"One of the first questions men ask Angela Liu on dating apps is 'What are you reading?' The question is a softball for Ms. Liu..."

"... a self-proclaimed lover of literature. 'I really care about the human condition and emotions and stuff,' she said. What she has noticed, however, is that many men aren’t into those kinds of books, and a question that may have been intended to screen her often ends up backfiring. 'I can’t stand dudes who just read self-help books or things specifically related to the job that they’re doing and that’s all they read,' Ms. Liu, 27, said on Friday at a book club for singles in Manhattan."

From "Is Reading the Hottest Thing You Can Do as a Single Person? Pop culture has conditioned us to believe that a meet-cute that doesn’t happen in a bookstore is hardly worth having. But is being an avid reader truly essential to romance?" (NYT).

By the way, what are you reading? Is it some self-help or job-specific crap or something that shows you care about emotions and stuff?

Me, I'm reading "The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century" (Amazon Associates link). Excerpt:

As the [1896] campaign gathered pace in August, [William Jennings] Bryan’s youth and energy revealed themselves in ways that [William] McKinley could not hope to match. While McKinley stayed at home, sleeping in his own bed and convincing himself he was dignified and above the fray, Bryan engaged voters on four major campaign trips. Despite a heat wave throughout the Midwest, throngs of eager supporters flocked to railway stations to welcome him. On one trip, crowds were so large in Columbus, Toledo, and South Bend that there weren’t buildings large enough to accommodate them, so he delivered his speeches in open fields. Farmers traveled as much as a hundred miles by foot, bicycle, horseback, or carriage to hear him speak. Scores of babies were named after him. On a second foray, his show traveled through the Northeast, where he addressed seventy-five thousand people in Boston. His endurance quickly became legendary. Delivering up to thirty-six speeches a day, he taught himself to fall asleep in minutes, fortifying himself with catnaps on the floor of his train. Unable to take regular baths while on the road, Bryan would strip off his clothes between speeches and rub his body with gin to mask the scent of his own sweat, leaving him smelling “like a wrecked distillery.”