Agora percebo, finalmente...

... aqueles posts e artigos em que os autores se queixam do preço dos inúmeros livros que compram, ou do peso, ou do espaço que ocupam lá em casa, e fazem listas sem fim de livros que leram, vão ler e não vão ler mas vão consultar, etc. etc.

Até agora pensava que era simples pedantismo.


(Via Educação Sentimental)

I bet you look good in the book store

"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.

And it gets better. For those of you troubled by the lingering idea (instilled in youth by parents obsessed with the benefits of "enjoying the sunshine") that a life spent reading is a life half-lived, your worries are over. Not only does sitting with your nose in a book positively influence others' opinion of you, it could actually - get this - lead to sex. A third of those surveyed said that they "would consider flirting with someone based on their choice of literature". It's finally official, people. Reading is hot.

But before you trip off to the park clad in your most fetching sun hat and clutching your copy of the latest Jilly Cooper - be warned. Not just any book will do. Erotic fiction, horror, self-help books and the dreaded chick-lit were all, in fact, deemed turn-offs when it came to love between the covers. The genre most likely to help you pull - the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini of the books world - is the classics, followed by biography and modern literary fiction (think Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks, rather than Dan Brown and Martina Cole). Forget the gym: if you want to raise your dating game, head down to your local library and start borrowing.

It is, of course, tempting - in fact, it's all but unavoidable - to dismiss such a survey as a cynical marketing ploy designed to make us

a) feel smug about our superior reading habits,
b) believe that people will see beyond a disastrous haircut to the Casanova within as long as s/he is reading Dickens, and therefore
c) buy more books.

But - and here's the thing - as a lengthy discussion in the Vulture's nest revealed, it may be cynical, but that doesn't make it any less true. All of us had book-related stories to tell, or preferences to air. I myself, on a first date with my swain of four years' standing, was delighted, on entering the pub, to discover him reading Wilkie Collins. A colleague told a story of a wedding she attended which had its origins in a chance meeting in a nightclub, during which the gentleman in question asked his future wife what she was reading. Obviously her reply - The Great Gatsby - struck the right note.

In terms of literary turn-ons, the arts editor confessed he'd love to start a conversation with anyone who was reading the poems of Elizabeth Bishop, although he "probably wouldn't have the nerve". Weaknesses for Elmore Leonard, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and, disconcertingly, Dante's Inferno were also expressed. Turn-offs, on the other hand, include Money by Martin Amis, "everything by DH Lawrence", and snobbishly, any book with a cover based on a recent film or TV adaptation.

So the question this Tuesday afternoon is - what, books-wise, does it for you? And are there any books that would put you off absolutely, no matter how attractive the reader?"


[Sarah Crown, Guardian Unlimited: Culture Vulture Blog]
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PS - Aconselho também a leitura dos comentários ao post (original): são deliciosos.