Love me, love my book

My first reaction to the news that New York Time Book Review editor and essayist Rachel Donadio is leaving NY to become the Times's Rome bureau chief was envy, pure and simple.

(After all, I speak fluent Italian as well. Have MY bosses ever paid any heed to that?) Anyway, the second was to go back and reread some of her essays.

That's when I re-encountered her March, 2008, piece in the New York Times Book Review asking if you can date someone who doesn't like your books (or who does like books that you loathe.) This essay was so widely passed around online at the time that there may not be many of you who haven't yet seen it. However, for those few who missed it, it's really worth a look. (And it holds up well to a second read.)

It did make me remember the friend who once stopped dating a guy because she found a copy of "The Road Less Traveled" in his apartment. I cringed when she told me this because the guy I was dating at the time enthusiastically recommended this at every turn. This did not cause me to break up with him (although in retrospect  it might have been a good idea....)

Anyway, it did make me wonder, with November, 2008, bearing down upon us, which would be worse: to be paired with someone who likes the wrong books or someone who's going to vote for the wrong candidate?