How do you choose which books to read? I know what the answer should be. Cast a glance around at loaded shelves, pick out those that bear the TBR label and read. But it doesn’t work like that, does it? We need to be tempted and lured into reading a book.
Sometimes the cover does the trick or in my case it works the other way around. I can’t really choose to read a book if I don’t like the cover. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t usually read the same books that my other half dips into. His reading matter would fit into the bookcase called “Airport Books”. You know the ones I mean, don’t you? They have a tendency to be foiled, embossed and probably sporting a silhouette if one can be squeezed onto the cover.
A title can be tantalising. A word, a quotation, or words that sound like a quotation, can be as successful as dangling a fishhook in a stream. OK, I know nothing about fishing so I’d better stop that analogy before I even pack my ..um.. what do you call that fishing basket thingy? So, this lapsed reader was doing her usual wandering around the web instead of ironing, polishing bathroom mirrors, re-upholstering the doormat or even reading a book, and came across references to a book called, “Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul” by Shamini Flint. Immediately I recalled a book that I read many years ago after stumbling across it when I wasn’t looking for anything to read.
So what do I do now? Do I go on a book hunt and look for the H R F Keating book that pleased me so many years ago or do I succomb to buying just one more book?
C r a f t y P e o p l e ---- confessions of a lapsed reader 
Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 8:27
I have never read either so cannot advise you. But I have always wondered if I would like HRF Keating or whether these books patronise the Indian people of whom I am so very fond. What do you think?