{"id":654047,"date":"2026-06-23T13:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654047\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T13:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:33:09","slug":"reader-i-married-him-couples-tell-us-how-books-brought-them-together-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654047\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader, I married him: couples tell us how books brought them together | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have been honeymooning in Italy, after throwing a star-studded wedding in Palermo<\/a> earlier this month. But their relationship began with a book: running into each other at an LA restaurant, the pair realised that they were not only reading the same novel \u2013 Trust by Hern\u00e1n D\u00edaz \u2013 but had both just finished the first chapter. \u201cSo, we\u2019re on the same page,\u201d Turner said to Lipa. Here, four other couples share the literary sparks of their love stories.<\/p>\n

Andy, 52, and Lisa, 51, from Otley, Leeds: \u2018An attractive male who likes books \u2013 what was there not to like?\u2019<\/p>\n

In the University of Sheffield English literature class of 1995 there were around 60 women and seven men, including Andy Poplar. He and Lisa Oakley didn\u2019t get together until a night out at the student union in the second year. \u201cAn intellectual, attractive male who likes books \u2013 what was there not to like?\u201d says Lisa. \u201cGiven the ratio I feel I did very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I did very well\u2019 \u2026 Andy Poplar and Lisa Oakley. Photograph: Courtesy of Andy Poplar and Lisa Oakley<\/p>\n

Shared lectures included Modern British literature on a Friday morning. Andy remembers staying over at Lisa\u2019s, then arriving together, which was the source of some raised eyebrows at first. Lisa laughs recalling how, in the early days of their relationship, she felt an increased pressure to say something profound in seminars when Andy was in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite early on we started collecting books together,\u201d says Andy. \u201cThere were those little Bloomsbury classics that they used to do, and we would buy them for each other for Valentine\u2019s Day or a birthday and write an inscription in them, with the idea that one day we\u2019ll have a house and have them on a shelf together.\u201d This library now lives in their hallway.<\/p>\n

They got engaged at Tiffany\u2019s as a nod to Truman Capote, have a cat called Orwell and their 17-year-old son is planning on reading English at university too. \u201cWe\u2019re surrounded by books,\u201d says Lisa. \u201cEven now, after being together for ever, we talk about the literature that we are enjoying over a glass of wine.\u201d They don\u2019t particularly like reading the same kind of things these days, but both loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that they put their English degrees to good use: Lisa is now head of English at a school, and Andy\u2019s work involves etching words and phrases on glass<\/a>. For Lisa\u2019s 50th he got her a 1920s mirror, and added the F Scott Fitzgerald quote: \u201cThat is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you\u2019re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millie, 24, from Norwich and Lois, 27, from Oxfordshire: \u2018I remember her leaning over the table and saying, \u201cI love that one\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is called the Silent Book Club,\u201d says Millie Smith-Clare, \u201cbut we meet up at a cafe, and it has become a running joke for the baristas there that we\u2019re not very silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millie, who works in PR, met Lois Glithero, a textile conservator, in February 2025 at the Norwich branch of Silent Book Club, a global initiative which encourages attendees to bring along a book to read in the company of others. \u201cOccasionally you get about two minutes of reading in, if you are lucky, then conversation will happen,\u201d says Millie.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are the smug ones\u2019 \u2026 Millie Smith-Clare and Lois Glithero. Photograph: Courtesy of Millie Smith-Clare and Lois Glithero<\/p>\n

The club can have anywhere from six to 30 people in attendance, depending on the time of year, and is a diverse and queer-friendly space, says Millie. \u201cI had brought a book that\u2019s very queer, called Mary, or the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout. I remember Lois leaning over the table and saying, \u2018Oh, I love that one\u2019. Instantly I was like, \u2018Oh, she\u2019s very attractive\u2019.\u201d A few weeks later, a few book club members went to a poetry reading night, an evening that marked the beginning of their relationship.<\/p>\n

Books have been central to their romance. \u201cWe read lots of books at the same time,\u201d says Lois, such as Frankenstein and The Great Gatsby. \u201cWe are currently reading all the Moomin stories in order of seasons. Because we have a long distance relationship, we record them as audiobooks for each other,\u201d says Millie. Last year, they gave each other books on Christmas Eve, inspired by the Icelandic tradition of jolabokaflod<\/a> \u2013 gifting books to read together.<\/p>\n

They still go back to the book club when in Norwich at weekends, and although there might be a few more potential pairings on the horizon, they are the only official couple, so far. \u201cWe are the smug ones,\u201d says Millie.<\/p>\n

Andy, 56, and Sapna, 55, west London: \u2018He messaged with the subject line: \u201cPlease Say Yes\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

In late December 2009, Andy Pieroux, who runs an IT consultancy company, was browsing match.com when he came across someone he liked the look and sound of. Scrolling to the end of her profile, he spotted that her favourite book was Yes Man by Danny Wallace, about the author\u2019s experiment saying \u201cyes\u201d to every opportunity. \u201cI thought, \u2018this is an easy win\u2019,\u201d says Andy.<\/p>\n

