I'm beginning to wonder if my perfect job isn't the job for me. Don’t get me wrong I love every minute of it, but it hardly pays the bills. It’s my own fault. I spend more time reading than cataloguing but how can I resist when so many beautiful books pass through my hands. I somehow have to limit the number I read, after all I am supposed to be listing them for sale, not keeping them for my own pleasure.
In How to Read a Novel (Profile Books, 2006), John
Sutherland, suggests one trick for intelligent book browsing: turn to page 69 and read
it. If you like what you read there, read the whole book. Sutherland in fact
credits Marshall McLuhan, guru-author of Guttenberg Galaxy: The Making of
Typographical Man (University of Toronto Press, 1962) as the originator of this
test.
With that in mind, I've picked eight random paragraphs from
page 69 of eight books recently catalogued. I've no idea what to expect, but
here goes;
Compton Mackenzie The stairs that kept going down (now sold, thank you for your interest); Have you
ever had a nightmare when you were being chased through a dark passage by
something or somebody, and when your knees kept getting more and more
jellified? If you have you will know what William and Winifred were feeling
like when they made their way back along the dark bricked passage, trying to
run on tip toes and trying not even to breathe too loudly. And this was not a nightmare
from which they would wake up, frightened of course, but still in the safety of
their own beds. This was real, horribly, hopelessly, hauntingly real.
Capt. W. E. Johns Biggles in the cruise of the Condor is now sold, thank you for your interest; They strolled a few yards farther on, and suddenly
Biggles paused in his stride and nudged Smyth in the ribs. Just beyond the jail
was an open yard filled with wooden cases and several piles of dried palm
fronds, which were evidently used as packing for the stacks of adobe bricks
that stood at the far end of the yard. Biggles eyed it reflectively, and then,
followed by Smythe, crossed over to it. A flimsy fence with a gate, which they
quickly ascertained was locked, separated the yard from the road. He turned as
a car pulled up a short distance away and a man alighted, lit a cigarette, and
then disappeared into a private house. Biggles strolled idly towards the car,
his eyes running over it swiftly. It was a Ford, and he noted the spare tin of
petrol fastened to the running-board.
Enid Blyton The Valley of Adventure, now sold thank you for your interest
They stared up into the trees, amazed to see green leaves
waving above them. Then they turned their heads and saw one another. In a flash
they remembered everything. “Couldn’t think where I was,” said Jack, and sat
up. “Oh, Kiki, it’s you on my middle, is it? Do get off. Here, have some
sunflower seeds and keep quiet, or you’ll wake the girls.” He put his hand in
his pocket and took out some of the flat seeds that Kiki loved. She flew up to
the bough above, cracking two in her beak. The boys began to talk quietly, so
as not to disturb the girls, who were still sleeping peacefully.
Patricia Leitch Highland Pony Trek; “To be quite frank with you,” the Colonel said, “I’d rather see my
land barred to everyone. It’s high time this maniac was caught and brought to
justice. Been going on for a year now. A sheep here and a sheep there. All the
time suspicion growing, innocent men being accused and ill feeling all round.” Now sold, thank you for your interest.
Three Jays on Holiday; From Avignon to the
University town of Aix en Provence, the children gamely fought a losing battle
against going to sleep. Darcy covered the last lap of the journey in record
time, as he wanted to see a flying friend of his who lived in Aix and perhaps
get him to have dinner with them. Jane, was encouraging his use of a few French
words, in fact the four of them had a competition as to who could make the most
French sounding sentence. Three Jays on Holiday is now sold, thank you for your interest.
Angela Brazil Three terms at Uplands (now sold, thank you for your interest); Time wore away, and at
last came the eventful day when the two male members of the family started for
the north. Claire, having waved a farewell to their taxi from the gate,
returned to the house feeling decidedly flat. There seemed nothing particular
to do. Her own packing was finished. She wandered about during the morning, and
after dinner she decided to go and say good-bye to Honor Marshall, a girl who
lived in a road near. She found her friend seated in a summer-house in the
garden, and began to expatiate upon her own prospects at Uplands.
Susan Price Ghost dance; The wind had dropped and it was a
silent land she skimmed over, but with her shaman’s training she heard every sound
there was: the hiss of her skies on the snow, the whining of the wind in the
trees and the sharp knock of one branch against another, the sudden scream of a
fox. She moved always towards the south, which she knew from the stars. Once,
when the stars were covered, she asked the way of a blue fox, calling out, “Elder
sister – which way to the city, the Czar’s city in the South?”
Frances Cowen The secret of Grange Farm is now sold, thank you for your interest; Now for the quarry.
She stood in the road taking her bearings. It lay, she remembered, due east
from the farm but only about ten minutes’ walk through the fields. In fact the
quarry was on their land, and, in the old forgotten days, when Napoleon had
threatened our shores, the owners of the farm had made quite an income out of
it. Nicky had taken her there and helped her down to the old workings, chipped
off part of the chalk, and shown her the fossils embedded in it. She decided to by-pass the farm, and to cross
the fields, and so down to the cup-like valley which formed the quarry.
Presently she found it so dark that she had to use her torch to find the little
track she only just remembered, but, even as she did so, a faint flow showed in
the sky as the moon rose slowly beyond scudding clouds.
So there you have it, some of the language is a little old fashioned,
but I still want to read them all! How about you, if you’re not convinced, why
not try a similar experiment, I would love to hear how you get on…
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Just before I go – do you remember the
Lottie Holiday Adventure StoryWriting Competition as featured on my blog in August? Four-year-old Evie from Perth, Western Australia wrote a quirky and adventurous tale about the discovery of a T-Rex dinosaur bone. The story was selected ahead of other entrants from countries including the USA, UK, Australia and UAE, and wins Evie a selection of ten books from the Lottie Pinterest folder ‘
Great Books for Girls’ (that boys can read too!), in addition to exclusive new Lottie products before they hit the shelves. Well done Evie!
One last thing, while I was looking around the Internet for
clues about how others decide on their next read I came across this little
pearl of wisdom written by
Nancy Pearl (sorry I couldn’t resist the pun!) – “One
of my strongest beliefs is that no one should ever finish a book they’re not enjoying.
Reading should be a joy. So, you can all apply my Rule of Fifty to your reading
list. Give a book fifty pages if you’re under fifty years old. If you don’t like
it, give it away, return it, whatever and then read something else. If you’re over
fifty, subtract your age from 100 and that’s how many pages you should read …"
You know what that means, right? When you turn one hundred, you
can judge a book by its cover.