Book reading groups are a great way to bind us in marriage.
It's intuitive that, when two people spend time together doing intimate things, they tend to require more of that experience.
Reading together is a fairly intimate way to spend time, given that one purpose of reading something is to share it with someone.
Plus, if we can learn a lot from the subject matter someone reads, it stands to reason that a mate's choice of books gives us an intimate look at who they are.
These days, too, with the rising cost of doing anything, or going anywhere, and the limits placed on our pocketbooks, a reading group just makes sense.
They are, after all, free.
There are a number of these on-line reading groups available, with names like Shelfari, and GoodReads, ReadingGroupChoices etc.
These groups offer all sorts of interesting, engaging ideas for married couples.
My wife and I are enrolled at GoodReads, for instance.
GoodReads has a dazzling display of book offerings, from literally thousands of books to read, commentary about most of them, some from expert reviewers, some from novices such as us, and a five star rating system.
The site has a newsletter, a portal that allows us to track the books we've read, and another to finally record those we've always wanted to read but keep forgetting, even while we're standing in the library surrounded by books.
These on-line reading groups commonly have another feature as well.
They offer a chance to purchase whatever books you may wish to buy, many in e-book format, and some for your Kindle, BEBOOK, Sony E-book reader or Franklin device.
Prices are industry standard, and delivery is the same.
One of the outcomes we've discovered from the reading group, is the sheer number of books we've actually read.
As we scan the list, we rediscover old literary friends we've long forgotten.
There was a little book I read while in Vietnam titled Sagittarius Rising, written by a fellow pilot named Cecil Lewis; A Steinbeck classic, The Red Pony that I made a report on in High School, way back in the twentieth century; there was one of my all time favorites, Kon Tiki, by Thor Hyerdahl, a little book that may have been responsible for my peripatetic impulses, and my need to attempt new things.
But the real benefit my wife and I have discovered at our reading group is how those books have indeed shaped each one of us.
Just as Kon Tiki opened my vision to all manner of wondrous things in the world beyond Columbus Ohio, my home town, my wife's attraction to various positive thinking gurus as Jack Canfield, Dr.
Wayne Dyer, T.
Harv Eker and the rest gives me a perspective on her that explains many things about our relationship.
Married couples can get a lot of rewards from joining one of the many reading groups on-line.
They can find books they've always meant to read; they can keep track of those they've already read; they can be amazed at the number they've read over the years; and they can use the opportunity a good book offers to share whatever message it contains with their spouse.
Here's an example of how this may work.
My wife recently started a book titled "The Geography of Bliss", by Eric Weiner.
It's a story of a self-described 'grump', and his global search for a happy spot somewhere on the planet.
The book is a tour of the world's most exotic, distant, fascinating, happiest and not so happy places.
Once my spouse was done, I read the book, and we shared our thoughts about it.
I enjoyed the work immensely.
The writing is very good; subject matter interesting; idea engaging.
I recommended the book to friends.
My wife didn't finish the book.
She claimed it had too much focus on the negative, and the dismissive.
She's so positive about everything, that the author's basic premise seemed to her to be to identify what made people happy, and then explain it away, based on some environmental, social, economic, or cultural factor.
I interjected that her observation was spot on, that the author did indeed explain a population's happiness in those ways.
But she responded that perhaps it was the other way around; maybe the social, economic, and cultural happiness level displayed was a result of their being happy in the first place, and all the rest of the package followed.
It told me a lot about her.
So the books we share, and the ideas they contain tell us a lot about our mates.
If a spouse tends to be a closed book about things, reticent, slow to share, then a book reading group may be a fine idea to open them up.
Books are bound, and then read.
Perhaps they have the potential to bind us as well.