How I choose a Book
After emptying a good third of my bookshelf for donations, I went and bought a dozen more. I’ve had a strange urge to purchase more books lately. I usually go for some more vinyl records, but for these last two months it was reading material that caught my eye. Second-hand books are what I’m after, the cheaper stuff, and often the more interesting. I never know what I’m going to find at half priced books or frugal muse, even more so in non-chain stores.
Visiting a bookstore is a hit-or-miss outing, at least for me. Sometimes I’ll walk through one for thirty minutes, see nothing of interest and leave. Other times I’m hooked to the shelves for hours and leave with several books. That’s the conundrum of browsing shelves of material I’m not familiar with, it’s easy to miss gems by a slip of a gaze. It’s also easy to not grasp your intentions when looking for more titles to read. I rarely go into a store these days with a set genre, topic, or title that I want. I don’t expect to find it either and usually don’t. My intentions lie on finding something that feels interesting and relevant to my current curiosities. Finding it online is also difficult (there are more of them than you think).
Curiosity is an entity that’s hard to understand. Sometimes I see a book nestled somewhere and just know I have to read it. It’s not a calculated reaction, or even a logical one. More like a divine choosing akin to college girls finding the right crystal at the mall. Something about the title, cover, description, or place catches me off guard. I do however have a set of characteristics I desire before digging something out of the ether. The main things I look out for go over several niche areas of science, sociology, philosophy, and fiction.
Fringe Science
Science considered fringe is a definition I try to use with care. Like most things, there’s a spectrum to the level of fringeness a scientific theory has. Some fringe theories have a backbone of evidence to support them and can be debated in a rational sense while others are so out there that they’re borderline pseudoscience. As an open-minded (and sometimes clueless) individual, I accept them all with outstretched arms.
Purchasing books in this category I’m most nervous about. While I don’t plan on joining Scientology soon, it’s not a good feeling when one realizes their close friend owns several books promoting the pole shift, dianetics, and heaven’s gate. I haven’t gone to the deepest ends of this rabbit hole yet and have stuck to reading about the stoned ape theory and anything by Graham Hancock like the normie I am.
Despite some of the hilarious material I find in fringe science, there’s always a needle in the haystack that’s enlightening and reminds me of how little humans know about our history and universe. Even some theories of yesteryear that were fringe are now mainstream. It puts a perspective on some of the current “crazy” ideas that may reach acceptance in future decades.
Lesser Known Cultures/Subcultures
Anthropology isn’t my strongest suit, but there’s something about the title Headhunters of the Solomon Islands that makes me pick it up. This is a process that lead to the browsing and purchasing of several books with equally interesting titles and descriptions. I’ve read my fair share of biographies. Something I’ve learned from experience is that if a nonfiction book sounds interesting, it likely is.
I find even fictionalized versions of real events can be more entertaining than a story made from scratch. There’s just something about basing a book on a genuine experience the author had that makes it more believable. It adds an extra intimacy that allows me to see the most accurate depiction of a life leagues different from my own without living it.
As a plus it’s one of the few chances I learn some history, something I’d have little motivation to do otherwise. I don’t discriminate with time period, from the 1940s, to the beat generation, to the ancient Greeks, it’s all up for grabs. Anything about a culture that seems interesting and I’ve never heard of, I’m taking it.
Offbeat fiction/poetry
This is a category that’s the hardest to define. I wouldn’t put bizarro in this category, but early iterations of it. Authors such as Hunter S Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and Ken Kesey come to mind. Other than the big names, titles such as Remainder, Flatland, and The Flounder push the boundaries of weirdness further, making perfect reading for a junkie of anything surreal.
A good example of one of my “that’s it’ moments was at a small store in Gainesville. Buried behind a few piles was a work titled Blackbird Dust. The book was Appalachian poetry and the guy manning the register was elated about my choice when I brought it to the counter. I could tell he wanted to have a full on conversation about the literary movement the work was part of before I left.
That’s the thing with offbeat fiction, it always attracts a tight community of admirers that are hungry for conversation. It kind of reminds me of those people wearing shirts from obscure metal bands that only an aficionado like myself would recognize. Maybe reading offbeat fiction isn’t a bad way to find friends. Perhaps it’s an easy way to lose them too.
Transgressive fiction (Of Course)
Anyone browsing a used book store knows it’s easy to find a few Chuck Palahniuk novels. I’m more picky when buying physical copies of transgressive novels as they aren’t inaccessible most of the time. If I find a novel I haven’t read yet for cheap, however, I may take it. I may also get something I’ve read before but appreciate enough to read it multiple times.
Cool Art Books
When I mean art books, I mean books showcasing the works of a specific and/or multiple artist(s). They are often larger to show detailed reproductions of the work and are the easiest to choose as the desire to purchase comes from their visual appeal. Even in a reading dry spell, pages of artwork to ponder over is an enjoyable activity to keep me away from the computer.
The most recent art book I looked at (unfortunately didn’t buy) was mural art. It showed historical events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As one can imagine, it showed lots of violence and political upheaval in a chaotic web across the canvas. To make things more confusing the entire book was in German so I had no context to the meaning behind the images. I also couldn’t find much record of the book on the internet. To this day the artist of the murals is a mystery, but despite the drawbacks I’m still intrigued enough by the art to take time and find more details through internet sleuthing.
Finding a cool art book that’s too big, expensive, or rare to own is a tale told in my life too many times. It’s hard to access artwork beyond a small image on a computer screen. It’s even harder to find room for the space that these massive volumes take over. My art library is quite limited for these reasons. To rephrase what I said earlier, art books are easy to choose, but difficult to purchase.
Conclusion
Book searching is a great way to find new frontiers in reading. It’s a new pastime of mine that’s more fun than I ever imagined. I’ve read seventeen books so far and plan on finishing the year with twenty-six. Despite my doubts, it’s been a fun endeavor, one with lofty goals that I’m keeping up with. Thanks to a fresh curiosity for books, I have plenty of material I want to read. Plenty I’ve already read too.
