2 hours ago
4
Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have been honeymooning in Italy, after throwing a star-studded wedding in Palermo 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 – Trust by Hernán Díaz – but had both just finished the first chapter. “So, we’re on the same page,” Turner said to Lipa. Here, four other couples share the literary sparks of their love stories.
Andy, 52, and Lisa, 51, from Otley, Leeds: ‘An attractive male who likes books – what was there not to like?’
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’t get together until a night out at the student union in the second year. “An intellectual, attractive male who likes books – what was there not to like?” says Lisa. “Given the ratio I feel I did very well.”
Shared lectures included Modern British literature on a Friday morning. Andy remembers staying over at Lisa’s, 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.
“Quite early on we started collecting books together,” says Andy. “There were those little Bloomsbury classics that they used to do, and we would buy them for each other for Valentine’s Day or a birthday and write an inscription in them, with the idea that one day we’ll have a house and have them on a shelf together.” This library now lives in their hallway.
They got engaged at Tiffany’s 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. “We’re surrounded by books,” says Lisa. “Even now, after being together for ever, we talk about the literature that we are enjoying over a glass of wine.” They don’t particularly like reading the same kind of things these days, but both loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
There is no doubt that they put their English degrees to good use: Lisa is now head of English at a school, and Andy’s work involves etching words and phrases on glass. For Lisa’s 50th he got her a 1920s mirror, and added the F Scott Fitzgerald quote: “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
Millie, 24, from Norwich and Lois, 27, from Oxfordshire: ‘I remember her leaning over the table and saying, “I love that one”’
“It is called the Silent Book Club,” says Millie Smith-Clare, “but we meet up at a cafe, and it has become a running joke for the baristas there that we’re not very silent.”
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. “Occasionally you get about two minutes of reading in, if you are lucky, then conversation will happen,” says Millie.
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. “I had brought a book that’s very queer, called Mary, or the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout. I remember Lois leaning over the table and saying, ‘Oh, I love that one’. Instantly I was like, ‘Oh, she’s very attractive’.” A few weeks later, a few book club members went to a poetry reading night, an evening that marked the beginning of their relationship.
Books have been central to their romance. “We read lots of books at the same time,” says Lois, such as Frankenstein and The Great Gatsby. “We 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,” says Millie. Last year, they gave each other books on Christmas Eve, inspired by the Icelandic tradition of jolabokaflod – gifting books to read together.
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. “We are the smug ones,” says Millie.
Andy, 56, and Sapna, 55, west London: ‘He messaged with the subject line: “Please Say Yes”’
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’s experiment saying “yes” to every opportunity. “I thought, ‘this is an easy win’,” says Andy.
Brand consultant Sapna Pieroux – spoiler, they got married – 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. “I went to five festivals that summer, travelled, learned to pole dance and how to ski – badly.” She had some amazing adventures, so when the year was up, she decided to continue.
After trying various free dating sites, “and saying yes to some less than ideal dates,” Sapna laughs, she turned to match.com and happened to mention the book in her profile. Andy had also read it: “I’m a voracious reader and it was a very popular book of its time,” he says. “I’d loved the philosophy of it as well, although I hadn’t quite gone to the same extremes as Sapna had.”
Andy messaged with the subject line “Please Say Yes”, 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 “he overacts and it is a very British story told by a British comedian – it should have been Simon Pegg.” Andy said that he too was dreading watching the movie – should they go and see it together?
“I said, ‘I 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?’”
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.
They rearranged the ice sculpting and made a penguin, then got round to the film for their third date – “We were right about it – I didn’t like it,” says Sapna – after which they went for drinks, and Andy asked Sapna if she would be his girlfriend. The answer was obviously yes.
Sam, 29, and Clíodhna, 35, from Edinburgh: ‘I went up to him and said, ‘Can I sit next to you?’ and he looked at me in absolute horror’
It was a Thursday evening in January when Clíodhna 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. “There were about 30 chairs, and when I got there, only about five other people. I thought I’ll sit near someone so that we’re a bit bunched up, and he looked the friendliest,” says Clíodhna.
Clíodhna took out her book while she was waiting for the talk to start, and Sam asked her what it was (the essay collection Can’t We All Be Feminists? by June Eric-Udorie). Clíodhna 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 “a nice back and forth”, says Sam, and talked about future book events they were planning to attend. At the end, Sam’s brother arrived to meet him, and when he turned to say goodbye to Clíodhna, she was talking to someone else.
Sam spent the next month trying to decide whether to show up at a talk Clíodhna 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 Clíodhna would say hello. Sam had big, curly hair at the time, so he was easy to spot.
“I went up to him and said, ‘Can I sit next to you?’ and he looked at me in absolute horror,” says Clíodhna.
“I 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,” says Sam.
The pair couldn’t 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. “When I was reading that series when I was about 10, I didn’t know anyone else who was into them,” says Clíodhna. “So it was cool that he liked these books that were a huge thing to me. It didn’t hurt that the main character in the first book is this really cute boy with big, curly hair.”
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’s books published, both of which are dedicated to Clíodhna: “I read his first book before we actually got together, when we were still friends,” she says. “It was good, which was a relief.”
