getting keys made, and pledging a long term committment - to a travel agent.

I'd put more stake in their opinions of the books they've read. They don't necessarily have to agree with me, per se, but if they have Mein Kampf because they are a little too fascinated by Hitler's mind and idolize him or something, as opposed to needing it for a class and reading it from an analytical standpoint (as i did... though i sparknoted. hee.). Or maybe if they refuse to read a book for no good reason, or because they heard from someone else that it was bad. I'd rather people were more autonomous and didn't let others' opinions affect them that much so they could make their own decisions. Did that make sense? Plus, you don't know how they have them in their house. it could belong to a roommate, a friend, be a gag gift, etc. Anyway. That's my 2 cents.

omg, inbd

dealbreakers: any religious fiction, especially if it's "historical" religious fiction. i will assume your brain is made out of cat feces; a book by any right-wing, fundamentalist nut job (most of them have already been listed); dr. phil; rich dad, poor dad (or any of it's ilk)

not a dealbreaker, but makes me want to throw up a little bit: books with the oprah book club sticker on them, especially if the sticker has replaced the pulitzer sticker like it did on middlesex; a myriad of books that i would consider "shit lit." i may give you the benefit of the doubt and hope they are just guilty pleasures.

books that will make me love you: the prophet by kahil gribran; no one belongs here more than you by miranda july; on the road by jack keroac; sorry, tree by eileen myles; anything by johnathan safran foer; yes, yes, yes, anything david sedaris; same goes for michelle tea

well...my girl's a librarian and I'm almost done with a Masters degree in English Literature so on our respective bookshelves you find every thing from "The Hitchikers Guide" to "Sense and sensability" on her shelves and "Beowulf" to "Harry Potter" on mine. There's plenty of overlap ans well as dissagreement and many heated debates resulting in slamed doors and insults of shakepearian proportion hurled about between us. but we both agree....we need more bookshelves [I've got the wood in the garrage to build some more...as soon as we find room :) ]

 

 

"Nothing is impossible and there is no such thing as a lost cause"