Hot Reads

I am very much enjoying this debate on the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog: which books are sexy and which are not?

I don't think I'd actually try to get off with someone based solely on their reading matter but I do tend to make judgements after the event, based on what books they have lying around the place. Years ago, I was delighted to catch sight, by the bedside of my new love interest, of a volume of Terry Eagleton literary criticism. At last, a thinker! Much joy ensued. Some time and much literary discussion later, I realised that his enthusiasm for arch-mysogynist Philip Roth was a definite sign that there was no future in it. (God I LOATHE "America's Greatest Living Writer" Philip Roth.) When I mentioned that Roth hates women, and he just looked baffled... Well. Farewell.

More bizarrely, I was dumped not once but twice in incidents directly related to Haruki Murukami's South of the Border, West of the Sun. Inexplicable. They read it; it was curtains. I went to a talk given by Murakami shortly after dumping number 2 (indeed, at the suggestion of the dumper, to whom I had foolishly lent the book in the first place - no future lover of mine will *ever* get his mitts on it) and intended to ask the author (a) why this had befallen me and (b) what he was going to do about it, but sadly, from my seat of row Z number 2 (and there were only two seats in row Z) I was unable to get the attention of the chair of the discussion - one Scott Pack, the Artist Formerly Known As Evil. So my question went unanswered. The nice Japanese-speaking gay man in the other half of row Z, however, did dispense the following invaluable piece of wisdom: "If you go out with Murukami men, you get dumped in Murukami ways." Sage...

In short, while it's true that reading might be sexy, it very much depends on what you read. Still, there's one thing to be said for compatible reading habits: at least you know you'll have something to talk about when you finally get bored of having sex.