Jul 01, 2009 - 04:30 AM
By Neil Crone
I am an inveterate snoop when it comes to what other people are reading. If I see someone sitting across from me in a waiting room or a café with a book open, I will strain my eyes to get a glimpse of the title. Even if someone has a paperback sticking out of their back pocket or purse, I'll risk personal injury or a restraining order to make out the cover. I can't help myself.
When I'm at a party or visiting with someone I don't know well, I will find their bookshelf, if they have one, and carefully peruse the titles. It's as revealing as going through their underwear drawer and far more hygienic. Also, whereas a lot of people would take exception to a stranger rifling through their undies, most are more than happy, even proud to share the contents of their library with you. Interestingly, I dated a girl in college who would let me look at her library only after I'd promised to go through her underwear drawer. Bless her heart.
I think what we read says an awful lot about us. As much or more than how we dress, what we eat, even what we say. Consider the timid accountant who spends his lunch hours immersed in the manly, bare-knuckled pages of a Hemingway novel. Take the mousey, bespectacled insurance secretary with the enormous collection of steamy Victorian erotica. Then there's the burly, uni-browed mechanic who retires to his grimy, cubby-holed office with a metal lunch pail and a collection of Byron. We feed our dreams with books after all.
And reading, as I say, is often a public activity. When someone is on the bus or subway or park bench, their book is right there for everyone to see. It's like a literary calling card. We seldom get such straightforward social clues regarding stranger's tastes.
Unless he's going to work with a fly rod over his shoulder, we don't know that that guy in the slouch hat who gets on the GO train with us every morning is an avid angler. The low-fat vanilla latte in the power suit that we see in the coffee shop every day at seven sharp might be the queen of the mosh pit on the weekend, but we'll never have a clue. And the lady who sells us our lottery tickets might know the name and location of every constellation in the sky, but unless we're very bold or buy a lot of lottery tickets or both, we'll probably never get to share that private joy with her.
But books and all that they have to tell us about their enigmatic readers, are right there. And it's been my experience, with the exception of the guy reading, The Nihilists Handbook, that people are more than willing, even eager, to talk about their books. It's always an opening worth taking. I wonder how many lifelong relationships, after all, have begun with the words, "What are you reading?'" or "Oh, I loved that book." or even, "You really like Margaret Atwood?"
Durham resident Neil Crone, actor-comic-writer, saves some of his best lines for his columns.
Recommend :
More Columns By Neil Crone
Tax time number crunching adds up to columns of confusionI'm going through a bit of an insane dance with my accountants right now. We're faxing and e-mailing back and forth, trying to get my books and theirs to obtain some...
Being a man is simple, but it isn't easyLately I've found myself craving the company of men. Don't get me wrong, I'm not coming out of the closet or anything, although I still think The Pet Shop Boys...
I love our guys, but I hate the others moreThe great irony of the Olympic Games is that while they tend to foster a tremendous sense of fraternity and fellowship amongst the competitors, they usually end up turning the...
Look to the heavens and dreamI recently read, with some dismay, about the American government slashing NASA's budget and cancelling a number of space exploration initiatives. All the while increasing...
Nativity kidnapping surely the work of the devilThese are dark times in the town of Sunderland. Nativity raiders walk amongst us. The baby Jesus, Mary and a wiseman have been kidnapped. The wooden Nativity scene outside the...
Heart wins the day when helping HaitiYou would have to live on the moon, or perhaps in certain sections of Beverly Hills, not to have noticed what's been happening in Haiti recently. Most of us have been...
I resolve to feel good this yearWelcome to 2010. These first few weeks of the new year are generally crammed with resolution-fired individuals, bound and determined to improve, clean up, trim down and...
And how did you ring in the new year?So, how did you ring in the new year? I think how we celebrate this wonderful event says a great deal about us. I've never been huge on really big parties. Some people...
Little bit of fame easy to live withOne glance through the papers these days or a few minutes listening to the radio (we no longer own a television machine) is more than enough to make me fall back in love with...
Bluetooth-ache drives me to distractionSometimes complying with the law is difficult. I'm not advocating civil disobedience or anything. I'm no Thoreau. If anything, I'm a bit of a goody-two-shoes when...