Books are love! So lets think about them!

[darkelf105]

So kids, lets ask some questions, mostly pertaining to how and why one picks up one book but not another, all things considered. 

You are at a library or bookstore or hell, browsing reviews on the internet, how do you decided which books will go home with you, which you will seek out in the future and which you will buy? What is the process by which you sort out what will ultimately become part of you and what won't? There are so many books and so little time, and everyone has a system...I think. What's your's? I'm very, very curious.


What do you look for?

Are covers important?

What themes, tropes, motifs and other literary elements must be present to even pique your interest?

How about feel and design? I've brought home books just because I've liked the way they've felt in my hand, how the paper felt in relation to the cover of it, the heft of it in my palm. Is that important to anyone?


I think that this process of winnowing is so personal and so idiosyncratic and I'm not sure even I've given any real thought as to why one book makes it home with me and gets read while another stays at the bookstore or library. 

C'mon, enlighten me internet peeps!

Comments

[i-renovated.livejournal.com]

Good questions! I guess it depends on what I'm looking for that day--whether my reason for choosing the book is business or pleasure.

Research: I LOVE the speed of internet searches, but my favorite way to spend time in the library is to settle in near a pertinent call number and worm my way through tables of contents, indices and titles. OMG! I am such a geek that this gets me a little endorphin kick just thinking about it. They were going to tear down my library at my last school and institute one of those systems that you present the call number and they go retrieve the specific book you needed. I mourned the old system; it was like a little death, the thought that I could no longer scavenge through some really cool things I would never have found otherwise. Now, true enough, some of these things would never end up in papers, and my forays were little more than diversion. However, I think the diversion, the exploration into tangential topics, the undiscovered tidbit of knowledge or insight that feeds me.

Then for my pleasure reading. Author tends to be important for me. I get to know someone's writing and I tend to come back again and again. I look for epic tales especially tales told in multiple books--and the more the better for me. I love character driven fantasy, in complex worlds that take multiple novels to truly understand the gist of the world. Often, when I pick up one-off novels, I find myself disappointed in the depth of character treatment, the simplicity of the plot, the lack of deep, meaningful symbols. I've even felt this with some of the most acclaimed authors. I can forgive shallowness if it's funny, though.

I love books to read out loud to my kids, although the day is probably coming when they won't want me to do so. So good dialog, a rich tapestry of characters, and an excellent "rhythm" to the text are essential. Having cruised through Rowling and Snicket and Eager and Alexander we are now on...of all things...Pratchett. And when the kids don't get the jokes, my husband and I laugh behind our hands. It's wicked fun.

Like you, I have picked up books for how they feel in my hand. There is something sort magical about hardcovers, something that makes me want to hold my breath in anticipation. The same book could be in paperback and I wouldn't get that same little "ache" to read it. I think there's something very sensual (and I don't mean that in an icky, sexual sort of way) about the physical manifestation of knowledge and ideas that you can hold in your hand.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

I am aghast and appalled at the concept of a library in which a patron does not have direct access to the books. I don't even know what I would do if I had no access to the stacks at the library in which I work.

Scavenging is the best way to find books. When you look threw the stacks of a library, the most unusual and wonderful things end up in your hands. I have no idea what I would do if I didn't work at the library. It'd feel a little like dying, like some vital was lost. There's a weird and miraculous way in which the books and patrons interact and it's so hard to describe the meshing of people, information and place that goes on at the local library. It's a nexus for some awesome things to get channeled into society as a whole. As you can tell, I love my job.

I ♥ Terry Pratchett. I have just started reading him myself and I think it's love.

[mimibean.livejournal.com]

For work, the system is totally different. Mostly it has to do with whether or not, I've had a request for the book or if it's part of a popular series. Since I only order paperbacks, the rules are less stringent for me.

But for personal reading, I generally also pick books that I have heard about. I stick mostly to YA or J. I tend toward fantasy, but if I've heard really good things about it, I'll pick up another genre.

Covers are important to me. I know that's terrible, but I do tend to judge a book by its cover. And I've had good experiences and bad experiences with that. Good experience was that I saw a book with an adorable pink and green cover on display in the graphic novel section of the library. It turned out to be the incredibly good Moomin v. 2. I now love the Moomins because of that book. But then, I didn't read A Great and Terrible Beauty (now one of my fave books) for the longest time because of the cover.

Also descriptions on the inside front cover are important. If I lose interest in those, then, I probably won't read the book.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

I think you have an excellent point. The systems I use to pick out books are different according to purpose. I definitely have different criteria for non-fiction and fiction, YA and adult and even for different genres.

I also agree that covers are important. I, too, have also fallen for a way slick cover and ended up reading something I wish I hadn't. However, on the flip side it took me for freaking ever to finally pick up Sarah Monette's Melusine because I kept thinking it was a romance and I definitely don't often flirt with that genre. Silly me. Judging a book by it's cover.

[hittokiri-korru.livejournal.com]

I am a man so I don't usual go into a book store to browse, I go in to get what in particular I am looking for. But say I am in a library and I am to pick out two books I haven't previously read. My first thing would be to judge the cover (more the title than the actual cover.), if that catches my eye I'll read the back. If the story sounds like something I want to read, I'll read it. I'm picky, I'm not going to read something I don't think will be good or if it doesn't appeal to my interest. I can't judge literary element until I'm already reading it. I haven't made a book choice on it, but I do like the feel of certain paper. I am bias towords hardcover, but I'm not really the kind to pay for the difference.