How To Find A Good Book

Really, It’s The Only Way

First, you have to pick a bookstore.

No, not that little one wedged between the adult video store and the tiny barbershop in the well-worn section of downtown. Keep walking, a few more blocks. Skip Main Street entirely.

Take a few turns down streets you don’t know. Use the fallen leaves to guide you. There, just follow those yellow ones.

You come upon that used bookstore on the corner of no-name street, with a small door. You like how the yellow door seems to be intentionally too small, jealously guarding the treasures inside.

The house itself looks small and mouldy, unlike those pretentious large stores that sell only new books, all clean edges, shiny hardcovers, and pristine laminate floors. You shudder at the thought.

You walk in and smile with delight as the door creaks.

Piles of books, musty odours, you feel the delicious tingle of a warm Saturday afternoon spent in this place. Somewhere in a corner under these mounds of used books, there will be a little man with a beard.

You are startled as you realize he’s actually a tallish man, too tall for this place, and he’s just called out a greeting to you.

Not willing to be fazed out of your planned afternoon, you muster enough politeness for a mumbled word or two, and press on, now out of sight of the too-tall book-man.

You look for It at eye-level plus one shelf above, and all the shelves below. You don’t think of looking at the three missed shelves above.

You think that tall people will not read the same books as you do, so anything they could have hidden away can be missed without much risk.

Yes, you are looking for books that are hidden away.

You’ve done it yourself enough times to know how treasures are found. All those times you’ve been tempted to buy a certain book, but it didn’t feel like the right time?

Every one of those times you hid it away. Behind other stacks of books, or perhaps even brazenly in front — but with the spine facing backwards so that regular people wouldn’t care to pull it out, they just wouldn’t be intrigued enough.

Today you look for the books that are turned backwards.

There are a few steps to finding a good book.

You pull it out, read the title. You discard the ones that don’t grab you right away. Something like “half asleep in frog pyjamas”, now that you can work with.

Next, you open the book and smell it. Good books smell good. There are no two ways about it.

If the smell is agreeable, you open the book and determine it’s dialogue to description ratio. For you, a high dialogue content works well and draws you in right away.

As is good, strong type. Sometimes you will buy books just because of the texture of the pages. But usually you are more diligent and will follow the steps above.

Sometimes there will be something written in a used book. Someone’s thoughts as they read these very words, tucked away into a margin.

Or there might be an inscription on the title page, a little bit of calligraphy, and strangers’ names under from and to; strangers’ names, but somehow you can weave an imaginary story based on these alone, and perhaps that coffee spill on the twenty-third page.

You imagine the hands that held this book before you, longish fingers, squarish nails. You can see them pensively tapping an index finger as they pondered the words they wrote into the margin.

And that’s how you find a good book. The journey of reading a good book is one that starts with excitement and gradually veers into apprehension.

Apprehension that it will get over too soon. Because by now you have grown attached.

Or that you’ll like it too much. So much that you’ll have to keep yourself away from other books by the same author.

Or, apprehension that you might be tempted to buy all his other books in one go… and then be disappointed.

Apprehension that the ending will be too abrupt, or too easy. There are so many ways this could go wrong!

But even if it does, there will always be another Saturday afternoon. Another city, another summer. Too hot for serious activity. One-third adventure and two-thirds anticipation.

Finding the right bookstore, and then the roller coaster ride of finding the right book and reading it all the way to the end.

You will slow it down, though. Like the safety of a warm blanket, the fuzzy feelings envelop you.

The best way to fall asleep is with a book next to you. Because then you’ll be sure to wake up to a great book.

And that’s one of the best feelings in the whole wide world.