ABSTRACT
There is a common saying in French, Dis-moi ce que tu lis, je te dirai qui tu es, that literally translates as: “Tell me what you read; I’ll tell you who you are.” A quick search on the Internet shows that there are quite a number of people who are guided by this principle. According to some, a glance at what a fellow bus passenger is reading or a quick browse through somebody’s bookshelves may well determine whether or not one wants to initiate a conversation or establish a relationship with him or her. In this chapter I contest this saying, arguing that what often matters is how one reads whom rather than who reads what. In other words, how we interpret and valuate a text is influenced by whom we think we read.
