“Books of Love For Singles”
Reprinted from The Wall Street Journal
By JACQUELINE COLEMAN
Like Paolo and Francesca in Dante's "The Divine Comedy," Raymond and Margaret Cashel of Oxford, Pa., began falling in love over the leaves of a book. Margaret, a widow whose children had left the nest, and Raymond, a refugee from a recent divorce, discovered they adored the same obscure Book-of-the-Month Club selection, Louise Dickinson Rich's "We Took to the Woods." Next they found they were passionate about nature, hiking and each other, and they tied the knot-just like the couple in Rich's story.
The Cashels initially met because both belonged to Single Booklovers, a 1,300 member social club that helps lonely lovers of the written word locate each other,date and mate. The novel idea behind the club, which was created by retired Exxon engineer Bob Leach, during his own days as a literate widower, is that readers are more likely to find soulmates among other readers: and that the best way for them to recognize each other is to compare lists of their favorite books.
Here's how it works: Members of Single Booklovers-which is run by Bob and his second wife, Ruth, from the basement of their home in Gradyville, Pa.-pay a $54 annual fee and fill out a personal profile sheet detailing such information as occupation, qualities sought in a date or mate, favorite music, movies, plays, magazines-and of course books. A short summary of this is circulated to all club members of the opposite sex, who, if intrigued, can request the corresponding profile sheet and woo its author.
During Single Booklovers' first year, membership consisted mostly of Pennsylvania Quakers like Bob and Ruth. But after the club started advertising in publications such as the New York Review of Books, Harvard magazine and the Mensa Bulletin, membership diversified and spread across the country. So far, more than 400 marriages have resulted.
Birmingham nursing student Aminta O'Connor and Atlanta computer consultant Ken Nichols were both 33, virgins at marriage and starved for locals with whom to share the New York Review of Books, art films and the avant-garde rock music of Brian Eno. Their profile sheets indicated overlapping interests, so Aminta dropped Ken a card in July, even though he sounded nerdy compared to the rock musicians she usually dated. "I went for the bad-boy/outlaw types, psychopaths in the bud," Aminta says cheerfully. "If I had met Ken under any other circumstances, I would not even have talked to him." But because Single Booklovers fostered blind intellectual chemistry, Aminta-wrote herself into the most harmonious relationship of her life. Says Ken, who married her less than a year after getting hooked on their aesthetic correspondence. "We'll finish each other's sentences, or anticipate each other's thoughts. Even my friends who seem happily married don't have as much in common as we have."
Garett Wink, a General Motors auto worker from St. Louis, was a shy man who'd never brought a woman home to Mom when he first joined Single Book lovers. Years of corresponding with women across the country helped bring him out of himself, so at 46 he was ready when 47-year-old Betty Ballard, center coordinator of Literacy Volunteers of New York City, first came into his mailbox. Both liked reading biographies, history and science, so they exchanged intellectual letters for about six months. They met that September.
I was in a fog for about a day," says Betty, who hadn't had a date in five years and had been expecting a solitary old age. Instead, Garett invited her to share Christmas, New Year's, his house and his bed if she felt so inclined-which she did. Garett popped the question on their third face-to-face encounter, and the two enunciated their marriage vows.
Dana Joyce, a 37-year-old Montessori teacher and single parent living in Oklahoma City, and Bob Campbell, 39, an AT&T Foundation consultant from Highland Park, N.J., started talking matrimony before they'd even met.. "I know it sounds weird," says Bob, a self-described counterculturist alienated from New York yuppies like his first wife, "but I knew Dana probably better than anyone else because of our letters." His March introduction-a 15-page discourse on himself and his philosophy of life, complete with favorite quotes from Plato and Rilke-squarely hit the spot for Dana, another '60s iconoclast and former philosophy major.
Soul-baring weekly letters turned to nightly long-distance phone calls. Two weeks after a week-long first date,Bob packed a rented truck and moved to Oklahoma City. He and Dana married in November, and in August Dana gave birth to their daughter. "Dana’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my life," Bob says gratefully. "But without Single Booklovers, there was no way we could have ever met."
Single Booklovers doesn't work nearly so well for everyone. The majority of members, divorced or widowed women over 40, rarely get off the vellum and between the sheets. The club can be a haven for loners preferring intimacy at a distance, And letters alone don't always divulge personality quirks or give any indication of how two people will relate in the flesh. A 40-year-old librarian from Silver Spring, Md., was affianced to a 39-year-old technical writer from Tustin, Calif., until he relocated to her town, started carping at her, she says, and then decided they had nothing in common.
Still, members like 48-year-old Tampa journalist Larry Thornberry-the kind of guy who likes the idea of reading Robert Frost to his inamorata, both in and out of bed-find the Single Booklovers a logical gamble.
"What I'm looking for is a woman to share my life with, and it would help if we had that common interest," he says "If you're a little bookish and off the beaten track, you're picking out of a smaller pool, and this helps."
Ms. Coleman is a freelance writer living in New York.
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