Can a book make or break a relationship?

The New York Times yesterday had an interesting essay about books that make or break a relationship. At first I just read it and chuckled, but then I remembered that one of the things that brought my wife and I together when we met in 2000 was our shared enjoyment of Alexandre Dumas.

She was a huge fan of The Three Musketeers, and my No. 1 Book of All Time was The Count of Monte Cristo. We exchange books, read each other’s favorite and discussed them in depth. Re-reading the action-packed story of four friends battling the evil Cardinal Richeliou reminded me how amazing that book is, and I agreed that it was, in fact, better than my previous favorite. We soon discovered that Dumas wrote several sequels (and even more sequels were written by people pretending to be Dumas). We read each one as our relationship developed.

The NYT essay definitely got it right. I don’t know that we would be together today if not for a shared love of reading, and of reading Dumas in particular. Hard to imagine that a writer born 200 years ago helped forge the best years of my life so far.

~ by amarvin on Monday, March 31, 2008.