HOW DO WE CHOOSE THE BOOKS WE READ?

For me, sometimes choosing a book is oft the way I might choose a bottle of wine, too - by it's cover! Seriously, there is something to be said for wine label art, and since we're talking about books here, sometimes book cover art is even more intriguing. Some years back, I had an author recommended to me, Barbara Kingsolver (an American writer) and her first work Bean Trees. The cover art for this book just didn't do a thing for me, though at the time her most recent work, Prodigal Summer, with its striking green foliage cover did catch my eye. I'm glad I picked up that book and gave it a read, because I found that Barbara Kingsolver quickly became one of my favorite writers (I did read Bean Trees after all, and a couple more)!

With that said, I would guess a common way any of us discovers a new literary work or author of whose works we will read, is through recommendation. Well, for me this has worked with a couple of long time reading groups I enjoyed. Another author whose writing style I fell in love with is Maeve Binchy; an Irish born writer of plays and fiction and even some travel writing. I fell in love with her storytelling because it captured human nature seemingly to a T and her well-written characters and colorful descriptions of surroundings kept me well entertained. Binchy's Tara Road and her Scarlet Feather and Quentins all remain favorite works of fiction for me.

Now here's a funny note, while living in Zhengzhou, a favorite watering hole had a curious collection of books, paperback and hardback, on each table and on the window sills. It was an informal book exchange - take a book, leave a book - it was surprising and unexpected to say the least. And it was here that enjoying a cerveza, I discovered a historical fiction book, Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln written by Janis Cooke Newman (another American writer from my hometown of San Francisco, CA). Finding a book on the wife of an American president here at a bar, on a window sill, in China was just so crazily odd, I had to give it a read - and I enjoyed it!