On Selecting a Book

In a bookstore, it is his custom to hunt deliberately, and with discrimination. The books fall into three camps. There are the obvious no’s: books too pulp or uninteresting on the one hand, or too self-conscious and literary on the other. There are the perhapses; the authors, titles, and topics recognized and respected to greater or lesser degree, but failing at that moment to elicit the excitement that surrounds the acquisition of a book. Then there are the ought-tos: books which have lingered on his to-read list for months or years, and will remain there until some other inspiration.

Occasionally, after searching and sifting, his eyes light on treasure, on a book which is so right for the time and place that he shakes off all his sluggish casualness and pounces. He can never wait to curl up with such a book, so to simplify his affairs he will set down his stack of accumulated perhapses and ought-tos and march directly to the counter. Through the door and his fingers are already shuffling gently through the pages. He selects a spot — he does not necessarily make it all the way home — and settles into his own limbs, and he begins.

gauche
16 Apr 05