Reading is sexy...according to poll

[dwndrgn]

This is an article on the Guardian blogs website: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2006/08/01/i_bet_you_look.html

a snippet:

Not only can you judge a book by its cover, it seems you can judge the person reading it, too. According to a survey of over 2,000 adults carried out by internet pollsters YouGov for Borders bookstore, books play a crucial role in influencing our opinions of strangers. Half of those asked admitted that they would look again or smile at someone on the basis of what they were reading.

I agree. Anyone reading a book gets an extra notch upwards in the 'attractive' scale.

Read the comments after the article - they are a treat.

 

[Alia]

Some books which would make me sit up and take notice: anything by Murakami; any Ishiguro after (and including) The Unconsoled; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer; early Updike; any of Rankin's Rebus books; any of Mankell's Wallander books; in fact, any Scandinavian mystery; any Paul Auster or Siri Hustvedt book; any Paul Theroux book (especially one of his travel books); anything by Christopher Hitchens; Lucky Jim.
Posted by joana on August 1, 2006 05:32 PM.
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Joana: you've pretty much summarised my literary tastes. what are you doing this weekend???
Posted by bananawater on August 1, 2006 05:38 PM.
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I thought this was fun!

Now if I saw a man reading Kate Elliott, I would talk with him even ask him out for lunch to continue our discussion. But alas, a man reading in these parts is rare and even rarer still to be reading Elliott's work.

 

[Joel007]

I rarely see anyone reading anything that I've read. Although i was on a bus with 3 pratcheteers once

 

[Paige Turner]

Reading is sexy… according to poll.

I remember reading that somewhere…

 

[TK-421]

To the authors of the poll: Tell me something I didn't know already!

 

[Joel007]

awww, if only he'd left that open for all of us to answer I could have swept us off in a tangent. Ah well.

 

[Paige Turner]

… I could have swept us off in a tangent.

You know, the word tangent is derived from the arabic word tanjit, meaning "riverbed," a reference to its undulating, random course.

 

[mosaix]

I read the title of this thread as Reading in Berkshire - you know - the town. I worked there for years and although it's not bad it certainly isn't sexy.

 

[Nesacat]

Sexy it certainly is but I hardly ever see anyone reading anything at all here. Even in bookstores. If i saw someone reading something I liked I'd definitely go over and say meowrr.

 

[Foxbat]

Hmmm....I do all my reading in private...perhaps that's why I'm single

 

[Nesacat]

That might a contributory factor.

 

[Joel007]

well, when my wife watches TV and i want to talk to her she says wait for the adverts... so i say the same when i'm reading and she wants my attention

"But there aren't any adverts!"
"And that's the way i like it!"

 

[CarlottaVonUberwald]

i'd like to believe this but..the guardian? come on

if it is true you never know though i could be in luck

 

[GOLLUM]

AH.....so that explains all those looks I keep getting from young ladies when out and about on public transport...

 

[Joel007]

They said that women like you if you can make them laugh... I should be right in there then, women laugh at me all the time!

 

[CarlottaVonUberwald]

haha..oh no im inadvertantly doing it right now

lol actualyl i do like guys who read..but only because it means we share a (un)common interest

 

[kyektulu]

I always knew I was damn irresistible... lol

 

[jackokent]

What I found funny were the people slating the fact that others read Dan Brown in public but clearly they'd read him themselves to know how awful it was. Surely you can't judge someone for reading a book you're also read.

 

[Frozeninja]

Heh, last month I was having a conversation with a girl on the train because she noticed I was reading Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series.

But here i'm usually always alone when wandering the fantasy sections