When I tell people I’m an English literature student I’m met with one of two reactions: they’ll laugh, or they’ll be compelled by the strange desire to list off every book they have ever read to demonstrate that they in fact read too. Unfortunately, books prove to be the quickest way to my heart, and so when a man goes for the second option I can’t help but fall in love with him instantly. Your standards quite literally have to be on the floor if someone only has to be literate for them to be deemed attractive by you but yet here we are. However, my goal for this #hotgirlsemester is to try and refrain from having feelings for men unless they actually have good taste in books and maybe after reading this list of recommendations from previous suitors you’ll understand why!

 

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

I mean we’re off to a great start aren’t we!! Honestly, thinking back this shouldn’t have been surprising and I’m sad to admit it wasn’t the first red flag he showed me. I’ll never forget the horror of jokingly picking this off his bookshelf ready to slag him about it only to find that the whole book had been annotated and that he was actually quite serious about it. I’ve never read it, and my experience with that man has meant I never will, but I’m guessing one of the laws must advise you to unfollow your situationship, her friends, her friend’s art account, and leave a group chat without warning because that’s exactly how this ended! I’ve been asking myself in the style of Oprah Winfrey was I silent or silenced ever since.

 

1984 by George Orwell 

After a drunken night out my excitement at seeing this on a man’s desk led to me waking up his whole family at three in the morning. I had done it! I had finally found a man who reads! I was already envisioning our future home together and our many bookshelves. You can imagine my dismay a couple days later when I found out that he was just studying it for our Leaving Cert and had no plans of becoming the next Hemingway. Still, I rate him pretty highly considering he once had to climb through a window to rescue me from the bathroom I had locked myself into. Chivalry is far from dead ladies!

 

Ulysses by James Joyce

This one probably isn’t taking anyone by surprise and I don’t have a problem with it, but what I do have a problem with is it being shoved down my throat like it’s the only book ever written. Listen, from a Dublin Creative I respect this recommendation, but the first man to suggest it to me was English! He also deemed any opinion of mine irrelevant because I had yet to participate in any Bloomsday events. I guess when you look at Joyce and his fondness for binge drinking it’s no wonder he remains a firm favourite amongst the men I find myself attracted to!

 

Bliss by Peter Carey

In times of darkness, there is always light- which is what Bliss is to this list of recommendations. Wonderfully strange and thought provoking much like the man who recommended it to me, Bliss has become one of my favourite novels. I already thought pretty highly of this man, and his excellent, and might I add unique, recommendation only confirmed his greatness in my eyes. Ah, the joys of holiday romances. 

 

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Let me set the scene: it’s the start of my Erasmus and all of my friends are telling me this man is in love with me so naturally I’m going to pursue it without second thinking. Unfortunately, feisty Irish woman and traditional American frat boy make for quite an incompatible couple so this ended before it had ever really began, but not without the sharing of book recommendations. I spent every waking hour of our interactions preaching the work of John McGahern to him and even gifted him a copy of Amongst Women. When I asked him for this article if he ever got around to reading it, he declined to comment (i.e. left me on seen). I’m all for setting up a John McGahern fan club but even I have to admit that a twenty year old frat boy isn’t who he was writing for. In return for my ramblings, this man would read me passages from Byron’s A Walk in the Woods. Yes that’s right, the American’s favourite book was about bear hunting. After finding that out, I told him he should take A Walk in the Woods. It’s almost as authentic as my friend who forced her Scottish lover to read her passages of Macbeth. No offence to Bryson, but I think I’ll stick to my McGahern. 

 

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

I was trying my absolute hardest to not be attracted to this man and it was all going so well for me until one afters where he started talking poetry. He effortlessly passed me his phone with the following lines highlighted and told me they reminded him of me: 

‘But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.’

 I mean seriously? At that exact moment I was too drunk to properly read what he was showing me but was touched by his offer to borrow his book nevertheless, and when I reread the passage the next day I knew it was game over for me: I was going to be ruining our friend group. 

 

So there you have it! And if there happens to be any insufferable, attractive, and funny men who rate their book taste reading this, my dms are now open xxx

WORDS: Rachel Kelly