The love of a good book

The British version of Match.com showcases a personality test that takes a lifetime to complete. The test asks standard personality quiz questions with a cute British flair (“Are you keen to get things done?”) as well as more esoteric questions, like, “Select the colour which best reflects your view of life” (I chose blue). The test also asks more cultured questions, like your preferred artistic style: Picasso, Monet, da Vinci or Van Gogh.

U.K. Match.com’s intellectual approach to dating has even extended to good books. The site has partnered with the Penguin Group, an international publishing house who recently released “The Help” as well as Nora Roberts’ “Hot Rocks.” Now, as Brits search for love, they can also search for a good read to tie them over until they schedule the perfect date.

Speaking of good reads, the founder of GoodReads.com, a social-networking site centered on the love of books, was once in charge of LoveHappens.com, a dating site. Literature and romance, it would seem, are often intertwined.

Which makes perfect sense to someone who loved books before she loved boys. Reading is an intimate activity, a quiet passion pursued by a solitary bookworm. Reading is an escape but it is also a rite, a commune between an individual, an author, and the characters on the page. Motoko Rich recently wrote a

beautiful piece in The New York Times

where she talks about the private reader, the reader who does not belong to book clubs or discussion groups, the reader who wants to savor alone the experience of a good book. The private reader is also a jealous reader, someone who experiences a twinge of betrayal when another person lays claim to his or her favorite book.

I am this kind of reader. I’m always glad to find a kindred soul, someone who loves David Sedaris or Barbara Kingsolver as much as I do, but it’s disheartening to go into specifics, to talk about plot points or hear differing opinions. The experience is unsettling, like listening to a recording of your own voice: It’s never like you imagined.

If good books can be divisive to some, then they have the power to bring others together. My favorite gifts from past boyfriends have been books: “The Little Prince” from an earnest boy I dated in college; “Shantaram” from a man I met during a trip across the Indian subcontinent.

My favorite book, though, is the one I am currently reading. On one lazy Sunday afternoon, the Captain and I spent hours strolling the aisles of a local bookstore. My heart raced at the familiar authors and titles, the characters I hoped to discover.

“What if we bought a book to read together?” the Captain suggested.

I couldn’t imagine it at first, the idea of delving into a fictional world with another person. But I agreed to give it a go.

We bought a collection of short stories. Now, in the evenings, after dinner or a movie or a day outdoors, we settle into the couch and one of us will pick up where we last left off. We read the words aloud in quiet tones, as if the stories were written for us alone. 

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