A response to Literary Dealbreakers , itself a response to a NY Times article, Itās Not You, Itās Your Books : From a distance, not reading is a deal breaker, and for the most part it is valid. Like many others, Iāve known wonderful people, in my case women that were engaging and sexy, but didnāt read. In the long run, the lack of intellect is killing. My wife has always read a great deal, but I tend toward the abstract and difficult, Pynchon, Borges, and Beckett - I guess Iām the pretentious one - while she enjoys classics, memoirs, mysteries, and authors like Kundera. To me, it matters that one reads and has an engaging mind. There were many times in my life that Iāve felt love for books, for language, and for words. Who among us hasnāt? Itās absurd not to look for, to find, someone that shares something so basic to oneās self. The freedom that I feel to speak with my wife, our joy in wordplay, her ability to make the funniest old songs new by changing the lyrics, those āyesā instanc...
musings on life and liberty