High Fidelity

I recently read Nick Hornby's new novel "A Long Way Down." It's sarcastic, generous and insightful, much like his famous debut High Fidelity. If you haven't read "High Fidelity," I would start with that first.
In "High Fidelity," Rob, a record shop owner, is breaking up with his girlfriend. The book is essentially his thoughts on pop music, girls, sex, love and growing older. It's one of those books that didn't seem all that remarkable to me when I first read it, but it has aged so well that about once a year I read it again. (See other books I have re-read here.)
A favorite passage:

A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners, a two- or three-page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time, although Barry, being Barry, went one stage further: he compiled the questionnaire and presented it to some poor woman he was interested in, and she hit him with it. But there was an important and essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it'’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn'’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Interestingly, I disagree with the gist of that passage, and in the book Rob learns not to be such a culture snob. I still think it's an amusing sentiment with a little bit of truth in it.