As an aside from my usual discussions of candy and crafting, I thought I would take a moment to give you some tips on picking books for gifts this holiday season. Reading is one of my ultimate pleasures. I will read nearly anything if I'm desperate enough but I do have a few guidelines I follow when I'm buying a book:
1. Judge a book by it's cover.
Go ahead, ignore the old cliché. If a book looks really cheesey, it probably is. I did a Google search for "ugly book cover" to add a nice image to this blog post and was dismayed to find yet ANOTHER website that I should have thought of first: http://judgeabook.blogspot.com/. I think it illustrates my point well.
2. Review the reviewers.
A good book will have specific praise from literary notables. If the book in question has been reviewed by a periodical held in high regard for it's quality of writing (Sorry "People," I'm talking about The New Yorker, The New York Times, etc), it's probably worth reading. If the book has been reviewed by some random authors that you may or may not have heard of, beware. I believe the legal term for this type of review is "quid pro quo."
3. Check the adjectives.
I love to read autobiographies and I love memoirs even more (yep, there's a difference). This is more personal taste than anything else but I almost always gag a little when an author of a memoir is described as "brave." Ick.
4. Go with a crush.
If you have a book-crush on an author, go with it. I will buy every David Sedaris book ever published. I'm only slightly annoyed if they contain the same stories I've read in other collections before. It's DAVID, you know.
That's it. Just some guidelines. I still bought Kathy Griffin's new memoir (it's pretty funny) and I can't help it, I kind of want the book about cats in wigs I saw at the bookstore today. It's just so WRONG and yet so good, all at the same time...
And if you're wondering how I like my Kindle 4 months later? Mommy wuvs her widdle Kindle, oh yes she does... who's the cutest widdle ewectronic?