Brand consultant Sapna Pieroux \u2013 spoiler, they got married \u2013 loved Yes Man so much that after a breakup she had embraced the idea herself, saying yes to all kinds of opportunities for a year. \u201cI went to five festivals that summer, travelled, learned to pole dance and how to ski \u2013 badly.\u201d She had some amazing adventures, so when the year was up, she decided to continue.<\/p>\n

After trying various free dating sites, \u201cand saying yes to some less than ideal dates,\u201d Sapna laughs, she turned to match.com and happened to mention the book in her profile. Andy had also read it: \u201cI\u2019m a voracious reader and it was a very popular book of its time,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d loved the philosophy of it as well, although I hadn\u2019t quite gone to the same extremes as Sapna had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy messaged with the subject line \u201cPlease Say Yes\u201d, which impressed Sapna because she knew that he had actually bothered to read her profile. She had also mentioned that she was dreading seeing the film adaptation of the book starring Jim Carrey because \u201che overacts and it is a very British story told by a British comedian \u2013 it should have been Simon Pegg.\u201d Andy said that he too was dreading watching the movie \u2013 should they go and see it together?<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I suppose I have to say yes, but can we go on a first date where I can actually get to know you, rather than sitting in a darkened room not speaking to each other for two hours?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy suggested ice sculpting at the Natural History Museum instead. But before that was due to happen, they realised that Wallace was doing a talk about his latest book, Friends Like These, so they met for the first time there, before going on for a Chinese meal and a kiss.<\/p>\n

They rearranged the ice sculpting and made a penguin, then got round to the film for their third date \u2013 \u201cWe were right about it \u2013 I didn\u2019t like it,\u201d says Sapna \u2013 after which they went for drinks, and Andy asked Sapna if she would be his girlfriend. The answer was obviously yes.<\/p>\n

Sam, 29, and Cl\u00edodhna, 35, from Edinburgh: \u2018I went up to him and said, \u2018Can I sit next to you?\u2019 and he looked at me in absolute horror\u2019<\/p>\n

It was a Thursday evening in January when Cl\u00edodhna Conboye, a board game shop manager, sat one seat away from Sam Fern, then an aspiring author, at an underattended book talk at Waterstones Covent Garden in London. \u201cThere were about 30 chairs, and when I got there, only about five other people. I thought I\u2019ll sit near someone so that we\u2019re a bit bunched up, and he looked the friendliest,\u201d says Cl\u00edodhna.<\/p>\n

Cl\u00edodhna took out her book while she was waiting for the talk to start, and Sam asked her what it was (the essay collection Can\u2019t We All Be Feminists? by June Eric-Udorie). Cl\u00edodhna then bumped her head while putting her coat beneath the seat, and gave Sam permission to laugh at her. In between listening to the authors they had \u201ca nice back and forth\u201d, says Sam, and talked about future book events they were planning to attend. At the end, Sam\u2019s brother arrived to meet him, and when he turned to say goodbye to Cl\u00edodhna, she was talking to someone else.<\/p>\n

Sam spent the next month trying to decide whether to show up at a talk Cl\u00edodhna said she would be at, or if that would be weird. He decided to go, arriving early and making himself quite visible, then waited to see if Cl\u00edodhna would say hello. Sam had big, curly hair at the time, so he was easy to spot.<\/p>\n

\u2018Can I sit next to you?\u2019 \u2026 Sam Fern and Cl\u00edodhna Conboye. Photograph: Courtesy of Sam Fern and Cl\u00edodhna Conboye<\/p>\n

\u201cI went up to him and said, \u2018Can I sit next to you?\u2019 and he looked at me in absolute horror,\u201d says Cl\u00edodhna.<\/p>\n

\u201cI jumped out of my skin because I thought I had seen her somewhere else in the crowd, and then she popped up to my left. It was like she had teleported there,\u201d says Sam.<\/p>\n

The pair couldn\u2019t stop talking the whole night. They discovered they shared a mutual love of The Edge Chronicles series by Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart, and arranged to meet at a launch the following week. \u201cWhen I was reading that series when I was about 10, I didn\u2019t know anyone else who was into them,\u201d says Cl\u00edodhna. \u201cSo it was cool that he liked these books that were a huge thing to me. It didn\u2019t hurt that the main character in the first book is this really cute boy with big, curly hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next month they went to three book events a week and soon became an item. They have since moved to Edinburgh, where they run a book club. Sam has had two children\u2019s books published<\/a>, both of which are dedicated to Cl\u00edodhna: \u201cI read his first book before we actually got together, when we were still friends,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was good, which was a relief.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have been honeymooning in Italy, after throwing a star-studded wedding in Palermo earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}