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July 16, 2007 5:30 PM

It's official: reading makes you more attractive!

A piece by Sarah Crown in the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog has just come to my attention via Brain Stab. And, despite the fact that it's from August last year, I thought it was interesting.

Apparently, according to a survey carried out on behalf of Borders, books play a crucial role in influencing our opinions of strangers. Half of the 200 adults asked admitted that they would look again or smile at someone on the basis of what they were reading.

A third of those surveyed said that they "would consider flirting with someone based on their choice of literature". This interests me particularly because one of the first things that attracted me to my husband was that he was a reader.

But it's not all good news: erotic fiction, horror, self-help books and chick lit were all deemed turn-offs, whereas the genre most likely to help you pull is the classics, followed by biography and modern literary fiction - "think Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks, rather than Dan Brown and Martina Cole," says Crown.

So, shamelessly nicking Crown's questions because I couldn't have put it better myself: "What, books-wise, does it for you? And are there any books that would put you off absolutely, no matter how attractive the reader?"

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Posted by Keris on July 16, 2007 in Book related, Opinion | Permalink

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