The Thin Red Line

A question that I have addressed before is "How Do You Pick All of These Books?". Simple really. I go about my job at the library, where I am literally, constantly handling books. Any and all books that catch my eye get set aside, checked out, brought home and piled up on my couch. Over time the best of them get read and blogged about here on The Thin Red Line. And every so often I realize that there are more books here than I will ever get around to writing about and I take a big stack of them back to the library.

Sometimes, after I get it home and examine it more closely I find that the book is not what I thought it would be from just glancing at the cover. Other times I simply come to a realization that I am just not going to get around to some of them. So I pile them up and drag them back to the library where undoubtedly other patrons will find these books more to their liking and will read them.

I really like cookbooks that provide me with ideas for dishes that are different from any that I have made and that offer simple preparations that are not overly complex. The cookbooks I reject generally end up being those that give overly labor intensive directions for dishes that will look better than they taste.

I love reading biographies but all too often these books are either puff pieces that read as though they author was on the payroll of the subject’s publicity firm (and who knows maybe he was?) or else they read like somebody had an axe to grind and I find myself thinking that either way the book would not be a good choice for someone who is a fan and wants to know more, but doesn’t want to spend the time or money on a book that is just a puff piece of a hatchet job.

Sometimes my reason for not featuring a book is even simpler. If the book cover image is not available, for instance, that is usually enough to eliminate it from my consideration.

As always on this blog, I have linked each book cover image to the book’s page on Worldcat, the international meta search engine for public libraries. If any of the titles catch your eye, just click on the cover image and Worldcat will guide you to the nearest library. So that you can add the book to the stack on your own couch. Since the mere fact that I have considered a book and then decided not to write about it hardly constitutes a glowing endorsement, I have spared myself the chore of typing in the the book titles and linking them to Powell’s. If the mere fact that I just couldn’t get around to it makes you want to buy one of these, please do use the Powell’s search box at the upper right of the page to place your order.

And please do give a holler and let me know if you should decide to add any of these to your own stack. I am working on a much more serious and in depth review of a Very important book for tomorrow, and hope very much to see you again then, here on The Thin Red Line.

Share This

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Books, Reject Pile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.