I admit it. I am a certifiable book snob. Really, I can be a judgy little thing, especially when it comes to other people’s taste in books.

Not that I expect everyone to sit around reading serious works at all times. My life does not revolve around Shakespeare, Melville, and Dickens (although sometimes I think it should).

I’m the type who wants to know what everyone else is reading. I’ve had great airport conversations with strangers, sparked by the books in our hands (e.g., “Wow, you’re reading Lamb? I love Christopher Moore!”).

But I must ‘fess up and say straight out that I tend to turn up my nose when I see people reading those certain bestsellers that “everyone” loves — and I simply despise — such as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or The Da Vinci Code. As a booklover friend of mine and I smugly agreed, when people rave about those books, those books are probably the only books they’ve read in the past year or so.

I admit to feeling just a wee bit of condescension toward friends after our first visit to their home, when I saw that the majority of books on their bookshelves were written by John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and Clive Cussler.

On the flip side, when I first visited someone I knew mainly as a professional connection and saw the wall-to-wall bookshelves in her family room, filled with everything from Harry Potter to Neil Gaiman to Mary Roach, I knew we’d manage to hit it off.

So does that make me a snob? Probably. I know, in this age of non-stop technological distractions, that I should applaud people for reading at all, even if it is mass market drivel.

I think my main problem is that I tend to reach out to people and try to find common ground with them over the subject of reading. I love meeting people with unusual book tastes, so long as they’re readers. When we click over a book, I know we’ll manage to find something to talk about. But when all they can find to read is Grisham and the like, I just have nothing to say.

So, I’ll keep plugging away, making it my own personal mission, in my miniscule sphere of influence, to tell people about the great books I’ve read. Maybe we’ll connect, maybe the other person will think whatever I’m reading is absolute dreck. But maybe, just maybe, one or both of us will come away from the encounter with a new title or author to explore, and that can only be a good thing.

Just don’t tell me to give Stieg Larsson another try. I don’t think our friendship can take it.