The better I became at reading, the less I felt like talking about how much reading meant to me, which may be a natural side effect of coming to love something that previously you only wanted to love. I used to do quite a lot of that sort of book bragging, I’m sad to say, and I don’t suppose the victims of my tediousness will be much consoled to know that I believe those years of pretension were a necessary prelude to what followed. It was also around that time that I stopped thinking that whether a person read books was the most important thing about them, or the best indication of whether we would have anything in common or whether I would like them—all of which are things I believed back when reading was more of a tribal affiliation than a passion.I have found, consistently, that people who truly love to read will talk, not about about how much they love to read, but about the content of their reading and how that content is affecting them. If all drama is change, then reading is a great personal drama: ideas and story change the reader somehow, introducing new ideas, challenging old ones, altering mood (whether for better or for worse), broadening the mind -- or contracting it.
I have to confess that I've dropped quotes in a conversation to see if the other person has read the same books I have, but I think that's fair as long as it doesn't hit obnoxious levels of fannishness (though I feel that way about a lot of things).
I find that the I love reading crowd tends to read junk - little more than bubble gum for the brain. I still like to find people who read, but I find that the act of reading is not enough, what they read matters so much more.
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