How Do You Choose Which Book To Read (or Buy)?

On Friday I took my daughter to Sydney for the day to visit a friend’s art exhibition. We travelled by train, which meant that I had around 5 hours of travel time to fill.

Obviously, I needed to pack in a book. It had to be interesting enough to distract me from the long train trip but not too serious, as there would no doubt be interruptions for conversation with my daughter and other distractions on the trip. It needed to be long enough to cover me for the whole 5 hours, but not too big/heavy, as I would be carrying it around Sydney all day. An e-book would be the obvious solution, but my daughter’s travel entertainment of choice was, of course, my iGadget.

I eventually chose Divine Clementine by Hayley S. Kirk, an amazing YA novel dealing with issues of depression and mental illness.

After visiting the exhibition at the Charles Hewitt Gallery in Darlinghurst, we had morning tea at Berkelouw Books and I faced yet another book choice dilemma. This wonderful bookshop has a fantastic selection of new releases as well as a huge collection of second hand books. Book heaven.

Wandering through the bookstore my eyes were drawn to so many great books, but I was conscious that anything I bought would need to be carried around for the rest of the day. I ended up choosing a copy of As I was Saying: A Collection of Musings by Robert Dessaix that was part of a window display for the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

When I have the chance to browse in a bookshop, I tend to be drawn towards the more ‘arty’ photographic-style covers (when looking at fiction), rather than, say, a picture of a woman looking off into the distance (I was sent Divine Clementine to review and probably would have overlooked it on a bookstore shelf) or a brightly coloured or hand drawn design. I shy away from Twilight wannabe covers with black, white and red and I confess I’m not a big fan of covers where the author’s name takes up so much space I have to get out a magnifying glass to find the actual title of the book.

What draws your attention when you are in a bookstore? Are you attracted by a particular style of cover or is there something that makes you immediately disregard a book?