Reading your woman's books can have interesting effects...

In my never-ending quest to satiate my thirst for knowledge, I agreed to read a book recommended by my (now) wife. The non-fiction book, Three Cups of Tea, focuses on the adult life of Greg Mortensen, a climber whose love of education and remote settings led him to ingratiate himself into an Afghan tribe and help it to build a school, then taking that success into a larger life's work of helping to build them in remote areas all over. It's a slow read at first, but I ended up not putting it down after about page 77 or so. Brilliant read, highly recommended.

The question that this brought to mind, and brings to mind again as I finished yet another Lovey selection (The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant) is why there are such differences in the literature that men seek out.

In full disclosure, my wife has dedicated much of her adult life thus far to furthering education and outreach programs, and this passion was certainly a key draw for me. Therefore, I may be slightly tainted in this overview. She does not read Cosmo or the other rags that most men groan at seeing when their ladies bring them home after a trip to the pharmacy, nor does she indulge in any TMZ or Access Hollywood viewing that would cause me to start learning how to block programming on the DVR.

I also have known many great women in my life that did not read as much, but were natural musicians and artists within other mediums. There have been yet others whom have graced my life's path that were poetry in motion, carrying themselves through life with a grace and panache that was literature of its own, yet to be written.

With that said, I have always watched the habits of women around me in relation to reading materials, as it often grants insight into their state of mind. Once, I finished a book I was rather fond of, then bought the next written by the same author. When a woman I knew expressed interest in that first book, I gladly gave my copy over and eagerly awaited her reaction to it.

About six months later, I had occasion to attend a barbeque at her and her significant other's house. I spied the book resting on the bookcase, askance from the neatly stacked rows, and asked how she was enjoying the read. "I haven't really been able to get into it much yet" was her reply. The bookmark was hanging out of the second page of the book, yet she spoke at length to others present about a new novel put out by one of today's chick-lit book-writing machines (similar to a Danielle Steele) that she, quote, "couldn't put down".

No personal insult was taken at her not reading the book I had given over, but the poignancy of her reading choice stuck with me. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I was secretly glad that I had not tried to date this person. There is no way I would discredit this person by judging their reading choice, but I knew at that moment that I could not engage her in the type of conversation that reading books often makes me want to have.

Yes, I am a dork. Congratulations on seeing the obvious.

The same idea can be applied to TV viewing choices, to entertainment options, to music. The choices folks make can give insight into the person if one can listen to the undertones of the choices. All of these outlets are ways to stimulate the mind in ways that daily work life and routines do not offer. Hence, the 'entertainment value' of them...

This train of thought brings me back to the ways I have met some of the great writers that I am fond of. My old friend and I alternating between playing Madden and poker and trading Fante and Vonnegut books. The tall, hot European girl that gave me Nabokov as a young man. The math teacher that challenged me with A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. My father (and his passing), sending my through a library full of technical writing mixed with Michener, Buckley, Dostoyevsky. All of these experiences flood back to mind when I see the titles, or hear a phrase now and then.

My mother recently reminded me of a story of life at home with my brother, father and us under one roof (this time was, sadly, too brief) where I had startled my father by asking my mother what a word meant in the encyclopaedia I was reading. I was less than four at the time, and my father was astonished that I was pursuing this knowledge on my own. The story is cute in a self-aggrandizing way, but it was an early indicator of the functionality in the crevices of my rather large head. (And you know what they say about a man with a large head, right? He has to custom-order hats.)

My brother in particular picked up on this need for knowledge. He brought me to school after hours to play chess with older students, and when college took him a few time zones away, he used his part-time employment at a bookstore to smuggle me copies of books that he knew I'd like. These books were to be thrown away, as is required by the publishers. The cover is torn off and mailed in as proof that the book was not sold, but the rest of the book would land in my mailbox. I still have many of those books today.

That digression was designed to explain why I place such value in what is read by those I value. It also makes me wonder why we are drawn to such vastly different types of reading, even though equal intellects can respect and enjoy quality writing regardless of its source.

I read the following periodicals, in no particular order: Esquire, GQ, Golf Digest, ESPN the Mag, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, The National Review, Newsweek. My wife reads none of these, nor do most females I know. I never would have even looked at any of the six or seven books that my Lovey has given me, and I enjoyed most of each of them. While I have tried a bit, I suspect that most women would not seek out Ask the Dust until Colin Farrell starred in the movie of it. (Wait! That already happened? In 2006? And Salma Hayek played Camilla? Wow.)

It seems natural that women would not seek out stories of a struggling writer in old Hollywood times, just as guys don't look for books about the Bible's history written from the perspective of a young woman who lived close to it (the Diamant book mentioned above), but the curiosity of the mind shouldn't be conditioned the way it seems that literature is now marketed.

How many times have you looked at the cover of a book and decided against reading it due to it not being 'targeted' at you? Basing it on cover art, the elongated subtitle under the main title, I could make any book appealing to any market. As an exercise, I'll try it with a relatively well-known book.

For the ladies: Visual - A long, flowing river with overgrowth and the edge of a raft at the bottom, giving you the persepctive of floating on it. Subtitle - A Young Man and His Free Slave Take on the World

For the men: Visual - A small white boy and a large black man shown running through the forest while in the distance, uniformed men appear to be giving chase. Subtitle - Adventures in the Mississippi River Wild

For the kids: Visual - A illustration of a young boy with a fishing pole in a broken-down house along the river's edge. The boy is wearing overalls, one strap hanging off the side, with scuffed knees and plenty of dirt on the hands and face, standing over a ghostly-looking figure. Subtitle - A Boy's Adventures with Catfish and Jim.

Would you buy this book?

Mark Twain believed people might like it, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has done rather well in its 115-odd years in the bookstores. It had no cover art, and it had no subtitle describing it. Good literature can rise above all else, but it apparently takes time.

Reading lists in schools usually have some classics, but always betray the tastes of the teachers. That can be a good thing in many cases, but I know that the amount of woman's rights literature flung at me by my freshman English teacher in college (not seven years older than me) caused me to go find Salinger's catalogue all on my own. One or two books, I could understand, but five of the seven (7!) assigned reads were specific to the woman's rights movement at the turn of the centruy, and the other two were of the same era (The Great Gatsby, The Good Earth). I would thank her, but that might encourage that kind of closed-minded behavior in the future.

It is a fascinating sociological debate that will continue on in my head for some time, I'd bet. Just wish there were better ways to find new writing than listening to Oprah and sorting the wheat from the chaff.