I almost didn’t become friends with Eric (not his real name) when I heard him talk so admiringly of The Purpose-Driven Life.  I didn’t mean to judge him so severely, but the book, at the time, represented for me everything bad about Evangelicalism.  As soon as he mentioned it, very early in our friendship at work, I questioned the premises of the book.  He looked hurt, more than angry.  I still don’t like that book, but Eric managed to forgive me, and I managed to apologize (not for not liking the book, but for being such a self righteous moron), and we’re still friends today.  This essayist has experienced similar book-related relationship problems.

Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!”

We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed – or misguided – literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast. At least since Dante’s Paolo and Francesca fell in love over tales of Lancelot, literary taste has been a good shorthand for gauging compatibility. These days, thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, listing your favorite books and authors is a crucial, if risky, part of self-branding.

In a pluralist culture, I suppose your Amazon Wish List is as much a cultural signifier as anything else.  I somehow managed to marry a woman who not only reads books that I loathe, but who reads books that I find hard categorizing as “books.”  Nevertheless, viva la difference.  Have you had any similar book differences?