A novel proposal: ring hidden in Marriage Material helps to engage reader

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jan/27/ring-hidden-in-marriage-material-sathnam-sanghera-novel-engagement-proposal

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@Sathnam I got engaged to my gf @tasnimessack yest with ur book! Don't worry - I bought another copy for her to read! pic.twitter.com/cRaTX5B446

Hats off to Lloyd England, a new media specialist at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, west London, who took an unusually literary route when proposing to his girlfriend last weekend. England tweeted author Sathnam Sanghera to let him know that he’d doctored a copy of Sanghera’s debut novel Marriage Material to help him out when popping the question to Tasnim Essack, a web designer.

England’s copy of the well-reviewed debut - it’s “impressive”, found Alex Clark, and filled with incidents “in which moral confusions, personal insecurities and impossible situations jostle furiously with one another until they give way to bathetic humour” - now features the line “will you marry me?” with the pages cut away in the shape of a heart to reveal a ring.

“@Sathnam I got engaged to my gf @tasnimessack yest with ur book! Don’t worry - I bought another copy for her to read!” @lloydengland tweeted to the novelist.

“That is really cool! any reason apart from the title?! wish you the very best,” replied Sanghera, with England responding that yes, it was “mostly the title but it’s also slightly relevant, and was coincidentally on her reading list”.

Sanghera said: “I was so excited that he had used my book that I forgot to ask him if she had actually said yes. (She had.) Then I worried they would actually read the book and find out there were a couple of disastrous marriages in it (but there is also one very good one). But now I’m just delighted they used the book. Apparently it was something she wanted to read... very touching.”

Of course she said yes - this is just adorable (although not on the level of economist Peter Leeson, who managed to propose in the dedication of his book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates). Anyway, literary joy and blessings upon the forthcoming nuptials, which it is to be hoped take a thoroughly bookish theme, and steer clear of any moral confusion, personal insecurities and bathetic humour.