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What your Favourite Book Says About You

Started by Wet Blanket, November 21, 2017, 04:43:27 PM

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Wet Blanket

This is what women really think of your favourite book

Someone I know put this on Facebook with a joke about how 'frighteningly accurate' it was. Thought it was interesting in that many of them are quite 'canon' works of literature; enjoying 1984, Catch 22 and The Great Gatsby makes you a cunt now.

But I have to admit that I did love The Goldfinch but I don't know what emotional labour is.

Ignoring the tiresome gender wars angle of the article however, are there any books that would colour your opinion of someone you'd just met? I'm inclined to be friendly to anybody who's into books. Though I might step back if they were all supermarket true-crime cash ins, or those ones where former SAS soldiers tell all.


bgmnts

Quite a lazy and uninspired article.

Swipe left.

Keebleman

The older I get the better inclined I am towards people who don't read at all.  I meet lots of book snobs and I'm horrified to think that I am at heart as tedious, pretentious, deluded, unoriginal and self-satisfied as them.

billtheburger

Although there are some great books there, I don't think any would be my favourite, and if they were their assumptions are far from the truth.

I suppose I only judge those that read and those that do not.

Wet Blanket

Quote from: Keebleman on November 21, 2017, 06:48:05 PM
The older I get the better inclined I am towards people who don't read at all.  I meet lots of book snobs and I'm horrified to think that I am at heart as tedious, pretentious, deluded, unoriginal and self-satisfied as them.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.

I actually feel much the same. I wouldn't pass judgement on someone else's tastes now as readily as I would when I was a bit younger.

holyzombiejesus

Where does she mention The Goldfinch? It's really annoying me that I can't see it. Not as annoying as the article itself but...

Brundle-Fly

I know it's meant to be humorous but this relentless reductive cak is so divisive.

Urinal Cake

I'm pretty sure Jeremy has done drugs more than twice.

Serge

I would happily pre-judge someone with a fanatical devotion to a series of books whose main character's name rhymes with Barry Rotter.

Old Nehamkin

I get the gist with most of the "Popular Book/Crude Social Stereotype" pairings in that article, but this one really has me scratching my head:

QuoteCatch 22 - Joseph Heller

You still follow Ricky Gervais on Twitter and think Derek was "underrated".

Is there an obvious connection here that I'm missing? Is there a big overlap between fans of postmodern existential satire and that Channel 4 show where the dim man and his sex pest pal hang around near the elderly?

Neville Chamberlain

I've already made a long series of judgments about the person who wrote that total shitheap of, er, whatever it is - words.

Thankfully, my favourite book of all time isn't on there, so I am, presumably, immune from her critical, judgmental gaze!

Wet Blanket

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on November 21, 2017, 08:27:19 PM
Where does she mention The Goldfinch? It's really annoying me that I can't see it. Not as annoying as the article itself but...

How strange, the picture of the cover is still there but the entry has vanished. It said something like: 'your ex-girlfriend made you read this when she saw you didn't own a single book by a woman. You don't know what emotional labour is'

Jockice


lebowskibukowski

I once worked with a bloke who pulled me to one side, almost whispered conspiratorially and said "This book will change your life". He then pulled the book out of his bag - The Da Vinvi Code. I really wish this story was made up... He was also a big Red Hot Chili Peppers fan so i'd already formed a certain opinion on him anyway, however unfairly

Neville Chamberlain

QuoteFight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

You have had sincere internet arguments about atheism as recently as 2014.

And what's wrong with that? If there's a case to made for something - and I'd argue that making the case for non-belief is more important than ever - then carry on making it, whether on the internet or wherever, regardless of whether certain people have declared it oh so passé because they're vacuous, trend-driven hipsters who don't have enough of a backbone to argue for their principles.

There. How's that for a judgment?!?

Glebe

Quote from: lebowskibukowski on November 22, 2017, 09:26:54 AMI once worked with a bloke who pulled me to one side, almost whispered conspiratorially and said "This book will change your life". He then pulled the book out of his bag - The Da Vinvi Code.

You worked at North Norfolk Digital?

Serge

Heh, I have had a couple of people tell me that Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist changed their life, one even going so far as to buy me a copy. I read it - it didn't take up a lot of my time - and it's about as deep and life-changing as a poster that says 'Let Your Smile Be Your Umbrella' or 'There Are No Strangers Here, Only Friends You Haven't Met'. The same friend is currently trying to get me into yoga. Yeah, right.

Keebleman

Quote from: Serge on November 22, 2017, 10:55:45 AM
Heh, I have had a couple of people tell me that Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist changed their life, one even going so far as to buy me a copy. I read it - it didn't take up a lot of my time - and it's about as deep and life-changing as a poster that says 'Let Your Smile Be Your Umbrella' or 'There Are No Strangers Here, Only Friends You Haven't Met'. The same friend is currently trying to get me into yoga. Yeah, right.

Yoga's great!  It'll get you fit, plus there are loads of hot women.  Granted, you need to find a class that's not too Ommmmmm-y.

Neville Chamberlain

Also, make sure the lining in your shorts hasn't perished so you don't keep "popping out".

Serge

Yeah, me wearing shorts, that's another thing that's not going to happen.

Sebastian Cobb


buttgammon

Weirdly enough, I'm reminded of my internet dating days, when a lot of 'favourite authors' lists on OKCupid would degenerate into a jibe at the 'fact' that men don't read books by women. I always felt obliged to reply by saying how much I like Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter, The Brontes, Emily Dickinson, Katherine Mansfield and Lydia Davis.

Wet Blanket

#22
It reminded me of the bit in Annie Hall:

QuoteALVY: Oh, Sylvia Plath, interesting poetess, whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the schoolgirl mentality

ANNIE: I just thought some of her poems were kinda neat

I've seen a lot of these sorts of facetious articles recently that pillory faintly pretentious young blokes who maybe talk to much about their favourite cultural touchstones. McSweeney's, the middlebrow Cracked.com. is packed with them:

An Oral History Of Quentin Tarantino As Told To Me By Men I've Dated

Portland Online Dating Bingo


Presumably it's because these are the sort of men that equally hipsterish women pursuing a career in online journalism will be dating. But I feel a bit sorry for them; I mean, there are a whole lot more fellas out there who don't give a flying fuck about books, films or music altogether. I think there are much worse character flaws than being a bit up your own arse.


manticore

Sex-war sniping to fill the void where your mind should be.

Fambo Number Mive

Personally, I would never want to go out with someone who makes such weird judgements based on people's favourite book.

I suspect that the author of the piece did not talk to any other women about books before writing this crap. She's also done the same for favourite albums and favourite films. I wonder if she'll do some for favourite clickbait sites.



garbed_attic

I thought we were actually going to try doing this about ourselves...

[Loving Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed says that I'm idealist who can only imagine a society that would whatsoever satisfy me by picturing it on a far-off desert moon many light-years away, but it also indicates that I'm campaigning for Corbyn and that I take myself a lot more seriously than I'd like to believe. Also, that people failing to empathetically engage with people that are homeless really, really bothers and upsets me.]